Talk:fire drill

RFV discussion: October 2015–February 2016

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fire drill

No idea why this idiomatic usage was given two different senses for what seems like one. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:26, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

This should've been in RFD instead, but it's not worth the effort for something that should so obviously fail. Sense deleted. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:17, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

RFD discussion: May–August 2017

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fire drill

RFD sense 1: "An organized practice to prepare occupants of an office, school or other public building for evacuation in the event of a fire."

At my old high school, we also used to have tornado drills. You could also say emergency drill, hurricane drill, earthquake drill, etc. What I suggest is deleting the sense and replacing it with something like this:

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fire,‎ drill.

The schoolchildren all went outside and lined up during the fire drill on Friday.

PseudoSkull (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Delete/Replace per nom. drill#Noun even has the example of "Regular fire drills can ensure...". —suzukaze (t・c) 00:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Delete etc. per nom. DCDuring (talk) 01:21, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the definition at drill could be improved if fire drill is going to be deleted. The current one doesn't include the notion of the practice being done in preparation for a possible future event/disaster. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:36, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

@User:Andrew Sheedy [1] [2] Did that do the trick? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:22, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that about covers it. I question the parenthetical "especially as a military exercize". Is that accurate as the definition now stands? Perhaps the definition is better off split into two separate senses or subsenses? A military drill and a fire drill don't "feel" the same to me, at least. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

• Keep sense 1, I don't see the point in deleting it when the rest of the entry is being kept. That's mind-boggling silliness. DonnanZ (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I have added references, and it's in my Oxford hard copy ("a practice of the emergency procedures to be used in case of fire"), so it's definitely dictionary material. DonnanZ (talk) 10:06, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we are different from other dictionaries. Regardless of other dictionaries, Wiktionary simply does not allow SOP terms. Notice that, for instance, we don't have Internet meme, though I'm sure many online dictionaries have this probably. standardized test is probably also in a lot of dictionaries. It's not "mind-boggling silliness" to delete the sense; in fact, since fire drill is so commonly used to refer to the school drill, I suggested above that we replace the definition with an &lit. And you just said " I don't see the point in deleting it when the rest of the entry is being kept. That's mind-boggling silliness." So basically you're saying that all rfd-sense situations are wrong. I don't understand this at all. PseudoSkull (talk) 21:02, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I have struck the offending sentence. The truth of the matter is that dictionaries can't call themselves dictionaries unless so-called SoP terms are included, not even Wiktionary. A lot of terms don't lend themselves to be compounded (though some users seem to think otherwise, and Wiktionary contains a lot of ghastly compound words). A check of derived terms for fire proves this point. So you can't delete every SoP entry. DonnanZ (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

No actually other dictionaries don't see to have "internet meme" and "standardized test". Both dictionary.com and merriam-webster don't have entries for those, while both have a fire drill entry. 2602:306:3653:8440:B979:122F:5C44:E2AD 12:15, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

• Keep. Ƿidsiþ 16:25, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

It would be silly to remove it altogether. Changing it to an &lit, as suggested, seems okay to me. Equinox ◑ 13:32, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

• Keep. Both dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster have entries for "fire drill" http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fire-drill?s=t https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fire%20drill Neither dictionaries even mention any other use of the term beside the practice to prepare someone in case there's a fire. 2602:306:3653:8440:B979:122F:5C44:E2AD 17:55, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Does WT:COALMINE apply to individual senses? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I suppose it would. DCDuring (talk) 22:40, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

• Keep as per DonnanZ. Morgengave (talk) 00:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
• Keep Purplebackpack89 18:12, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Keep using the lemming heuristic: the sense is present e.g. in M-W[3]; see also “fire drill”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. I prefer to keep the sense as is, without &lit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Keep and add earthquake drill and possibly others. -WF

• Keep. There are several senses of both fire and drill, and three different words drill. "Exercise to prepare for a fire" is sum-of-parts, but so is "rotating bit used to start a fire", and someone who doesn't know which parts to sum might come up with "monkey of genus Mandrillus who shoots a cannon" or "flame-retardant barrier made of a certain fabric". PierreAbbat (talk) 09:16, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
• RFD kept per above consensus. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:54, 6 August 2017 (UTC)