Talk:at the time

Deletion discussion

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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at the time

Sole definition: "Back then, at the time referred to in the past."

It is possible to find uses with will, would and could that demonstrate that the definition is incorrect in excluding future deixis. That being so, the term is SoP. DCDuring TALK 00:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the definition uses the very phrase it's defining is not a good sign. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:18, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

As you know, the most basic time terms are hard to define. At least this definition conveyed to me that only half of the conceptual time line was supposedly referred to.

Obviously we have more to say about past events, so it would hardly be a surprise that much more usage (90+%) of this term is about the past. DCDuring TALK 11:56, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Delete, same sense of time as the future version, when the time comes or at that time and the present version at this time, hence SOP. - TheDaveRoss 12:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Hmm… the entry may be necessary for translations. Many related languages disagree on which prepositions to use for something, but perhaps that’s a sign that our definitions are inadequate. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 12:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

That's a very good point. I may be able to find one or two translations. This is a tentative keep. Donnanz (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

at that time is synonymous, and could be redirected to this entry. Donnanz (talk) 12:44, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

This term definitely has a different sense when compared with at a time and at times. Donnanz (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

As a non-native speaker I would be very glad if I could find at time whether or not I can use in the time synonymously. That done, I'd probably support deletion as SoP. --Droigheann (talk) 14:10, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

The aren't synonymous because at refers to points (events) and in refers to spaces with extent (intervals). I would hope that our definition at those terms makes that clear. Learning that and similar mostly lexical things about English prepositions goes a long way toward constructing more native-like speech and texts, even helping with phrasal verbs, sometimes eliminating the need to look up their meaning. Determiners and articles are similarly worth studying to the same end. DCDuring TALK 18:12, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

That would be nice, but comparing our

at

2. (indicating time) Simultaneous, during.

at six o’clock;  at closing time;  at night.

with our in

1. 8. During (said of periods of time).

in the first week of December;  Easter falls in the fourth lunar month;   The country reached a high level of prosperity in his first term.

I'd never guess it. And comparing GoogleBooks results for at the time I used to and in the time I used to isn't convincing either. --Droigheann (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I find that substituting during for at in the usage examples leads me to expressions that I would never use:

At six o'clock

*During six o'clock

?During the six o'clock hour

Simultaneous is even worse, not even being the correct part of speech.

That is, I think it is not an accurate definition for the English I hear and speak. Perhaps in another time or far, far away....

But, the event vs period distinction is relative to the context and sometimes just PoV. I could say "During the arrival of the train I could see people running next to it" taking the arrival, normally a point event, as something with duration. I could say "at daybreak" when a daybreak clearly takes some time. At D-Day the outcome of the war was still in doubt vs. During D-Day there was not as much loss of life as feared. DCDuring TALK 21:57, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

The "substitution" principle of definitions should not be taken too seriously. --WikiTiki89 22:02, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Au contraire, it is a powerful tool for rooting out carelessly worded definitions. It is a minimum condition for all except non-gloss definitions, though not sufficient to make a good definition. DCDuring TALK 22:28, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. It often forces you use really strange wording that is much less clear than it could be otherwise. --WikiTiki89 22:37, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

1. Would you rather have something that is clearly wrong (wrongly clear?) or something that is hard to decipher, but correct?
2. The simplest, most common words in any language are often the hardest to define. What simpler or equally simple words does one have recourse to?
3. They often require non-gloss definitions, which are rarely simple.
4. Someone looking up such a simple word probably has a relatively subtle problem, so simplicity is not necessarily the principal figure of merit for the entry.

DCDuring TALK 01:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

This is all very nice (I can agree with the relativity of point vs interval), but it doesn't change one iota on the fact that a reader who doesn't come across this conversation has no way of telling the difference between "at the time" and "in the time" from what our defs say either at "at", "in" or "time", so Romanophile's remark about the possible necessity of keeping the entry for the sake of translations remains quite pertinent. --Droigheann (talk) 00:11, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Fixing the entries for grammatical terms like prepositions, especially the common ones is not to be undertaken lightly. DCDuring TALK 01:11, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

No. I didn't mean it as in 'go hurry and fix the "at" entry so we can delete the "at the time" one'. But as long as the former entry isn't fixed, and you admit it does need fixing, what harm does keeping the latter one? --Droigheann (talk) 13:54, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Entries for transparent (SoP) entries may (we have no statistics) lead to learners failing to consciously learn about the meaning and usage of the components.

What approach to EFL teachers and course materials take?

I think that they would offer this at their entry for time, at which various phrases, including prepositional phrases, would be available in close proximity for comparison. We don't offer that. At best we have alphabetical listings of derived terms without any clue as to meaning without clicking through to whatever of those have links. And once one has clicked through, one has lost the ability to compare. BTW, I have replaced the erroneous definition for at referenced above with a non-gloss definition more or less in line with LDOCE and COBUILD. DCDuring TALK 16:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I somehow forgot to add at on my watchlist. I apologise, my bad. --Droigheann (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. bd2412 T 02:10, 10 August 2016 (UTC)