Talk:water powers

Deletion discussion

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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.

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water powers

The main entry for water power says it's uncountable, which is correct in my opinion. Donnanz (talk) 10:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete per nom. DCDuring TALK 15:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Keep. Water power is countable. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what sources you're looking at. Power can be countable or uncountable, depending on the sense. In this sense it's uncountable. Donnanz (talk) 20:27, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

google books:"water powers". — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that in some cases it's water rights that are being referred to, rather than the use of water to provide power, whether it's a watermill or a hydroelectric power station. It seems that the water rights sense may be American and Canadian. Donnanz (talk) 20:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

We have identified a conceptual problem that apparently affects how we want to present things on the inflection line. The sense of water power that is countable is the unidiomatic countable one of power (legal) with respect to water or waters. That is not in the entry, as Donnanz correctly observes, nor, IMO, should it be. Our custom is to insert a 'definition' line "Used other than as an idiom: see water, power". If we take that kind of definition (too) seriously, we might say it forces us to should water power as both countable and uncountable. I don't think we do take those pseudo-definitions seriously in that way. We might be better off to move the pseudo-definition to Usage notes rather than subtract meaning from the inflection line. We could also make the case for removing any discussion of countability from the inflection line, but that would have to be at the cost of inserting un/countability labels before every single English noun definition, well more than 100K of them.

In any event, the definition of water powers as given is incorrect. I would venture that a correct definition would be SoP. We can always RfV it, the result being almost certain deletion, though with a delay and at the cost of some effort. DCDuring TALK 20:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure? Many of the hits for water powers are about the generation of electricity. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:01, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

RFV not RFD matter? Renard Migrant (talk) 21:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@ Ungoliant: That may be referring to the granting of powers for the use of water for power generation. It gets confusing. Also it may be plural only in that sense. Donnanz (talk) 21:21, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It is tedious to search through the citations as many are not of "water" "powers" consecutively despite the use of "water powers" in quotes as the search term. Of those that are, many are not in any related sense. But some are indeed countable uses of water power, apparently referring to a site where there is a head capable of generating power, often just a simple water wheel. The use seems to be dated or archaic.

Of the 26 instances of water powers at COHA, only two are published after 1928, one a short story by Mark Twain apparently republished in 1988, another in a 1944 article quote a letter written to Mark Twain (d. 1910) about water-power rights. It does not appear in BNC. It occurs once in COCA in an academic article apparently discussing water-power rights in Canada c. 1944. Thus it should be labeled dated, I think. DCDuring TALK 22:27, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

move to rfv. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep water power in the sense of hydropower is uncountable. Water power in the sense of world power is countable. Purplebackpack89 15:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 04:08, 3 February 2015 (UTC)