Talk:holy cricket

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Latest comment: 10 years ago by Cloudcuckoolander in topic Harry Potter quote writer
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RFV[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

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Originates in Harry Potter. Doesn't seem to meet WT:CFI, looking at Usenet. Equinox 15:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Sounds awfully like something Robin would say to Batman. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
The interjection is a Potterism. However, as a noun, it might meet CFI as an object of worship in Madagascar! SemperBlotto 15:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
I've dug up three cites (including the quote from the first Harry Potter movie). It seems to be an alternative form of holy crickets, which is attestable back to 1922. I've got to wonder if this arose in the same manner that I imagine holy cow did (the cow being sacred in Hinduism, and thus considered safe to take in vain in place of "God," "Jesus," etc. by members of the Abrahamic faiths). Astral 02:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
The last cite isn't durably archived, being on a webpage.--Prosfilaes 07:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
It's a story from a major sports network that was reprinted by several local news affiliates. I'm honestly confused now, because I've been culling citations from online news resources like CNN, MTV, Wired, Gamespot, etc. for a while now (and have seen others doing the same), and this is the first time I've seen a concern raised over them. CFI says: "As Wiktionary is an online dictionary, this naturally favors media such as Usenet groups, which are durably archived by Google." I've been interpreting this to mean that online sources are acceptable as long they seem to possess staying power comparable to the Google Groups archive. Nothing on the internet is permanent, but it stands to reason that content hosted on a major media site like CNN or Wired is much less likely to disappear than content hosted on someone's Blogspot blog or LiveJournal. Can someone resolve my confusion? Thanks. Astral 16:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
I've generally seen that as interpreted as just Usenet and printed sources. I don't see why it stands to reason that content hosted on CNN or Wired is unlikely to disappear; I've seen many links to news sites come up broken, and major sites sometimes seem to be more likely to change everything and lose old content then more quiet sites. Certainly I have no reason to trust that link to go anywhere in another decade.
That said, with those two more Usenet cites, it's should be fine.--Prosfilaes 09:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
Major news outlets like CNN have the resources to keep their content live into the foreseeable future. When content disappears for good from the original site (as opposed to gets moved behind a paywall, which means it can still be accessed fully by paying, or partially through a Google News Archive Search), there's usually an archived copy of it to be found on the Wayback Machine.
I don't see how this really differs from the situation with Usenet. The Usenet posts cited here on Wiktionary are achived copies of the originals hosted by Google. The future accessibility of these copies depends entirely on whether Google continues to make this Usenet archive available. They've certainly got the resources to do so at this time, but there's no guarantee the tide won't turn for them down the line, leading them to pull the plug on the archive.
Even most newspaper citations aren't derived from the original printed papers, but from digital copies, which are often based on earlier microfiche copies.
I don't think any URL can be trusted to work indefinitely. That's why citations don't only give a URL, but the article's author, title, date, etc. — to enable people to go looking for alternate copies in the event that the particular URL linked to goes dead. Astral 16:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
Usenet archives apparently exist on multiple servers. There is a supporting norm against the deletion of their content. Resource-rich organizations rarely have such norms in practice. Wayback is a relatively new institution with uncertain funding. If you would like our interpretation of our policy to change, that is a matter for WT:BP not the discussion of a single entry's attestation. DCDuring TALK 19:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
Kept. - -sche (discuss) 21:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)Reply


Harry Potter quote writer[edit]

Currently Steve Kloves is credited as writer, as he wrote the script, but perhaps Chris Columbus, director, deserves some credit? Also, interestingly and importantly, Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione, was in actuality the person who improvised the scene by coming up with the phrase, and they all simply decided to stick with it, though, granted, Kloves is obviously still the official writer of the movie's script. David Heyman is the producer. — This unsigned comment was added by 2a00:c440:20:1116:95cf:2597:17ba:55c0 (talk) at 05:44, 31 May 2013.

I believe it is convention on Wiktionary to credit just the screenwriter(s) in film quotations for simplicity's sake. Similar to how songs are credited to the band or artist, rather than to the lyricist, who may or may not be the artist or part of the band. There are evidently a lot of people who help bring a movie from page to screen, but when Wiktionary includes quotes in an entry, our main concern is showing how the term we are defining is used. We provide enough information about the source of a quotation (e.g., the movie, book, etc.) to allow readers to reference it themselves. So it's enough to credit "Yesterday" to the Beatles, rather than to Paul McCartney specifically. More detailed information — like who wrote the lyrics to a song or who directed and produced a film — are best left to the relevant Wikipedia articles. Although it might be worth noting in the etymology that Emma Watson was the one who came up with this expression for Philosopher's Stone. -Cloudcuckoolander (formerly Astral) (talk) 06:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Nice take on it. I agree completely. Someone add Emma Watson in some fitting way if possible, but nevertheless it's not a big deal regardless, and all the information necessary is in many ways there necessary. - Bjørnar Munkerud, orgininal post writer; June 2013