Talk:soil pollution

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You can pollute a lot of things; soil, air, water. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep We already have (deprecated template usage) air pollution and (deprecated template usage) water pollution. But other stuff exists isn't a valid argument, so here's a better one: lead pollution is the the pollution of something by lead, mercury pollution is the pollution of something by mercury, but soil pollution is not the pollution of something by soil. In general the phrase <noun> pollution has two possible senses, only one of which will be valid for a given noun. — Carolina wren discussió 21:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the argument in WT:CFI terms.

On its own terms, "special-interest legislation" and "pollution legislation" similarly use have the attributive nouns in different relations to the head noun of the phrase.

"Air", "water", and "noise pollution" are terms that other dictionaries seem to find worthwhile, while "soil pollution" is not. I suspect that it has something to do with the legal recognition afforded the first three. It may also be that the notion of making dirt "dirty" or soling soil didn't take. Soil contamination isn't in other dictionaries either though. DCDuring TALK 21:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The cites on b.g.c for air and water each number in the tens of thousands, while for soil it numbers only in the thousands. There's also the slight problem that the synonyms ground pollution and land pollution exist for soil pollution, tho of the three soil is the most common. Attestation clearly is not a problem, and idiomaticity clearly is a common issue for all of these save perhaps light pollution where clarifying that it doesn't refer to a low level of pollution is a second issue. However, that reasoning also applies to soil pollution, as the combination could refer to pollution by (deprecated template usage) soil unless one realized it has a particular idiomatic meaning of pollution of the (deprecated template usage) soil.

I did a closer look at the b.g.c. cite before committing the above as an edit and you know what? It seems that back at the start of the 20th century, soil pollution was not concerned with chemical pollution, but biological. I'll work some on the entry to have it reflect the change in meaning. — Carolina wren discussió 23:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The Rosenau quotation might simply refer to ordinary soil pollution, specifically by manure or sewage. From the Google snippet views, the book appears to use pollution in the conventional modern sense elsewhere. —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 01:28 z

Doesn't change the fact that the quotes there for soil pollution and from other sources of the era, the only concern about soil pollution that was mentioned was biological, and nothing about chemical pollution. In contrast, in this page from a 2004 book about poultry management, [1] it bothers to mention specific types of chemical contamination that might result, but only mentions in passing biological concerns, and it by far is an exception among modern quotes in considering biological problems. Show me any quotes from the pre-1923 (i.e copyright-expired) era mentioning "soil pollution" in a context other than concerns about biological contaminants such as hookworm and I might change my opinion.

There's also this snippet [2] from a 1965 source that suggests that this term would pass the "ground beef" test, though frankly I'm not a fan of that test as I feel that regulatory definitions are encyclopedic in nature.

Finally, I've also come across one 1887 [3] two 1898 [4] [5] and one 1921 [6] cites of the form "soil-pollution", so the hyphenated form can be cited as a rare word, in which case not including the unhyphenated form would be silly. — Carolina wren discussió 04:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that by the mid-20th century people and public agencies had become more aware of sewage controls, but w:Love Canal and w:Rachel Carson's Silent Spring were yet to make the papers. But whether we're dealing with shit or PCBs, soil pollution usually refers to “pollution of soil. There are lots of recent examples of organic soil pollution. —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 04:50 z

Yup. This and other editions by Rosenau include quotations related to hookworm disease:

“The soil can take care of a large amount of pollution and will often yield ground water free of undesirable substances and bacteria.” [7]

“Prevention mainly depends upon the avoidance of soil pollution near homes. This usually involves the introduction of appropriate latrines combined with discouragement of the habit of promiscuous defecation...”[8]

“Human Habits. Hookworm infection is sharply correlated with those human habits which concentrate feces in moist, shaded places (places that are repeatedly visited). Only nominal attention to proper fecal disposal may be sufficient to prevent the spread of infection.”[9] [p 1189, listed under “soil pollution” in the index]

 —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 04:37 z 04:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There is also "soil contamination", somewhat less common. These entries certainly have some value as translation hooks, and constitute "set phrases" without much doubt, but I am agnostic as to whether they are really a good idea overall. Incidentally, if anyone is still thinking about quantitative metrics for set-phraseness, the mutual information score for "soil" and "pollution" in COCA is 3.67. "Water pollution" is 5.9, "air pollution" is 8.35, "ozone pollution" is 8.75, and "transboundary pollution" is a whopping 10.98. "Soil contamination" is 6.00. (...if we were to ever adopt a certain MI score as a basis for inclusion, it would have some very interesting effects...) Haven't checked other measures or corpora. -- Visviva 17:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Kept for no consensus.--Jusjih 02:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)