Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daffynition

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. No objection to merging, which is out of the scope of AFD. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Daffynition (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Unreferenced, no indication that this term is in significant currency and the external links are to an archived version of a self-published site and an apparently non-notable book, the title of which contains the term. Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As nominator, am now happy to go along with the direction of discussion to merge to Word play. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Joke definitions are a thing; this isn't. Delete. Hyperbolick (talk) 15:34, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Keep - a quick google check indicates ample references to the BBC radio show where the term originated. Is still a well-known term to people of an older generation in the UK. The main reason for deletion seems to be "I don't recognise it, therefore it doesn't exist". Ignorance is not a basis for running the encyclopedia. Manning (talk) 06:13, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The term "daffynition" is not used by I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, let alone originating it. The round in question is, as stated, "Uxbridge English Dictionary", though originally termed "New Meanings". FWIW, I have been a listener to the show for at least 35 years, have attended recordings of it and had never heard this term being coined. Neither is it used in the associated UED book. Source your claims, if you can.

    The ghits that I get are either mirrors of this article or a couple apparently misinformed by it. Neither of them are clearly WP:RSs.

    I'm not familiar with the process of adding Afds to categorised deletion discussions. If someone can add this to an appropriate one (say "radio"?), it might notify others familiar with ISIHAC. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:55, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • The irony of talking about ignorance in relation to an idea that pre-dates a 1970s radio programme by at least three decades if not more, is not lost. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 15:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• M. Lunker's problem is exemplified by ISBN 9789401210447 p.222, which cites this Wikipedia article as its source, and seems to have not understood the article. However, the real problem is associating this with a U.K. radio show in the first place. Try treating that as completely spurious, some late-to-the-party bandwagon jumping from 2005, and looking for sources that document a type of humour, as indeed Esar 1978 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFEsar1978 (help), an encyclopaedia, does. You can find stuff here and there, including a public speaking guide, going back to the 1950s. Herbert V. Prochnow uses, but does not define, the idea in his 1942 Public Speaker's Treasure Chest. This points to further areas of research. Uncle G (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Esar, Evan (1978). "daffynition". The Comic Encyclopedia: A Library of the Literature and History of Humor Containing Thousands of Gags, Sayings, and Stories. Doubleday. p. 198. ISBN 9780385062053.
• Delete Merge to Word play - changed my !vote, merge is a much better idea per WP:NEO - an article about a particular term "must cite what reliable secondary sources say about the term or concept, not just sources that use the term" - Epinoia (talk) 16:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Seems to be somewhat of a thing, with 21,000+ hits on newspapers.com (most from 1940s–1970s) and 47 hits on WorldCat. Examples from here and there:
  • "DAFFYNITION A blend of 'daffy' and 'definition,' usually applied to juvenile levels of comic lexicology. Slang and wordplay like splitting are often the elements of such elementary wit. Examples: Popcorn—Father's jokes. Checkmate—the girl you marry for her money. Illegal—a sick bird. Mandate—a male escort." -- Esar, Evan (1978). The Comic Encyclopedia: A Library of the Literature and History of Humor Containing Thousands of Gags, Sayings, and Stories. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 198. ISBN 0-385-06205-2.
  • "Daffynition. Some waggish genius once defined hootenanny as what you get when you cross an owl with a goat, and another verbathlete defined relief as 'what trees do each spring.' Punderful definitions like these take a fresh approach to the sounds and meanings of words. You won't find such entries in dictionaries, only in fictionaries, but they do have a name—daffynitions." Lederer, Richard (2012). Amazing Words. Portland, Oregon: Marion Street Press. ISBN 978-1-936863-30-3.
  • "Another category of puns is the so-called daffynition, in which daffy definitions give everyday words new meaning." -- Pollack, John (2011). The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language... New York: Gotham Books. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-592-40623-4.
  • "...the attribution of a new meaning to an already existing word, giving rise to the so-called daffynitions." -- Dynel, Marta (September 2009). "Beyond a Joke: Types of Conversational Humour". Language and Linguistics Compass. 3 (5): 1287. doi:10.1111/j.1749-818X.2009.00152.x.
  • "A daffynition takes the form of a definition, but uses components of the word to create a humorous meaning." -- Jay, M. Ellen (1988). Teaching Thinking Skills: The Role of the Media Specialist. International Association of School Librarianship: 17th Annual Conference Proceedings. Kalamazoo, Michigan. p. 67.
  • "I am an aspiring writer of 'daffynitions,' those clever (and hopefully amusing) little definitions you find at the bottom of this page in the 'Pepper . . . and Salt' column...." -- Kapur, Vipen (17 March 1998). "Confessions of a 'Daffynitionist'". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 September 2019.

--Phleg1 (talk) 01:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - there's good sources attesting to the term's use from 1978 to 2019, so it's not a neoplasm (pun intended). Bearian (talk) 13:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Further to my previous vote, if kept it all, move to joke definition. Hyperbolick (talk) 00:04, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• keep subject has good, steady coverage as shown above by Phleg, and Mutt. WP:PERSISTENCE is achieved. —usernamekiran(talk) 01:34, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into word play. People have been making amusing definitions for centuries; for example, Johnson's "a harmless drudge". As the versions and variations of this are not exact, it seems best to consolidate them into a broad topic, per WP:DICDEF which states "In Wikipedia, things are grouped into articles based on what they are, not what they are called by." Andrew D. (talk) 18:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• keep As per sources showed by Phleg and Mutt wikipedia basic notability guidelines are fullfilled. Zinzhanglee (talk) 10:00, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Blocked sock. MER-C 16:51, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to word play. A dictionary definition followed by a bunch of random examples isn't an article, but this would fit well there in context. Reywas92^Talk 01:26, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Interesting points on both sides but I think Phleg has established notability. - Ret.Prof (talk) 14:05, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: BTW I enjoyed the article. - Ret.Prof (talk) 14:09, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.