Talk:coalition government

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Topical X government entries

Thanks in part to electoral division in the UK, we have the following entries; all, as presently defined, IMO, NISOP:

It's not really the electoral division's fault that you created a load of entries expressly to nominate them for deletion. Ƿidsiþ 12:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I said "in part". Had the electorate not been so divided, such terms would not have been bandied about so much, and so they would have been less likely to have been requested. My point was about causality, not responsibility. Anyway, since when are amicable suits banned?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

coalition government

Delete.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep Ƿidsiþ 12:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

keep. lemmings have it --Rising Sun talk? contributions 12:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Probably delete, but unsure. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

How is this not NISOP if all it means is "government by a coalition"? How is it different, idiomatically speaking, from (deprecated template usage) Labour government, (deprecated template usage) Conservative government, and (deprecated template usage) Liberal Democrat government, which were are rightly speedily deleted by Mglovesfun?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

To refresh, topicality is not a consideration for a term meeting or failing WT:CFI. Of course, it is often a stimulus and motive to make sure that a CFI-meeting term is included.

If we interpret CFI to keep these, I would like to understand whether there is any non-whimsical basis for excluding any noun1-noun2 phrase. Almost all of them can be defined by selecting the appropriate sense of the nouns, correctly ordering noun1 and noun2, and inserting the appropriate preposition or prepositions. As our target audience is clearly people like us (See Wiktionary:Purpose), are we saying that people like us lack the skills to construct this meaning by the appropriate ordering and pronounpreposition selection in context?

If we interpret CFI to include noun-noun phrases like these, how do we justify excluding other multi-word entries up to and beyond sentences? All deixes, ellipses, and indeed context-dependent sentences would seem to qualify as idioms. DCDuring TALK 14:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Right: delete.​—msh210℠ 17:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Rising Sun wanted this discussion off his talk page:

(deprecated template usage) Coalition government is NISOP; it's just government by a coalition.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 11:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

debatable. I'd vote keep for it. --Rising Sun talk? contributions 12:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Cf. (deprecated template usage) minority government, (deprecated template usage) Labour government, (deprecated template usage) Conservative government, (deprecated template usage) Liberal Democrat government, &c.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:20, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

keep (deprecated template usage) minority government, delete others --Rising Sun talk? contributions 12:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On what basis? Government by a coalition of parties, government by a minority party, government by the Labour party, government by the Conservative party, government by the Liberal Democrat party; idiomatically speaking, how are they different?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know what a minority government before I came across it and looked up a definition. I thought it might be a government of minorities (you know, a government made of chinks, yids, fags, niggaz, pakis, johnny foreigners etc.) or government run by a minority party (e.g. a Lib Dem government, where the Lib Dems are the third party of the UK). coalition government is similar --Rising Sun talk? contributions 12:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

That means we need a {{politics}} definition for minority, which I've now added:

• (politics, used attributively of a party, government, &c.) Empowered by or representing a minority (usually a plurality) of votes cast, legislative seats, &c., rather than an outright majority thereof.

Do you now see that (deprecated template usage) minority government is nothing but the sum of its parts? (deprecated template usage) Coalition government is the same, except that there is yet less ambiguity in that phrase. BTW, you'll probably want to comment in WT:RFD#Topical X government entries.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the new definition. I still vote for keep. --Rising Sun talk? contributions 13:44, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but why? The only argument you've given so far is that you didn't know what it meant before you looked it up. So what? Since I'm guessing you know what (deprecated template usage) government means, what you needed was the proper political definition of (deprecated template usage) minority; when you have both, it's a simple case of (deprecated template usage) minority + (deprecated template usage) government. Sure, you could use the wrong definition of minority, but very rarely does that possibility justify the creation of entries for unidiomatic, SOP constructions. I could misinterpret "nice fruit" to mean "a stupid homosexual", but that still wouldn't justify creating an entry for (deprecated template usage) nice fruit defined as "a fruit (such as an apple or pear) that is pleasing to the palate".  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, the one-polysemous-constituent-makes-an-idiom argument has been repeatedly advanced, apparently seriously, by EP. No one has explicitly rejected it AFAICT, however absurd the consequences. DCDuring TALK 14:20, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• This is an RFD discussion. No more comment here --Rising Sun talk? contributions 18:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
  

 — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 08:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. "coalition government" does not narrow the range of meanings of either (deprecated template usage) coalition or (deprecated template usage) government, and neither is it idiomatic since it doesn't mean something other than a combination of the meanings of the two words.

BTW, re: the "nice fruit" comment, such a hypothetical entry should be rejected because it has no particular single meaning in common English usage, nor does it narrow the range of meanings of either component word, nor is it idiomatic. Facts707 10:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

"Government by a coalition" isn't very clear to me. I like "Government by a coalition of political parties." So keep. DAVilla 10:51, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Deleted.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Labour government

Delete.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete this and below. Ƿidsiþ 12:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

This and the other two were speedily deleted by Mglovesfun, which was, of course, correct.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Conservative government

Delete.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Liberal Democrat government

Delete.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)