Talk:who are you

Deletion discussion

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who are you

This is a very odd and unnatural thing to say; the proper phrasebook entry is what is your name, which in fact exists. (NB: The Korean and Welsh translations should also be deleted if this fails RFD.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It probably doesn't belong in a phrasebook, which should be aimed at helping learners in everyday transactions, but "Who are you?" is something a person might say to another person when that person does something that outside their sense of that person's character. In that use, the definition given is, at best, strained. DCDuring TALK 13:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I think this is both useful and very common. Sorry. Keep. 95.144.169.113 17:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Phrasebook worries aside, it's basically defined as "identify yourself", which is fair enough. A military guard might shout this (having first looked it up on Wiktionary, lol). "What is your name" serves a different, social function. I'm probably being devil's advocate. Equinox ◑ 22:42, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It is a rude question in many contexts, say, in a bar/pub where one is not known. DCDuring TALK 22:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The usage can be tweaked but keep entry. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:04, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. The phrase means something different depending on the word stressed. "Who are you?" as a demand for identity, or a challenge to authority (as in, "who are you to tell me what to do); "who are you?" expresses surprise at someone's uncharacteristic behavior; and "who are you?" is more like "come again?" but specifically directed at the subjects identity or authority. bd2412 T 02:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Any phrase varies in meaning depending on stress. "How are you?" suggests there is a context where the status/happiness of someone else was being discussed, and I now care about yours. This is one of those things that language does. It's not lexicographical. Equinox ◑ 03:00, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Compare an expression like walk on water. Stressing one word may highlight that aspect of the phrase, but the meaning of the phrase remains the same. bd2412 T 13:41, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The difference is not in semantic meaning, but in discourse function. That is not unlike what happens when one delivers an utterance sarcastically. The next thing you know we will need an entry for I shot an elephant in my pajamas. DCDuring TALK 17:47, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll defer to Wikipedia here: "In logic and critical thinking, a slippery slope is a logical device, but it is usually known under its fallacious form, in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the inevitability of the event in question". bd2412 T 21:35, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not a slippery slope. It's a vertical drop. I was just pointing out some of the landscape below. DCDuring TALK 22:58, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Be it a slippery slope or a vertical drop, it's still a bad argument. As I've said time and again, keeping one multi-word entry doesn't mean keeping or creating other ones. (though I've also said that creating many more multi-word entries is probably a good thing in the long run). Purplebackpack89 23:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

All those who would speed us down a slippery slope prefer that we ignore the existence of the slope and its slipperiness.

I assume that you are making a rational argument in principle. Or does your argument have no implications for any type of entry or potential entry or any other individual entry? That is we should never, ever take any prior decision as a matter of precedent for similar decisions. Each new entry is as subject to challenge as any other. (This, of course, is completely removed from the way a human institution would work, But how would I know this is a human institution?)

If your argument has any implications beyond this entry it would seem to be that a change in pronunciation justifies an additional definition that is supported by a even just a noticeable difference in discourse function. Let's accept the argument. This would allow for several meanings of the word no and the exclamation ah for example. Our first "definition" of ah would seem to need to be split by pronunciation difference into four or more. I wonder how we are going to display the differences and verify those definitions. Are the only pronunciation differences to be honored in this way differences in stress, which can be readily displayed, at least for whatever portion of our users who are not discouraged by IPA? Or is it any claimed pronunciation difference? In any language? This seems like an embarkation on another grand project into realms beyond what we know how to do. We seem to have a lot of folks willing to write checks that someone else would have to honor.

For this case, presumably, a single stress could fall on any of the three syllables, creating the possibility of at least three different meanings. (More than one stress is possible as well.)

'Who are 'you? - Normal question, with range of interpretations based on context and body language

Who are you? - (as above:) "something a person might say to another person when that person does something that outside their sense of that person's character"

Who are you? - Singles out the person asked for hostile interrogation, with an implication that the person is not entitled to be present or to gain entry.

I rather doubt that this suffices to cover the range of possibilities, but I still don't know how these could be verified, why someone would come to Wiktionary to "discover" these meanings, or how most would even be able to read the meanings and associate them properly with the stress or other pronunciation difference. DCDuring TALK 00:32, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Single RfDs don't set precedent. Policy and votes (which create policy) do. I also don't see why you're acting as if they couldn't be verified; each of the three "who are you"s you posit can be relatively easily verified. Another thing you're doing with your fallacious slippery slope "argument" is mistaking things we could do with things that will actually happen. Just because we could potentially create hundreds or thousands of inflection or intonation definitions doesn't mean anybody will bother to. And, since I believe RfDs to not be connected, any that are created could be nominated for deletion with differing results. But I'm still not seeing why creating any number of inflection entries is a bad thing, though. If a word means different things in different situations, we should have all of those. I don't see why we would go out of our way to not have all the words and phrases we could. Purplebackpack89 01:06, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Keep: per BD. We've got the space to list differences in words or phrases based on intonation or inflection; we might as well use it. Purplebackpack89 16:50, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

• Phrasebook entries should be kept if they are useful, simple and common. It's useful: I could see myself wanting to find out how to say this phrase if I was learning a foreign language. It's simple: it's just three small words. It's common: well, that goes without saying. So keep. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

*: Keep per Tooironic. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC) -Duplicate vote (already voted to keep on March 10). bd2412 T 18:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

• Kept: Clear consensus to keep. Purplebackpack89 17:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)