Talk:gutter

Don't candles also gutter? Rklawton 20:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes! Duly added. Widsith 21:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Spiffy! Rklawton 23:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

In reading the various definitions, I see nothing that actually describes the illustration. Yet the illustration does comprise one of the meanings of this word. Any civil engineers want to take a stab at this? Rklawton 16:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

One who guts

What do you call someone who guts, for example, a fish? A fish gutter? Hence one who guts. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:33, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion: September 2013–June 2014

Sense 1: "A ditch along the side of a road."

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gutter

Rfv-sense: "A ditch along the side of a road."

It is possible that this is true, but I've never heard the word used this way. Of course, I'm just a city-and-suburbs boy and would call such a ditch a ditch, limiting gutter to the low bit, usually next to a curb. Is it UK? The image exactly fits my understanding of the term, though the image alone does not convey the meaning. DCDuring TALK 13:56, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• Not really a ditch; but it's the part that collects rainwater from the street's camber and directs it to the nearest drain. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Basically it's due to the camber of the road. But this is sense #1 "A low area, especially by the side of a road adjacent to a curb, to carry off water." so it does need verifying; if this does exist it needs citations. Not quite sure how to achieve that since they will likely support #1 and #2 at the same time, where #1 definitely exists. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

It would take an unusual citation, certainly. But a "ditch along the side of the road" is not the same as a good definition of gutter. The new def 1 allows for the gutter to be distinct from the road, rather than part of it, which, on reflection, seems wrong. I'll reword def 1 unless someone thinks that's wrong. DCDuring TALK 17:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• Joe and his friends were going home after the pub closed. They saw the headlights of a vehicle. They all jumped into the gutter, squatted in it until the vehicle drove passed them. If you read the whole passage it is quite clear they are hiding in the gutter, which rules out the camber of the road. May be limited to Africa (the book is set in Sierra Leone). SpinningSpark 18:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
• ...otherwise known as the ditch that ran beside the road. (Japan)
• Culverts are generally to be preferred to open cross drains, sometimes called gutters... (US, 1839) SpinningSpark 18:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

That (ie, Sierra Leone) looks like a second, somewhat ambiguous cite, with the one already in the entry. Some gutters have been used for sanitary sewage and are usually deeper. I'm used to paving, but hard-packed dirt, presumably the same as the principal surface of an accompanying road, might also be an adequate surface for drainage. DCDuring TALK 18:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, the cites don't really belong here. They belong in the entry. Our new sense-id links get us to the relevant sense. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm putting them here for discussion, I'm still not sure what's going on with this entry. I don't see how you can think the Sierra Leonne quote is ambiguous. The meaning is plain if the whole page is read. SpinningSpark 18:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• They must have thought they were going to get broadsided, because in their panic, they backed across the road into the gutter, and there they sat, stuck. (US) SpinningSpark 18:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Ditch: "a long narrow excavation dug in the earth (as for drainage)".

How could one tell that the gutter referred to in the citations was a "ditch". The Japan citation is not consistent with that as a car wheel is unlikely to get stuck in a dirt channel, it would be hard to characterize a dirt channel as being just a bit wider than a car tire (as a narrow dirt channel usually forms a V), a direct channel is unlikely to be covered with movable plates, etc. The Sierra Leone citation provides almost no information about the configuration of the gutter relative to the road. The 1838 US citation refers to a cross gutter, which is not consistent with my sense of the word and the definitions, which seem to have the gutter run in the same direction as whatever reference surface may be mentioned. The US citation explicitly refers to ditches for drainage by the side of the road, apparently not integral with the principal surface of the road. DCDuring TALK 19:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I would say the The Sierra Leone cite can be read as a ditch from context. The fact that they hide in it for one thing. For another, it's Sierra Leone so hardly likely to be something high tech. If that's not enough, elsewhere in the book we have Joe and salieu were digging a gutter to drain the water settling round the house. Which while not connected with a road at least shows the author is means gutter=ditch in this work. It is asking a lot for a quote which uses the word in this sense and immediately follows it with a dicdef. SpinningSpark 22:14, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I have tried to word sense 1 to include the full range of such possibilities. I think that it would even include the "gutter to drain the water settling round the house". DCDuring TALK 00:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

It never hurts to have citations on the Citations page, even (or especially) if they don't exactly fit existing definitions or are ambiguous. Our definitions are not timeless unchanging bits of perfection, in case you hadn't noticed. That a citation is not a good illustration of current definitions should remind us that most usage does not really support very elaborate definitions. DCDuring TALK 19:32, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I can't be asked to spend time nicely formatting cites for an entry you might decide to delete. SpinningSpark 22:14, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Citations should always be retained, as they always give clues about some aspect of meaning, even when they do not support a particular definition. For example, I found a citation referring to a single gutter in the middle of a street in Paris. This would seem to have a bearing on the challenged sense referring to a gutter as being an area of a road intended for traffic, suggesting that the "traffic" element is probably incidental, though surprising to those familiar only with modern two-channel road design with camber and curb. The cross-gutter cite would compel us to make sure we do not exclude such a gutter configuration. Using the templates like {{quote-book}} makes it relatively painless to achieve pretty formatting by cutting and pasting from the google search page, deleting the extraneous, and adding tags like "title=", "year=", etc. DCDuring TALK 22:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think that the citations that support the idea of an unpaved gutter also show that such a gutter is intended for drainage (possibly of sewage, BTW). That would argue for combining sense 2 and sense 1, eliminating any mention of paving or curbs in the main definition, relegating them to an "especially". Also a gutter could be in the center of a road or run across it. "Channel" may give too specific an idea, but I can't think of a better common word. DCDuring TALK 22:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
• I think this is just an expansion of the bowling-derived sense. Soap (talk) 02:08, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

  How do you know that the bowling sense isn't derived from the ditch sense? SpinningSpark 14:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps he's joking. DCDuring TALK 15:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Passed. There are more than enough uses seemingly supporting this sense. If anyone thinks they are not really for this sense, use WT:RFD. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:49, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Sense 2: "The part of a street meant for vehicles."

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gutter

Rfv-sense: "The part of a street meant for vehicles."

There are two cites, one of which seems to clearly support this definition, the other being ambiguous. Two more? DCDuring TALK 15:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Rfv-sense: Adjective: "Suitable for the gutter; vulgar, disreputable."

AFAIK, this is the figurative sense of the noun, which is used attributively. I don't think it is gradable or comparable or is used as a predicate. DCDuring TALK 21:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the adjective, this occurred to me too. But how would we define the noun? If it's a noun that's only used attributively, then perhaps it's just an uncomparable adjective instead. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

You can choose from the two adjoining senses, the one marked figurative which I added and the pre-existing one, which I had overlooked. One of the usage examples shows a use, fairly common in the US, as a substantive. We don't need both of the senses. DCDuring TALK 17:10, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

A gutter can be in the middle of the street. I don’t think either quotation unambiguously supports the given definition. —Michael Z. 2013-09-17 15:28 z

It seems to me that some contributor was struck by the usage with traffic and made that fact the center element of a definition, whereas it seems to me to be a consequence of a certain configuration of street-drainage design. Such a configuration is sufficiently far from my normal experience that I forgot that I have seen gutters that run in the middle of a street and transverse to the flow of traffic, as at an intersection. Perhaps I would/should have RfDed it instead, because it is a poor definition, building on a non-essential aspect of some gutters. DCDuring TALK 12:54, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Both senses failed. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:49, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Adjective: of the worst kind

Of the most vulgar, corrupt, or morally degraded kind (disapproving) --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:29, 22 September 2020 (UTC)