Talk:Root hog or die

2016 album release worth a mention?
http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/prod/VariousArtists-RootHogOrDie100Years,100Songs%28AnAlanLomaxCentennialTribute%29-Mississippi-106900.html

Root Hog Or Die 100 Years, 100 Songs (An Alan Lomax Centennial Tribute) (2016)

EDLIS Café 12:24, 6 February 2016 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by EdRicardo (talk • contribs)

Huge Slam on Mojo Nixon out of nowhere
Why is his album not mentioned? - Scarpy (talk) 05:45, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Corrected, by offering a hatnote on the top. I didn't see reason to put it in the article body, since there's no song with that title on the album. It's just an album title. Herostratus (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 19 April 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: page moved to Root hog or die (without commas) per Netoholic. (closed by non-admin page mover) GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 19:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Root hog, or die → Root, hog, or die – The difference is a comma after "root". I'll explain my reasoning in a comment below. Herostratus (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

N.B.: the meaning of the idiom is "Hey there you hog: either root or die" ("root" meaning "grub for food in the earth with your snout" as pigs do).

OK, so this is a hard one, with subtle shades of meaning in play. Here's my rationale: There is no perfect solution here, let's see if we can get to the least bad one. So, there are four possible titles, all the same except for commas: So, we need to look at what sources say, what our style guide says, and what is the best title for quickly communicating to the reader what the idiom means.
 * 1) Root hog or die (no commas)
 * 2) Root hog, or die (one comma, after "hog" -- this is the current title)
 * 3) Root, hog or die (one comma, after "root")
 * 4) Root, hog, or die (two commas -- this is the proposed new title)

Alright, sources. In the article body, 1854 song has "Root hog or die" (no commas). The 1856 song has "Root, hog, or die" (two commas). The 1858 song has "Root hog or die" (no commas). The Civil War song has "Root, hog, or die" (two commas). The 1911 song has "Root hog or die" (no commas). The Woodie Guthrie song has "Root, hog & die" (one comma, after "root", but he also uses "and" instead of "or" which kind of muddies the issue). The June Carter Cash 1950 song has "Root, hog, or die" (two commas). In the refs, the Davy Crockett book has "Root, hog or die" (one comma, after "root").

Quick look outside the articles give me "Root, little pig, or die" and"Root hog or die poor". This one surveys a few sources and I see all three versions...

I wouldn't take any of this too strongly. First of all, for formatting (rather than content) we rely mostly on our style guides rather then whatever style guide the source is using (if a source says "April 8th" we still write "April 8"). Probably not much thought went into exactly what commas to put in it when people wrote it. In the Crockett book, probably some editor put the commas in where he thought best, and so on. So, what sources do is not nothing, but I wouldn't give too much weight to it.

To the extent that we want to look at sources: if you deprecated Guthrie's song because the "and" gives a different meaning, it seems that either two commas or no commas is mostly used but the one-comma version is also in play.

And then, our style guide. MOS:OXFORD is the operative rule. It says that, in cases of ambiguity, to recast the sentence if possible. We can't, since its a quoted idiom (If we could, "Root or die, you hog" would do the trick I guess). Other than that, it only says to use either "Root, hog, or die" or "Root, hog or die" as you like, as long as the article is internally consistent). So no useful guidance there.

And then, what is clearest. There's no perfect answer, but in my opinion:
 * 1) "Root, hog or die" devolves to "(root)(hog or die)" which doesn't communicate the meaning or even make sense. It would be correct under an Oxford-comma rubric. But that's not a rule here. Oxford comma is controversial and is not prescribed here.
 * 2) "Root hog, or die" devolves to "(root hog) or (die)" which doesn't communicate the meaning or even make sense. And it doesn't even use the Oxford comma. (This worst version is the current title.)
 * 3) "Root hog or die" kind of leaves it up to the reader. At least it doesn't give wrong guidance. It's kind of an usual construction. We don't say "Eat Panda or shoot" or "Play Bobby or sit" and so forth.
 * 4) Root, hog, or die" devolves to "(root)(hog) or (die)" which at least can be interpreted correctly. (However, in addition to meaning "root, you hog, or else die" it could be interpreted as "root, or hog, or die" which even makes sense (root for food, or hog the food you do have, or die).

So, no perfect answer. WP:MOS punts. Sources (if they matter) tell us to use no commas or two. Grammatical sense also tells us to use no commas or two. Either is fine -- I have proposed the two-comma version, but the no-comma version would be fine also. But the current version with one comma is not supported. So, taken all together...

Support as proposer, altho a version with no commas would be acceptable also. Herostratus (talk) 17:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. For RS, I remembered Bill Bryson mentions this in The Mother Tongue, and a quick WP search for "root hog or die bryson" confirms this, but I can't find my copy at the moment. 62.165.198.73 (talk) 03:57, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Root hog or die - this phrase has a tremendous number of presentation variations but the meaning is roughly "Hog: go root (for food) or die." The most correct presentation would communicate this without misleading, and for that there are only two options - "Root, hog, or die" and "Root hog or die". I've chosen to support the no-comma version as more modern sources seem to skew towards it (becoming more idiomatic and less explicit in meaning in a way like "God be with you" transformed into "goodbye"), and its just plainly more WP:CONCISE. I am fine with OP's proposal as second preference. -- Netoholic @ 06:27, 21 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.