Talk:K

RfD-sense discussion

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K

(US) The initial letter of the call sign of radio stations west of the Mississippi (see also W)

Orginally in Translingual. Is this practice of the US FCC involving a single letter of what might be considered an alternative name of a broadcast organization a morpheme that we should include? BTW, what should its tag be: "in the US", "of the US", "of certain US radio broadcasters", or just ambiguously "US"? DCDuring TALK 16:33, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Call it a prefix if you must since it's never used as a standalone word. DTLHS (talk) 16:41, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it belongs here. If we do want it, then we need to include all the other call sign prefixes XE- and XH- for Mexico, C- and VO- in Canada, and so one for broadcasters in all nations. DCDuring TALK 16:50, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

It has meaning, but I'm not sure it belongs in a dictionary. It's just a practice in assigning of letter sequences- do we want to include the letters at the end of forms, like the US IRS tax forms 1040 vs. 1040A vs. 1040EZ (w:IRS tax forms#1040)? There are all kinds of cases where a serial number or ID or code contains sequences that have meaning. It's kind of like the practices in naming things like ships and hurricanes: there is a system to it, but it's not really dictionary material. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I suppose I was wrong to move this from Translingual, as one of the purposes is to identify a broadcaster at a distance, which distance has little to do with official boundaries. DCDuring TALK 18:29, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

It isn't even exact; there are a few exceptions. It kind of reminds me of the "used to differentiate between houses with the same number" sense of a. delete -- Liliana • 18:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

There is some interesting history to the exact assignments. According to Wikipedia, "[t]he United States was represented by the military at the 1927 [International Radiotelegraphic Convention] conference, which is why it received (or, in some cases, retained) A (for Army) and N (for Navy). The W and K for civilian stations followed as the simple addition of a dash to the Morse code letters A and N. (However, in 1912, KDA–KZZ, all of N, and all of W were assigned to the United States, but all of A was assigned to Germany and its protectorates). International call signs for stations aboard U.S. ships were initially assigned with W prefixes on the west coast and K prefixes in the Atlantic; land-based stations followed the opposite pattern. The distinction between Atlantic and Pacific ships was to become less meaningful after the Panama Canal reduced the distance required to cross from one ocean to another". It's not exactly etymology, but it is an interesting explanation. I had never realized that radio stations and television stations outside the U.S. had call signs at all, or that all call signs had an initial letter assigned by international convention. bd2412 T 20:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Delete. It's not dictionary material. We could do similar with the Australian radio stations and add 4 for Queensland, 2 for NSW, etc, but in neither case are the letters or numbers used in a linguistic sense. (BTW, our radio prefixes match our post code prefixes, so that could open another can of worms).--Dmol (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Good point about the post codes. In the US, you can tell by the first 2 digits of a zip code what state or territory it's in, and you can tell the same about phone numbers from the area code. There's a huge amount of encyclopedic information associated with specific letters, numbers, and sequences thereof that's not really a part of the language. Such things may find their way into the language via their symbolism or as short-hand for something (I think an adjective entry for 90210 might be justifiable, for instance), but on their own they simply don't belong in a dictionary. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

W

Same as K. DCDuring TALK 16:39, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• Keep both: Not seeing how the project is harmed by these entries Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 13:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• Keep both, there is some interesting history behind them for which a reader might turn to a dictionary. bd2412 T 19:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
• Delete both. Any "interesting history" behind them is Wikipedia material. --WikiTiki89 20:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
  • It has a definition that is not discernible from the letter alone, plus in interesting history as to why it has that definition. bd2412 T 22:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
    • It doesn't have a definition period, discernible or not. It would be like defining "BC" as "broadcasting corporation (used as the last two letters of a television network name)". --WikiTiki89 22:29, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
      • That would be an entirely reasonable definition to include if there was some law or administrative rule that required all TV networks to have names ending in "BC" (or to have names ending in one of two abbreviations, based on the broadcast region of the network). bd2412 T 17:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
        • No it wouldn't be. Compare that situation to a totalitarian regime that by law approves only one TV network and mandates its name to be "The Super Awesome TV Network"; would we then have to add The Super Awesome TV Network just because some country mandated that it be the only TV station? --WikiTiki89 17:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
          • I'm amazed that you would think that the name of a specific entity is comparable to an initial used as a component of multiple entities, and having the same definition in each of them. That is more like B. (the abbreviation for "Bachelors" used in academic degrees) that it a common component of multiple degrees. bd2412 T 18:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
            • Well now that you bring it up, I am against having B.. --WikiTiki89 18:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• Over two months without further comment. Would someone please close this. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Keep both K and W senses. The case is not very strong; the letters do mean something but it is not very clear what that makes the senses worth keeping in a dictionary. The senses under discussion are not sum of parts. They must have some other defect in order to be deleted, and I am not very clear about what that defect is. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• I am hesitant to close this because of my involvement in the discussion, but I see no consensus to delete these senses, and would like to clear this nomination from the board. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:56, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

No consensus indeed. (I am leaning towards deletion, but I guess it would have little influence on the outcome.) — Keφr 18:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• • The stated opinions would seem to be 5 (DCD, Dmol, Wikitiki, Liliana, @Chuck Entz?) to 3 (BD, DanP, Purple) in favor of deletion, excluding @Kephir. DCDuring TALK 18:56, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Please count me for Delete on both. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:15, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

{{look}}

I just wonder: are the votes for deletion policy-based? If so, what item of policy do they invoke? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I would return these to the translingual section. There is nothing particularly "English" about these usages. Rather, they are quite explicitly the consequence of an international convention. bd2412 T 12:56, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

WT:CFI states: "A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means" (emphasis mine). I think the arguments are that radio call signs are not terms to begin with — like ticker symbols or postcodes. — Keφr 13:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Sources can be found where "K" and "W" are used as call sign descriptors independently of any other part of a radio station identification. See Charles Henry Robb, Doubleday Broadcasting Company Inc v. Federal Communications Commission, 655 F2d 417, ¶22 (D.C. Cir. 1981): "In these circumstances it would strain credulity to believe that a change from a "W" call sign to a "K" sign would cause listeners to think the location of the licensee had changed. In any event, as we have seen, the Commission in other almost identical cases has not found that change from "W" to "K" has produced public confusion." bd2412 T 14:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

This is not a use, but a mention. — Keφr 15:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I concede that it is unlikely that we will find a "use" (although some may theoretically exist, I can't imagine how they would be searchable). I am tempted to suggest moving this to RfV to see if uses can be found that are independent of full station call signs (e.g., "Joe, you're west of the Mississippi now, try to be more of a K and less of a W"). bd2412 T 15:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

My thoughts as well. On the other hand, natual language prefixes and suffixes are never used on their own either. Unless you count expressions like "neither over- or underestimated". — Keφr 15:34, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

If you think about it, "it would strain credulity to believe that a change from a "W" call sign to a "K" sign would cause listeners to think the location of the licensee had changed." sounds a lot like an assertion that the "W" and "K" don't convey meaning to most people. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Kephir: As for termhood, WT:CFI#Terms includes prefixes, which are not used on their own but have meanings and form larger meaningful units that are used on their own. For prefixes, I think they are used whenever the larger unit that contains them is used. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Indeed it does. The question is, do "W" and "K", as found in radio call signs, qualify as prefixes under CFI? And if yes, where does it end? Does the Usenet hierarchy meet CFI now? To which level? Maybe area codes? Java namespaces? MIME types? File extensions? (Is .tar.gz idiomatic?) Domain names? URI schemes? CIDR ranges? And so on. There are countless assigned alphanumeric codes for which a notion of a "prefix" or "suffix" is meaningful, but are they dictionary material? WT:CFI is not very explicit about it. — Keφr 20:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

If there are citations indicating that a station is referred to as "a W station" or "a K station" based on their location, then I think the terms would have a utility beyond prefixes that are merely a common part of coding (compare 404). This blog post is an example, where it says "[t]ry switching from a "K" station, like KGO in San Francisco and then going to a "W" station on the East coast", but I don't think that it is "permanently recorded media". RfV is the place to resolve that question. bd2412 T 20:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Hearing no further comment, deleted. bd2412 T 00:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)