Talk:wildlife

RFV discussion: June–August 2015

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wildlife

Wild animals, excluding fish. Wild animals. These look dodgy to me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Exceedingly common usage. Check out google books:"fish and wildlife" to see the two treated separately in discourse. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:35, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. But what about the last sense, wild animals? Does this mean that wildlife can mean animals to the exclusion of plants? Wouldn't that be confusing, and contradict the first sense? ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:25, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure, it's confusing and contradictory, but we're a descriptive dictionary, and as I said before, it's exceedingly common. Look at google books:"endangered plants and wildlife" and you'll that the last sense is used as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

As Meta said, such contradictions are common. Raw counts (salt required): google books:"plants and other wildlife" (32.2K); google books:"plants and wildlife" (22.4K). DCDuring TALK 15:55, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Well there you go, you learn something new everyday. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I wonder whether the word is used to include living things that are not visible to the unaided eye or that are deep-sea dwellers. DCDuring TALK 13:54, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I see no reason to separate the senses here. For some people it includes fish, so what? You might say the same about (deprecated template usage) animal. Ƿidsiþ 09:52, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Our entry for animal seems to separate the senses that way: sense 1 includes fish and humans, sense 2 excludes humans, and sense 3 excludes fish. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 14:05, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Some other dictionaries just use an "especially" clause, but they do support distinctions. Also, the definitions differ among dictionaries. There are probably even other distinctions to make, such as whether insects and other invertebrates and animals too small to see are included in the term as it used. Perhaps a "variously including" clause in a sense line and two or three subsenses for the most common concepts. Humans and domestic animals (but not corresponding necessarily to species, eg, Canis lupus) are often explicitly excluded, probably because those are the most demonstrable hard boundaries of usage, whatever else might be included. DCDuring TALK 14:37, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

• I've revised sense 1 to at least partially reflect the complexity in a single definition. Please feel free to revert or revise. There is some additional variety at one of the "demonstrable hard boundaries" concerning whether a tamed animal of a type not normally domesticated is included. Also, the definition of fish varies and even plant (fungi?, algae?) and animal (Archaea? etc) are not as simple as one would hope. DCDuring TALK 15:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

  I think that's already somewhat better. The OED just says ‘flora and fauna’ of a region. There may be a dozen different gradations of what exactly the word implies to different people, but I'm not convinced such things primary to the word's meaning – nor is it clear, if we split the senses, to which of them most citations of the word in use should be assigned. Ƿidsiþ 06:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

  This is supposed to be an RfV discussion, not an RfD.

  It IS clear that OED misses even the easy-to-attest distinction between the definitions "flora and fauna" and "fauna", so the usual respect we give them as definitive authority does not seem warranted in this case. The wildlife lexicographer seems to have simply punted the ball to the lexicographers defining flora and fauna or, worse, to the poor fellow defining flora and fauna, a set phrase in the ears and eyes of many. I suppose that some of the awkward text now in definition 1 more properly belongs under a new Usage notes header, probably better suited to the actual context-dependence of the varying placement of the boundaries of the term and the varying degrees of precision with which such boundaries are felt.

  The issue at hand is to see whether the less common definition under challenge explicitly excluding fish is attestable. I'd be willing to stipulate that we need not go beyond that except in Usage notes. DCDuring TALK 11:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

google books:"wildlife and fish" suggests the fish-less sense is 'attested', but I agree that not everything needs its own sense line. Thanks for your improvements to sense 1; I've expanded it a bit further and folded the two challenged senses into a subsense. Does that look good? - -sche (discuss) 08:28, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Passed as amended. - -sche (discuss) 04:34, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks fine. One somewhat vague definition is a better reflection of usage than multiple precise definitions. The term is not one would use when was seeking precision. DCDuring TALK 16:36, 3 August 2015 (UTC)