Talk:make new friends, but keep the old
Latest comment: 8 years ago by BD2412 in topic RFD discussion: June–July 2015
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It's a line from a song. The meaning is self-evident. Equinox ◑ 03:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
- Delete. Transparent. bd2412 T 14:08, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
- Is transparency a requirement for an expression to be a proverb? DCDuring TALK 01:53, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- Usually the other way round...? "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is proverbial and metaphorical, but "don't stake everything on a single outcome" would just be SoP advice. Equinox ◑ 01:57, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- What makes the following sayings, taken from w:Proverb where they are offered as examples of proverbs, proverbs? They just look like advice to me.
- Usually the other way round...? "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is proverbial and metaphorical, but "don't stake everything on a single outcome" would just be SoP advice. Equinox ◑ 01:57, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- Is transparency a requirement for an expression to be a proverb? DCDuring TALK 01:53, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- Haste makes waste
- Ignorance is bliss
- Fortune favours the bold
- Well begun is half done
- A little learning is a dangerous thing
- It is better to be smarter than you appear than to appear smarter than you are
- Good things come to those who wait
- A dog is a man's best friend
- Honesty is the best policy
- Slow and steady wins the race
- I don't think metaphors or lack of transparency are essential for something to be a proverb. It may be that we have nothing that would say that an SoP proverb should be kept, but it would seem that we are thereby guaranteeing that our coverage of proverbs will be incomplete in a way that may be a little hard to justify to normal users. DCDuring TALK 03:19, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- To some extent I think that these tend to be set phrases, so that saying them out of order or with substituted words is recognizable as an error (for example, "waste is made by haste", or "truthfulness is the best policy"). In this case, I doubt that the phrase is "set" enough that if someone said "make new friends, but don't lose the old", they would find themselves being corrected. bd2412 T 03:28, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think most of these are set phrases, unless by 'set phrase' one means a phrase that accepts synonyms for words in the phrase.
- "A thing well started in half done"
- "Better to be smarter than you look that to look smarter than you are"
- "[[[all] [good]] things|everything] come to one [who|that] waits"
- "A dog is child's best friend"
- "The best policy is honesty"
- "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
- "Slow but sure wins the race"
- If "setness" isn't absolute (and it is rarely so) the if it doesn't have some kind of quantitative criterion that is supportable or accepted, then it just seems like a crutch, and a weak one at that. DCDuring TALK 04:30, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
- I would assume that there must be some kind of quantitative criterion underscoring the sense that people have that a proverb is not being said right. Looking back at the discussion, I'm not sure what the objection to my initial comment was. I supported deletion on the grounds that the phrase was transparent. You replied "Is transparency a requirement for an expression to be a proverb?" which is the opposite of my proposition; absence of transparency is what typically makes a proverb dictionary material. I don't know if you misread my comment, or were merely making a tangential point, but I think that a proverb that is not transparent should indeed be shown to be fairly consistently set to merit inclusion. bd2412 T 15:38, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
- I think that a proverb is certainly a "set phrase" within the incredibly broad definition we typically apply to expressions we favor or, more properly, it is a construction with some flexibility.
- That an expression is considered a proverb, IMO, enhances its lexical value. In this case, there are a fairly large of number of joint occurrences of "proverb" with the exact wording of this expression at Google Books. We have never even agreed on quantitative criteria for 'common' in common misspellings, so this more difficult realm also falls short in that regard.
- We certainly do not treat SoPitude as a knockout factor for multiword expressions. We include expressions that are otherwise perfectly transparent if they have a discourse function. Use as a proverb seems to me to be a use of an expression beyond its simple meaning. It is intended to suggest a principle that has some authority be virtue of its having become a set phrase, one that the hearer might recognize as one previously heard, once reminded by the speaker. In addition there would be a 'phrasebook' rationale, if we actually had a phrasebook. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
- Is this a proverb? Is there a rule by which we can determine when a phrase passes from being commonly repeated SoP good advice to the elevated status of proverbdom? Should we be adding things like don't eat the yellow snow? bd2412 T 03:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
- As I wrote above: "In this case, there are a fairly large of number of joint occurrences of "proverb" with the exact wording of this expression at Google Books." DCDuring TALK 03:46, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
- Is this a proverb? Is there a rule by which we can determine when a phrase passes from being commonly repeated SoP good advice to the elevated status of proverbdom? Should we be adding things like don't eat the yellow snow? bd2412 T 03:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
- I would assume that there must be some kind of quantitative criterion underscoring the sense that people have that a proverb is not being said right. Looking back at the discussion, I'm not sure what the objection to my initial comment was. I supported deletion on the grounds that the phrase was transparent. You replied "Is transparency a requirement for an expression to be a proverb?" which is the opposite of my proposition; absence of transparency is what typically makes a proverb dictionary material. I don't know if you misread my comment, or were merely making a tangential point, but I think that a proverb that is not transparent should indeed be shown to be fairly consistently set to merit inclusion. bd2412 T 15:38, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
- As per DCDuring's search above, we have reports that this is a proverb, but is it really a proverb? If it is, why are all the occurrences in 19th century as part of a song? What are the citations of this in use (is really a RFV question, but anyway)? --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
- I guess the song might be how the proverb became popular or, even, how it became a proverb. But thanks for the canard anyway. DCDuring TALK 11:24, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
- Delete per above discussion. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:17, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Deleted. bd2412 T 17:28, 23 July 2015 (UTC)