Talk:garage door opener

RFD discussion: June–September 2023

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

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.

---

garage door opener

The fact that this is electronic doesn't make it idiomatic, AFAICT. Mummsetter (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• Leaning keep. You could hire a person to stand by your garage door and manually crank it open when you approach, but a garage door opener will still be a handheld gizmo ensconced in some easily accessible place in your car. bd2412 T 12:25, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Update: I looked up the Wikipedia article, garage door opener, and was surprised that it was about the internal mechanism that lifts the door, rather than the handheld gizmo (which I have always heard called a "garage door opener"). I think some distinguishing senses are needed. bd2412 T 13:24, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
• Delete This is clearly SOP as garage + door opener, irrespective of whether it's SOP as garage + door + opener (to which I'd also be inclined to say yes) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Possibly garage door + opener. PUC – 18:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  ... is garage door also SOP? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Pppery: Imo yes, but see Talk:garage door. Though I'm less convinced now than I was when I nominated the entry. PUC – 19:14, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• Keep. Refers to a specific type of device. Just because the name is self-explanatory doesn't mean it's SOP. Nardog (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
• Abstain. PUC – 18:20, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
• Keep This is a specific technological device and invention of the 20th century, not a crank or butler. For me orally, it is not garage + door opener, it's garage door + opener. And what is an opener? 'Something that opens something'. That could be anything. Were there other openers at the time this device was invented? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 18:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Geographyinitiative: You've removed the alternative parsing "garage + door opener", but that's the one suggested by @Pppery above. Please discuss it with them and other native speakers. PUC – 19:07, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  I am quite certain it's "garage door" + "opener"! Equinox ◑ 19:10, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  I can see why, and Geographyinitiative's explanation in their edit summary makes sense to me, but can the other parsing be definitively excluded? Compare also sexual market value: is it sexual market + value or sexual + market value? PUC – 20:21, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  Here the potential ambiguity is resolved by using garage-door opener. Compare also this definition: "A garage door opener is a motorized device that opens and closes garage doors."^[1]  --Lambiam 14:05, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  It's a door opener for a garage door, and the specific technical details being proclaimed as differences appear to already be covered there. It being hyphenated as "garage-door opener" does not change that IMO transparent parsing, especially since I consider garage door to be SOP as well. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:11, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  It is "sexual + market value", since market value is a common long-standing phrase while sexual market is not at all. Equinox ◑ 13:11, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Equinox: Is it not? PUC – 13:25, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe you'd need to be a native speaker but it's just so obvious to me. Talk of the "sexual market" is mainly a modern thing (created by incels etc.) and quite possibly a back-formation from "sexual market value". Equinox ◑ 13:27, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

  That's likely. Isn't sexual market value also PUA/manosphere lingo, though? PUC – 13:49, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• I suppose the tin opener had already been invented, as well as the letter opener.  --Lambiam 13:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Lambiam: I suspect social openers may also have been current at that time. PUC – 14:02, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Kept. PUC – 13:38, 17 September 2023 (UTC)