Talk:wear down

Latest comment: 12 years ago by Equinox in topic wear down

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wear down edit

Rfd-redundant: To have one's long hair styled in a free, low-hanging, unencumbered style; i.e., not in an up-do or ponytail. / For her date, she wore her hair down.

Redundant to {{&lit}}: wear#Verb + down#Adverb (sense 2). DCDuring TALK 16:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, delete.​—msh210 (talk) 17:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
As far as I'm aware, this is never used without mentioning hair, so it's actually misleading not to delete. I find it quite odd though that hair can be worn in the same sense as clothing. Apparently in other languages accessories like purses and umbrellas are also "worn". DAVilla 08:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'd bet "hair" is the most common object, but I think this is (still?) a completely open construction. At COCA of the 16 instances of this sense of "wear" + "down" not followed by another locative, 14 involve hair, but 2 don't:
A Russian/trooper style cap works well in cold weather and earflaps can be worn up or down as temperatures dictate.
I wore my sleeves down, cuffs buttoned
I'm not sure how to interpret "wear X down below ...", "wear X down at ...", and similar constructions where X is not synonymous with "hair", which are abundant. DCDuring TALK 16:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
To clarify what I meant, nobody says "she's wearing down" to mean "she's wearing her hair down" i.e. if hair is the object then it's always identified. So this does not even mean what the marked definition claims. If it were idiomatic, this definition would be at wear one's hair down, or it would have to be broadened to incorporate other examples per DCDuring. Anyways I don't think it's idiomatic in the first place. DAVilla 06:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I think delete this. After all, one can wear one's hair :- up, down, long, short, straight, in curls, (put any adjective here). The problem seems to be, as DAVilla says, the unusual collocation of the verb wear with the noun hair. A case for making this collocation clear in the entry for hair. -- ALGRIF talk 20:55, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
RFD failed. Equinox 22:13, 17 July 2011 (UTC)Reply


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