Talk:Make one's bones

Similar to the phrase Gone to Texas I feel that the phrase someone "made my(his/her/their) bones", (see below *) is a significant and notable phrase in modern U.S. American English language.

Personally I've read and heard it used in various U.S. American media so often that I wanted to know, and share, its apparent roots here in Wiki.

To the best of my knowledge and research it's popular usage originated from the Novels referenced.

I am a Wiki novice and still learning so I don't know if the apparent source and growth of a particular U.S. American English phrase such as this one or Gone to Texas is absolutely appropriate for an article in Wikipedia.

If my further reading and research about Wiki and this phrase convinces me that this article is solidly inappropriate for Wikipedia I will support the deletion of this article also.

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 * While google searches are not conclusive in and of themselves, they can be somewhat of a measure of the usage of a phrase:

On 2010.05.05 at about 13:15 CST the following hit counts were observed using google:

"made my bones" 632,000 overall, 1,400 books

"made his bones" 750,000 overall, 2,380 books

"made her bones" 363,000 overall, 989 books

"made their bones" 237,000 overall, 470 books

As a comparison I relate the above phrases to another, older, and somewhat more regional phrase "gone to Texas" Gone to Texas which does have a current Wiki page and here are the google results:

65,200 overall, 12,100 books

Donarnold (talk) 18:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

OK. Right now I have updated the page to reflect the structure of the G.T.T. page, added references to popular/current usages, and tried to clean up the text.

I'm not completely certain that the page name/title "Bones_(The_Godfather)" is the best way to present and/or locate this information as it seems to speak more of a literary/cinematic view than a popular usage one.

If anyone reads this discussion page please toss in any helpful/useful/positive/constructive ideas, etc. Thanks. Don

Donarnold (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Howdy! I was the one who originally proposed this article for deletion. I see you're making a very good faith effort to make this a good article, so I'm holding off on any further action for now and am instead going to offer a few tips. The difference between this article and Gone to Texas is that GTT is a very specific phrase with a specific place in history. "Bones" is a less specific bit of expression. There is the definition in this article, there is also to "make no bones" about something, there is also the "bone" one has to "pick" with someone, etc. etc. That's one concern. Secondly, the title is certainly a problem (the Godfather bit), but you've noted that already. I'm not sure that's very easy to fix. Basically, I think you've done seriously sterling work improving this from where it was, so I'm definitely hesitant about bringing it to Articles for Deletion, which is a more complex process where editors discuss the merits of an article before an administrator determines consensus and keeps, deletes, merges, whatever, the article. You're definitely on the right path looking at other existing articles and trying to match their structure, content, etc., so big kudos on that. My concern is that GTT and "Bones" are fundamentally different, in terms of their specific meaning and their historical notability. However, that's just my opinion, it's not necessarily right. See if you can find another article to work off of, or some more definitive sourcing (rather than just in-context usage). Apologies for babbling, brevity's not a strong suit of mine. Cheers! :) ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  03:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)