Talk:I need gas
Latest comment: 13 years ago by Prince Kassad in topic I need gasoline > I need gas
The following information passed a request for deletion.
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Delete. Outside of phrasebook, sum of parts. As a phrasebook entry, it is not a particularly common phrase. google:"I need gasoline" has 119,000 hits, compared to google:"I love you" with its 77,900,000 hits. google books:"I need gasoline: has mere 35 hits. --Dan Polansky 09:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- It is however a very useful phrase, which is one of my suggested criteria of inclusion in a phrasebook - see the beer parlour. Thryduulf (talk) 11:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- Nobody I've ever known even in the US says gasoline, though, so I'm going to move it to I need gas. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 12:50, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- For once, I agree with Opiaterein. Most people in the United States would say I need gas instead of I need gasoline. They would also say I need to get gas. I therefore vote keep is this is definitely worth keeping because of how often it is used in the United States. Razorflame 13:07, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- Survival language isn't necessarily going to be common in writing, either in print or online. This does turn up in phrasebooks, e.g. of Romanian and Spanish, and it's easy to think of circumstances in which a traveler would need to say this. (Although all in all, "Where is the nearest gas station?" seems more likely...) So keep pending the articulation of any broader Phrasebook policy. FWIW, I think the title "I need gasoline" is good because it is less ambiguous than "I need gas", and clarity seems more important than idiomaticity or naturalness. (Especially given the tendency for these entries to attract extra "definitions" that have no business in a phrasebook.)
- BTW, the fact that we have separate "entries" for I need gasoline and I need petrol shows how utterly useless the methodology of mainspace is for handling phrasebook content. As an American, I would be quite happy to have the entry at I need petrol; can we just flip a coin or something? -- Visviva 13:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- In an earlier and rather unrelated BP discussion, I actually flipped a coin in order to help the community to choose between two similar results [1]. However, I don't see uselessness or the inherent need to choose from the specific examples of I need gasoline, I need gas and I need petrol, since people are expected to search for any of "gasoline", "gas" or "petrol" in order to find these and related entries. They probably would want to hear and read some pronunciations too. --Daniel. 14:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- I suppose it's possible. But if a phrasebook user is searching for "I need gas/gasoline/petrol", then presumably they are an English speaker (of some non-trivial fluency level) looking for a TL translation of the phrase. Such a user isn't going to need or want information about the English phrase, and will only be frustrated by the excess clicking required to get to the translation.
- Of course, there is the case of a LOTE speaker proceeding from the LOTE phrasebook entry (in the rare cases where one is present) to the English entry. In principle, a speaker of Foovian would go to the Foovian Wiktionary's phrasebook to find suitable information on English equivalents. But most other Wiktionaries are in even worse shape than ours, so we should expect that many people will use the phrasebook in reverse, looking up the Foovian phrasebook entry on EN Wiktionary and then proceeding to the English phrasebook entry for pronunciation & usage. On that basis I guess I can see a justification for the separate US and UK entries, though it still seems bass-ackwards. Again, it seems like a properly-structured appendix could handle the needs of these two constituencies much better. -- Visviva 14:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
- This is an excellent case study. Wherever it's placed, the entry should have both "I need gas" and "I need petrol" with usage tags. There's no point in having separate pages with separate translations that can get lost in the shuffle, not to mention that the user will probably want to know about the other phrase in case it's more relevant. Maybe we should have a phrasebook space, and title the pages with a minimum but unambiguous phrase, like phrasebook:need gasoline.