Talk:table scrap

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table scrap

¶ I had a soupçon someone would attempt to get this deleted, so here I am. Could this be interpreted as sum‐of‐parts? --Pilcrow 22:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

• Well, I suppose that (deprecated template usage) scrap could be interpreted as a fight. Anyway, I have never heard of this term. RfV? SemperBlotto 08:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

It's the small pieces of food left over on your plate that you would throw away, shove down the disposal, or sneak to your doggy.Lucifer 08:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Widespread use. Not a set phrase or idiom. A mere collocation. Picnic scraps would be attestable, for example. But many seem to believe that all attestable collocations should be, some (eg, SB) restricting inclusion to collocations involving polysemic components. No OneLook reference has this.

Scrap in this sense can be found in many phrases of the form "NP scrap(s)". The NP can be a food that constitutes the scrap(s) or a place or event that may be the source of the scrap(s). A near synonym is scraping(s). DCDuring TALK 16:47, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

In this situation, I'd favor keeping it, since table scrap refers to leftover food, and not to junked bits of a table. The combination "table scrap" could have more than one possible meaning, but only one is usually intended. Additionally, table scrap is an exact synonym of one sence of scrap, just as ice hockey is a synonym of one sense of hockey. The additional word does not add any meaning to the definition that was not there before, so it isn't really an extra word (since it lacks independent meaning in the collocation), but the additional word does clarify which sense is intended. --EncycloPetey 17:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The principle on which your argument relies are a poor basis for making replicable decisions about inclusion. The first argument applies to all phrases including at least one polysemic terms. Thus it puts us on the wrong side of a combinatorial explosion of potential entries, given the poor quality of our entries for single words, despite having the benefit of copyright-free dictionaries for all basic words and many others, including some not yet included. In addition polysemy is an artifact of the care with which we (or anyone) subdivide meaning in words. Does head have 10 or 100 senses? Does barometer have one, two, three, or ten senses?

The second argument (if it is not an observation) just seems wrong. The sense of scrap that appears in table scrap is the same sense that appears in picnic scrap or kitchen scrap. A picnic scrap, for example, could be from a blanket as well as a table and a kitchen scrap' from a counter. Butcher scraps would be from a chopping block. The same sense also appears with NPs referring to the type of food in which "table" is potentially completely irrelevant.

This kind of discussion also illustrates the somewhat arbitrary nature of what one calls a "sense". DCDuring TALK 18:15, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The second point was indeed observation more than argument, but your reply is not error-free. In fact kitchen scrap does not always refer to food in the quotations I'm finding:

• Boys' Life - Oct 1976

  Kitchen Scrap. Here's a way to recycle kitchen throwaways such as popsicle sticks, disposable ice-cream spoons, and soda straws.

The combination "kitchen scrap" (as food bits) seems to be more British, whereas "table scrap" is more used in the US.

In any case, "table scrap" does appear in crossword dictionaries, FWIW, even if not in the OneLook sources. --EncycloPetey 19:40, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I never said that kitchen scrap meant only food. Another use of scrap is to refer to materials of any kind by their source. "Foundry scrap", "picnic scraps", "household scraps", "factory scrap". DCDuring TALK 20:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting variation:

• 1911, C.A. Rogers, "Raising Chickens-The Principles Involved", Agriculture of Vermont, p. 97:

  The domestic chick must be given the animal food in some concentrated form also, such as meat scrap, meat meal, milk or buttermilk; the latter alone, however, will not provide enough protein to properly balance the ration. It can be supplemented with table scrap or meat scraps. DCDuring TALK 20:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

This seems to suggest a meaning that is, at least, exclusive of meat scraps. bd2412 T 18:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Maybe meat scraps are only scraps of meat, while table scraps are scraps of anything (possibly including meat) from a table. Equinox ◑ 18:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. DCDuring TALK 20:29, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The second sense should be verified, it seems to be the sense justifying inclusion. Lmaltier 18:39, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

How about this: 2008, Kim Powers, Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story, p. 3:

She was not a retiring woman, about to roll over and accept table scraps.

Cheers! bd2412 T 03:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look very SoP to me, for example it's not a scrap of a table (a bit of wood or metal or plastic). But having never heard of the term, I will decline to make further comment. --Mglovesfun (talk) 18:55, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Taking an example from close at hand (BD2412's cite), "retiring woman" could have any of a few meanings (referring to personality, relationship to employment, specific activity with respect to a vehicle or other machine, an occupation} depending on context, though the personality one tends to be the most common sense and probably the default. If I build an entry around one of them, wouldn't it be necessarily included by your logic? DCDuring TALK 20:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's fair to draw a comparison between those, since retiring is a participle instead of an attributive noun. I wouldn't apply Mglovesfun's rationale except in a [N + N] combination. I'm not arguing for full and unmitigated validity of the reasoning in all such cases, but I agree with the principle of his reasoning. --EncycloPetey 17:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that the context of the phrase as used in the sentence I cited can be gleaned by reading the surrounding text more broadly. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:27, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Kept. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 21:44, 12 August 2012 (UTC)