Talk:big balls

RFV discussion

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big balls

Really? Countable? Courage/courage? SemperBlotto (talk) 15:11, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It's just big + balls (plural only). DCDuring TALK 16:30, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it means courage, just it's an allusion to it, or can be. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:59, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

balls can be courage but this seems SoP extension of the metaphor, like "you've got to have a lot of balls / plenty of balls to do that"; or like the idea of having a "big" or "small" ego. Equinox ◑ 17:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. SOP to sense 3 of ball. Send to RfD (although I wouldn't object to deletion on sight). bd2412 T 21:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

If this is SOP then (deprecated template usage) balls needs a usage note indicating common collocations: big can't modify courage, so this is unintuitive.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

If that is true then we also need notes at brain ("a big brain" means intelligence, but "big" can't modify "intelligence"), heart ("a big heart" but no "big love"), and all kinds of others. Equinox ◑ 16:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I think I agree with Msh210 on this. I think we already are accustomed to handling this properly where the countable and uncountable usage occurs with the singular form. As in those cases we should be able to address this with countable/uncountable labes and usage examples at the appropriate sense of balls.

There are probably only a small number of plural-only definitions that behave this way, ie, have the same meaning in both countable and uncountable usage. I can't think of another of the dual/pair plurals that works this way and my imagination and persistence are not up to the task of locating examples among the plurals of normal English common nouns. Maybe a review of plural-only senses of nouns that also have a related definition at the singular form would find more examples. DCDuring TALK 16:58, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

My comment above was unclear and even slightly off the mark. Thanks for clarifying.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Changed to RFD. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 23:05, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

RfD discussion

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big balls

SOP, per the RFV discussion. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 23:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not really SoP because if balls means courage, big balls doesn't mean big courage. Unfortunately from a Wiktionary point of view, it can be rephrased in very many ways (huge balls, massive balls) but none of them as SoP. Or if they are, what do we list at big, huge, massive, etc. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:17, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

If we keep this, I think we should insist on exact translations from every variation into all the main languages we have.

"Big courage" is simply not good English because courage is uncountable. Balls in this sense needs to be marked as both countable and uncountable. The countable definition could be a non-gloss definition or some strained gloss like "symbols of courage". That would then accommodate both classes of modifiers. Or we could have a single sense marked as both countable and uncountable with a non-gloss definition. An additional step would be have redirects from all the attestable (on Citations pages) combinations of modifiers and balls to a senseid-marked sense of balls and have two or three usage examples that span the usage.

This is yet another example of modifiers being restricted by the grammar and semantics of a term. If every one is to be an entry with translations, we have a lot of entry-creation and translation to do. Wouldn't we be better off to automate the creation of appropriate redirects? Wouldn't that help users at least as much as the proliferation of parallel entries? DCDuring TALK 13:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Could be covered with usage notes at balls I suppose. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of a usage note. In addition to that, a redirect from big balls, but not other combinations such as massive balls, would be helpful to the user. --BB12 (talk) 20:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

• Delete per nom, with addition of usage note to balls. bd2412 T 19:20, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep per Mglovesfun: while "balls" means courage, then if "big balls" means "courage" rather than "big courage", it is not a sum of parts. Admittedly, this is not in dictionaries: “big balls”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep - I have seen some usages use it as an intensifier of balls (courage). I have just added the humorous tag. Feel free to revert if you want. Pass a Method (talk) 03:30, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
• Delete or redirect per Mg, BB12.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Kept for lack of consensus to delete. bd2412 T 02:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2014–July 2015

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big balls

Alleggedly means "courage". I request attesting quotations per WT:ATTEST. This was already once in RFV, but the RFV closure was irregular and no attesting quotations were provided. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:33, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the previous discussion DP refers to is at Talk:big_balls. Equinox ◑ 20:37, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• Doesn't just "balls" mean courage? Purplebackpack89 02:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

  Regardless of what "balls" means, I request evidence in the form of attesting quotations that the phrase "big balls" is actually attested to mean courage, as per WT:ATTEST. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  Does that help? --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 08:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  Let us have a look. I'll take the 1st quotation and replace "big balls" with X, and let us see whether the quotation suggests X means courage. The result is this: "Biffy says, “You've got X for a girl Bubbles. I like your style. Give it to him. Juicy's rotten, but Bubbles. You've got the scevusa on your hands now.” Bubbles drops the hot dog, and calls Biffy and Juicy some un-young ladylike words.". Now, do you think it can be inferred from the sentence that X means courage? --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  Yes, I do, actually. Do you not? Certainly it is clear from two of those quotes that it's not a literal reference to body parts. The other quotes are similar: they are general approbations with a clear meaning. Unless you are demanding one of the quotes from a dictionary of slang, or a quote of something like "He showed that he had big balls by standing up by which I mean he was very brave" or something equally awful. (I'll grant that the quote you copied here could be reduced to the first two sentences, but I wanted to find a balance between excluding context, and including too much.) --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 09:19, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  I certainly do not require dictionary quotations, since that is not what WT:ATTEST allows. I cannot really infer the meaning of "courage" from the quotations, but then I am not a native speaker. Let other editors comment on the merits of the provided quotations. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  In my experience, [big] balls (without the) doesn't simply mean courage: sometimes it means assertiveness, but usually means gall, nerve or chutzpah. A former employer of mine used to say things like "you've got balls the size of an elephant to complain about that" Chuck Entz (talk) 16:00, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I've added a couple more citations. Because they demonstrate that "big" is just being used as an intensifier (because they further tweak it, e.g. "pretty big balls"), and because "balls" is where the meaning comes from — whether that meaning is courage or something more like chutzpah — I've deployed {{synonym of}}. - -sche (discuss) 07:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I hope that doesn't mean that we need an entry very big "synonym of big", not to mention all the other appropriate intensifiers. DCDuring TALK 12:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to RFD it. - -sche (discuss) 14:26, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I've RFDed it. - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

• See this external forum discussion. DCDuring TALK 16:44, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RFD discussion: July–August 2015

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big balls

See the RFV discussion. This is just big + balls, where balls carries the meaning ("courage, chutzpah") which our entry formerly ascribed to this term. That it is not a fixed phrase can be seen from the various citations where big is modified (some available in the entry and others on Google Books), like "pretty big balls", or where other modifiers come between big and balls, e.g. google books:"big fucking balls". - -sche (discuss) 18:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

See also Talk:big_balls#RfD discussion, closed on 21 August 2014. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:54, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting: the previous RFV and RFD show majority agreement that the collocation is SOP and support for deletion (even one of the keep voters at the RFD, a now-banned vandal, said in effect that it was SOP), yet the RFV was closed without the term being cited and the RFD was closed without the term being deleted. I think it's good that we're having a new RFD now that the term has been cited and the citations confirm (IMO) its SOPness. - -sche (discuss) 23:30, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

• Delete (this time in so many words) DCDuring TALK 21:39, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
• Delete, as before. bd2412 T 13:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
• While I agree that it should be deleted, being able to put a swear word in a phrase doesn't automatically make something SOP. Expletive infixation can break up fixed compounds and even individual words. Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:32, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 13:23, 14 August 2015 (UTC)