Talk:Shrew (stock character)

Requested move 3 June 2015

 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. No agreement on subsequent suggestions either. Number  5  7  19:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Shrew (archetype) → Shrew (motif) – This is a motif. Archetype has [at least] four conflicting meanings, only one of which is essentially synonymous with motif, so it's not useful as a disambiguator (since it introduces its own ambiguity). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC) I therefore submit that the term and concept of "shrew" fails to meet any of the proposed qualifiers, and is most accurately described as an "archetype". - Boneyard90 (talk) 17:30, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support per nom's wise reasoning Red Slash 17:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose as motif is a disambiguation page so it is more ambiguous than archetype. Tassedethe (talk) 00:24, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not really. All of the creative-works meanings are really the same thing, just content-forked by medium (they could easily be merged into one article with sections, hint-hint), and all apply to the content of this article. All the other meanings of "motif" are highly specialized, and unlikely to be confused. By contrast, all of the meanings of "archetype" could theoretically apply to the "figure" of the shrew, but only one is actually within the scope of the article, and it's probably the least common meaning of "archetype".
 * Oppose the animal can also be used as a motif, just as any animal can be used as motifs -- 70.51.46.11 (talk) 06:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Why would that matter? Shrews in the animal sense are not a common motif in the arts, and so would not be an encyclopedic topic. Anything can be a subject of a creative work; few are traditional/stereotypical, cross-medium figures.  Even if we don't absolutely love "motif" as a disambiguator, it's better than "archetype", which is directly misleading, since the word most often refers to the Jungian sense, which has nothing to do with this article. Maybe some other word than "motif" will work (I thought of "trope", but the usage of that word as a synonym of "motif" is imprecise and neologistic).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:22, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Alternative proposal (by nom): Maybe "Shrew (stereotype)", then. Anything would be better than "archetype".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:22, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose original proposal, as per User: Tassedethe, and the AnonIP, who makes a distinctly salient point. - Boneyard90 (talk) 13:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose alternative proposal, as "anything would be better" is not a coherent argument, nor a logical justification, as it was just contradicted by opposition to the original proposal, therefore "anything" is not better than the current title. But, if further discussion is going to include the alternative proposal, I suggest a sub-sectional heading. - Boneyard90 (talk) 13:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't be over-literal. Did you have any actually reasoned opposition to the particular alternative proposal, or just this reflexive smart-aleck response?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you knew me, you would know that my response was not reflexive, I'm not being "smart-aleck", and it is reasoned. Don't get irritated with me because I hold you accountable for your own words. Perhaps you should begin, again, with why "stereotype" is an improvement over "archetype". Your alternative proposal did not make that clear, as I pointed out. - Boneyard90 (talk) 11:20, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not interested in a personality dispute. It seems to me it should be obvious to anyone familiar with English that "anything would be better" is an extremely well known, if rather arch, way of indicating "the status quo is especially bad, and there are multiple better alternatives". Now that I have explicitly clarified my meaning, there is nothing left to argue about, that could possibly be relevant to this RM discussion, with regard to that. Moving on. "Stereotype" is proposed as an alternative because (this seemed obvious to me) it's the wording used in the actual article. Have you ... read the article?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:47, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose as proposed. I'd be ok with Shrew (stock character), per other disambiguated titles in . --BDD (talk) 15:27, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes! Good idea. I'd wholeheartedly support that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:47, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose the qualifiers (stereotype) or (stock character), for the following reasons:
 * The nominator has still has not produced a coherent proposal in support of "stereotype", but rather uses insinuations to goad the reader into doing his work for him. Nevertheless, I will address the proposal anyway. A "stereotype" is much more limited and particular in scope than an archetype. The description of the term "shrew", as described in the article, does not fit the criteria as described in the article Stereotype. The term "shrew", as described here, is applied to multiple cultures, time-periods, and institutions. It is not applied to all women, only one specific type of woman. It is not used exclusively by one group (men) to define the "out-group" (women), but was rather recognized by both groups as one type of "social deviant" that had to be punished or corrected in some times and places. Therefore, I submit it does not fit the definition of "stereotype".
 * Next, a stock character is a stereotyped character in "literary tradition". As the article points out, a woman could be accused of being a shrew, which has had legal implications, thus a forum outside literature. Thus, it fails to meet the criteria of a "stock character". The concept of a "shrew" is more expansive than the label "stock character".


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Confused stub
The general English-language meaning of the word, in reference to disagreeable women, cannot be the main subject of the article, per WP:DICDEF. And what words used to mean in Middle English and Early Modern English is completely irrelevant to how we name articles here, and would not be the main subject, either (the fact that a word used be applied more broadly than it is today is not notable by itself). The legal meaning (which is actually not even about this word) has its own entire article, at Common scold, so it can't be the main subject of this article (and equating a legal term of art with some other thematically related word which is synonymous with one of the two words in the legal term is patent original research as well as illogical). That leaves only the storytelling meaning, which is a stock character, not an "archetype". That latter word has three meanings, only the least common of which is even applicable to this topic at all, so it fails WP:CRITERIA. A disambiguator that introduces another ambiguity cannot stand. It's easily and deeply sourceable that this is a stock character; as a "stereotype", all sources ultimately lead back to the stock character, and multiple dictionaries indicate that the word as a description of disagreeable women today (vs a label for the stock character) is archaic, which means that can't be main subject of the article either. To the extent that stereotype exists somehow independently of the stock character (good luck, anyone, sourcing that) it still wouldn't be the main topic, and might need to be some other article. I'm actually writing this into a real article, so this will all be moot soon, anyway. I'm just annotating here the issues I'm working to resolve, which seemed more practical than continuing back-and-forth in the fragmentary RM discussion above, when this "article" as it presently stands is basically a non-encyclopedic stub attempt at a WP:CONCEPTDAB, that is 1/4 DICDEF, 1/4 WP:CONTENTFORK, 1/4 trivia, and 1/4 notable topic that can be developed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I can also do that in a separate article and this can be worked into a real WP:CONCEPTDAB page, but I can't see any practical use for that. We don't write CONCEPTDABS when there're only two related concepts to disambiguate. There's no evidence the stereotype of disagreeable, nagging women is severable from the stock character, and even if it were, the title here for it wouldn't be "shrew", since that's no longer current English usage. Maybe "Battle-axe (stereotype)". But "archetype" is totally useless as a parenthetical disambiguator.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. But if you feel the subject needs more discussion, you may want to consider that to other editors, this may appear to be a WP:DEADHORSE. - Boneyard90 (talk) 00:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Why do you think I'm writing for your personal attention? Article talk pages are for discussions relating to article improvement, not for you to entertain yourself with sport debate. Did you have something productive to add or do, like actually write an article, maybe?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:03, 17 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You posted, I commented. The Talk page is for improvement of the article, as you point out; it is not a forum for you you to cry because your proposal didn't go through. And I'm being productive here by guarding against frivolous changes. But my role here isn't really your concern. - Boneyard90 (talk) 02:37, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What was that about dead horses? Sorry, I was busy writing article content.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:04, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 30 July 2015

 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 09:08, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Shrew (archetype) → Shrew (stock character) – This article, since development away from a WP:DICDEF stub in danger of deletion, is principally about the stock character and literary motif of the shrew. No reliable sources have been found after almost two months suggesting this is an "archetype" (except in the one definition of that word that is synonymous with "stock character or literary motif"). As "archetype" is most often used with much more restrictive meanings, that RS do not apply to this topic, it should be moved to an more accurate one, consistent with other stock character types. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 03:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment and question. Rather than being just about the character in literary works the page also contains information about the type of woman the term describes, how the word evolved, and its usage outside of the literary realm. Shakespeare and others made use of this common word in their literary works and thus further popularized it, but did not create the word itself and how people defined it. Even ole Samuel Johnson has his say. Leaning towards 'oppose' for those reasons but wanted to talk it out first. Randy Kryn 12:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's basically just background material. Even most of the language-related material ties it to a fictional/theatrical motif or stock character (what some people today incorrectly call a "trope" because of the popularity of the misnamed movietropes.com). None of these side topics are notable, encyclopedic topics by themselves. The one that is, and has its own article at Common scold, was not commonly called "shrew", just occasionally, and is there as a cross-reference. There is no reliable source for the idea that "shrews" are an objectively definable kind of person. WP:DICDEF militates against having articles on words that just provide definitions, so having an article just about the word wouldn't be a plausible origin and central content for this article (we do have some articles on word, but they're independently notable as words - there's reliably sourceable debate surrounding their usage in the English lexicon, as with fuck.) The primary, central topic of the article (even before I built it up from a stub) is the stock character and the rather fixed literary motifs that surround it (there's some additional material to add in this regard, quite a lot of it, but I've been taking a break from this article to work on weightier topics). Even if it were moved to "Shrew (stereotype)", this would be better than "Shrew (archetype)" which is blantantly misleading and apt to be interpreted as as WP:BIAS in favor of labeling stereotypes as actually reflective of innate, immutable, objectively definable types of people. Take another articles of this sort, Magical negro. Can you imagine us moving that to Magical negro (archetype) rather than Magical negro (stock character), Magical negro (stereotype), or Magical negro (motif), if it had to be disambiguated? I'm going to guess "surely not".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:43, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Why was this relisted? I would just as soon support something like this or close it as a move. This really is just a technical move. Red Slash 16:56, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Because one person was really, really, really against this move last time, for unclear reasons, and I've had bad experiences using RM#Technical_moves when someone really, really, really didn't want me to. Once bitten ...  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - It appears that after failing to gain consensus to support the move, the original nominator just opened a new discussion, but with no new evidence in support of the position to move. - Boneyard90 (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Seems sensible given that the article is much more about the stock character than about some "archetype" of women.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * 'Support seemingly commonsensical. Pandeist (talk) 15:59, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.