Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bollocks


 * 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. JohnCD (talk) 12:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Bollocks

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

unencyclopedic WP:NAD (though some of its content may be used on Wiktionary). In any case it requires a massive reorganization. Tcp-ip (talk) 13:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep This is Anglo-Saxon. It's part of the English language.  21:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep There are some words that can have a separate existence beyond the hidden-away Wiktionary, simply because there is a historical context to their etymology and changing usage, or there is a genuine interest in the proper usage of the word. Hence, we have articles such as bullshit, the American equivalent to the British bollocks.  With 58 citations, "unencyclopedic" isn't one of the article's problems.  I think there will a good deal of IDONTLIKEIT and ILIKEIT when it comes to an article about a profanity.  Until the day comes that Wikipedia includes a sidebar link to Wiktionary, there's no point in telling people to look for a word in Wiktionary-- one might as well say, "Oh, go to Google".  Mandsford (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.  --   pablo hablo. 15:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Surprisingly well-sourced, and not just from dictionaries. The wide range of figurative uses make this article about a word more fit for an encyclopedia than a dictionary. The court cases involving the Sex Pistols and Tony Wright seem notable and hinge on the word. I do think that there is too much style guide-like description here, but that is a matter for clean-up, not deletion. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but not all articles about words are dictionary style entries; some are truly encyclopedic. Compare Thou, Yes and no, or Truthiness. Cnilep (talk) 16:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Includes a dictionary definition, but there's more to it than that. Feel free to embark on the massive reorganisation.  pablo hablo. 16:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep There is a well-established precedent for Wikipedia articles about words. "Bollocks" belongs in the same class as shit, fuck, bullshit, asshole, all of which have Wikipedia articles. The bollocks article is encyclopaedic. A dictionary would typical provide a guide to pronunciation, meaning and etymology. This article includes a great deal more. It explains how "bollocks" has gone from being the usual word for testicles in Anglo-Saxon, and thus appearing in serious works, such as the first Bible in the English language. It explains how it came to be used to describe a priest and thereby acqured a figurative meaning of nonsense. It explains that it was considered obscene for a time, but provides details of the court case which ruled that it is not an obscenity. It gives lots of well-cited examples of the various figurative meanings of the word. It has some serious discussion about the perceived offensiveness of the word. It discusses the euphemisms that have been spawned from this word and the strands of humour derived from using words that sound a bit similar. It gives examples of how it has been used cleverly by prominent people (eg Alastair Campbell's "Bollocks on stilts" and Harold Pinter's "chuffed to the bollocks"). All of this is the stuff of an encyclopaedia, not a dictionary. I am also pretty sure that it is the most comprehensive reference about "bollocks" that can be found anywhere. Please don't throw that away. Bluewave (talk) 16:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC) Just adding to this to answer one of the points that has been made in favour of deleting the article. Surely, we shouldn't delete articles about words simply because they are words. Surely the test for an article about a word should be the same as that for any other article: is it notable (as a word, not just in terms of its meaning)? I would argue that the word bollocks is notable. Its range of figurative meanings (some mutually contradictory) is notable. Its history is notable. The fact that it has been the subject of a court case to determine if it is an obscenity is notable. And so on. Bluewave (talk) 09:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Lots of things are notable but not included in Wikipedia, because they are not within our remit, which is to be an encyclopedia. You can see a list of some of those types of things at WP:NOT.  Notability is necessary but not sufficient for inclusion.  Powers T 14:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The article needs a major revamp, but as has been said previously, there is no reason an encyclopedia can't have an article on a word (indeed, Wikipedia has many of them). The information in the article needs tidying up and formatting correctly, not deleting. I suspect this discussion may receive a lot of attention externally, so stand by for lots of "I like it" and "I don't like it" statements Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Seeing this listed, I read further to justify my suggesting "delete" but instead found rather a nice article. This is certainly encyclopedic, even if overlapping with dictionary definitions. Why should anyone think WP is better without an article along these lines? Thincat (talk) 20:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I was also surprised to find such a well-written, well-structured and impeccably-referenced article. There's no need to run to AfD screaming "transwiki to Wiktionary!" or "WP:NOT a dicdef!" if an article has the slightest hint of etymology and usage. If it requires "massive reorganisation" (which I don't think it even does), why not get some editors together to reorganise it rather then trying to delete it? --Canley (talk) 04:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Deletion is not for cleanup. I agree that there might be some work to do here (though not as much as is claimed), the article is well referenced and complies with all relevant policy. No reason to delete. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 14:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article consists of nothing but definition, etymology, and usage, all of which belong in a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.  Powers T 20:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete I've read all the previous comments about my deletion proposal. Some have pointed out that the page is interesting, which is not a point (see WP:INTERESTING). I want to point out that I didn't say that the article is completely bad. In that case, I wouldn't have added the note about moving something to Wiktionary. In fact, I was surprised to see that it is well referenced.  I proposed the deletion because, when I saw this article, the Not A Dictionary Policy (WP:NAD) came to my mind. Three of the four major differences between Wikipedia and Wiktionary that are listed there applies to this article:

1) being about: WP:  a thing [...] that their title can denote vs. WD: the actual words or idioms in their title and all the things it can denote. Descriptions of testicles and nonsense are in the respective articles. This page contains etymology, history and usage notes.

2)﻿ synonyms: WP: ﻿duplicate articles that should be merged vs. WD: ﻿ different articles. Bollocks, Bullshit, and nonsense are synonyms and have different articles. The same is true for bollocks and testicles.

3)N/A

4)homographs: WP: different articles vs. WD: one entry. the page is both about the usage in the meaning of testicles and in the meaning of nonsense. It also includes several idiomatic phrases.

According to this policy I am for deleting the article and using some of its material to improve the namesake Wiktionary article. Note that this wouldn't mean, as some said,"throwing away the most comprehensive reference about bollocks", but just placing it in the right place. some argued that the page should be kept because it is more than a dictionary entry, but the aforementioned WP:NAD answers: '' "Note that dictionary and encyclopedia articles do not differ simply on grounds of length. A full dictionary article (as opposed to a stub dictionary article, which is simply where Wiktionary articles start from) or encyclopedic dictionary entry would contain illustrative quotations for each listed meaning; etymologies; translations; inflections; links to related and derived terms; links to synonyms, antonyms, and homophones; a pronunciation guide in various dialects, including links to sound files; and usage notes; and can be very long indeed. Short dictionary articles are artifacts of paper dictionaries being space-limited. Not all dictionaries are limited by the size of the paper. Wiktionary is not paper either." ''

The court cases may be considered for their own articles. We could consider leaving a disambiguation page, something like: "B. may mean testicles or nonsense. See also court cases' pages. Wiktionary has more about it".

This argument may apply also to other articles about words. Two have cited "bullshit" as example and perhaps it should be deleted. That article is sightly better (i.e. point 4 doesn't apply and point 1 applies to a lesser extent), though.

Of course, I have only argued that the article breaks the WP:NAD policy. If you really insist for keeping the page on Wikipedia, you should ask for a change in that policy. This would require providing a rationale for having articles about words in Wikipedia and defining notability guidelines. When does the history of a word become interesting enough? Most words have long histories. If words' histories are notable, English Wikipedia should have articles also about the words of all thousands of languages and this would result in millions more articles. Is this good for Wikipedia? I would say that it's better to keep this (interesting) task to Wiktionary. Tcp-ip (talk) 01:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sadly, consensus these days appears to be that words get articles when their histories or usages are interesting enough to make a long article. Thus why such a number of our articles-about-words are about profanities.  Powers T 03:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Just a question...the Guide to deletion says that "It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion." Could you please confirm whether this happened. If not, could I politely suggest that you do it, please. Thanks. Bluewave (talk) 13:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * How is that my responsibility? Powers T 14:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm quoting what it says in Guide to deletion which is presumably what you are following in this proposed deletion. I can only guess why it says that it is your responsibility: my guess is that if you are proposing to delete a large chunk of someone's work, you might be expected to find out whether they have an opinion on the matter. Presumably this is thought to improve the debate about the proposed deletion and result in better decision-making about deletions. Bluewave (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC) Oops, sorry...the "You" referred to is the person who proposed the deletion. I think that is Tcp-ip, so I was expecting an answer from them. I agree it's not Powers's responsibility if they didn't make the nomination. Bluewave (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I followed the instructions on WP:AFDHOWTO which doesn't put it in terms of civility, hence I hadn't thought about doing it. Now I have done it. I informed the most active users according to and  but the ones who have already shown up. These are user:BrainyBabe, user:Eebahgum and user:Bedesboy. Tcp-ip (talk) 20:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Every article contains a definition of something, but an Encyclopedia article should be about that something as well as defining it. This article I think does that. There's no harm in articles on abstract concepts or on figurative meanings, such as Pessimism or Shanks's pony or Spank the monkey or Euphemism: the usual format is to provide a definition, followed by examples of usage, all accepting that an Idea may be an Objective reality, an Object (philosophy), as much as a physical Object or Entity. Certainly Bollocks is not just a word, it is also an Idea, and therefore it needs a wikipedia article: and the article should be (and is) about the Idea. One would have to get rid of half Wikipedia if concept-words were all sent over to Wictionary. I agree that the article could be broken up into smaller ones, or re-organized entirely, but I'm not sure that would necessarily improve it. And there's plenty here that would not go in a dictionary. To delete something useful is pointless when there is so much real bollocks elsewhere needing to be deleted. Finally 'bollocks' is much milder than some other expressions mentioned above, and isn't going to frighten anyone who reads it (unlike Ejaculation, perhaps): so that is not worth worrying about. Eebahgum (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC) In the case of 'giving someone a bollocking' (which is not analogous to bullshit at all) there is the idea that what they are getting is equivalent to a verbal kick in the nuts (even if the recipient is a woman). In fact the idea of a 'bollocking' contains some legitimization of verbal and emotional violence, both in the workplace and the domestic context, which is interesting because it has receded from acceptability in almost any other form. It is therefore a sociological phenomenon which is not contained in any other expression, such as 'a severe telling-off' (wherever you would find that in Wikipedia). You could, of course, just have a disambiguation page (Bollocks can refer to:, etc, with a list of examples), but it would be very unsatisfactory compared with an article which traces the expansions of meaning of the word. Eebahgum (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Thankyou, the first I knew of the suggested deletion. I added mainly to the section on a bollocking and made sure it was well referenced. I have read everything above, and my opinion is like User:Bluewave's.
 * But the idea is the same as that covered in other articles in the encyclopedia, such as bullshit. Powers T 01:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * On that thread I can't agree with you. Although in that first sense of 'rubbish' the two have a related use, the words work quite differently, and the concepts they embrace in their more extended uses reveal their inner divergence and difference in meaning. To be drunk, for instance, can be to be 'bolloxed', but it can't be to be 'bullshitted'. If you 'bullshit' someone it usually means you're trying to pull the wool over their eyes, but that concept is not decisive in 'bollocks' or 'bollocking' in any form. 'Bullshit' contains an intense, smelly idea whereas 'bollocks' is more random and dangly, necessary but diffuse. The word 'Crap' is used in a way more nearly similar to 'bullshit', for 'rubbish', and 'crapping someone' can be deliberately telling them something not true (quite different from crapping oneself, actually or figuratively). But you can't 'bullshit' yourself, or if you can I've never knowingly done it.
 * Correct. As you note, this article actually covers many concepts.  One of our guiding principles is that we cover one topic per article.  There isn't just one concept of "bollocks"; it's a word that has many meanings.  We should not be covering all of those meanings in one article, because our entries should be about singular concepts, not collections of concepts that happen to be signified with the same word.  Powers T 18:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, what I noted was that the many meanings develop figuratively out of certain core or essential parts of the word's primary meaning, and that that is a perfectly valid subject for an encyclopedia. You are arguing against two possibilities, one that the article should define its terms better, and the other that it should be inclusive of a wide range of interpretative elements. Plus you don't want it as it is. I think you're wrong on all three counts. The really 'different' (i.e. fully contrasting) concepts I noted were regarding the word which you, not I, introduced to this discussion, Bullshit, which as I said before has nothing to do with the present case, and which unkind people might mistake for a red herring. Eebahgum (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, the point is that the article could be rewritten any number of ways, but each of them is problematic. The literal meaning of the word is already covered at testicles.  The initial figurative use is covered at nonsense.  Then there's contempt.  There's any number of other meanings of the word, all of which already have articles in the encyclopedia.  The only alternative, then, is to keep the article as-is, but then it's simply a list of definitions, with usage notes and etymological discussion, all of which are explicitly the domain of dictionaries, not encyclopedias.  There is, quite literally, nothing in the article as it stands today that would not be perfectly appropriate in a comprehensive dictionary article on the word.  (It might require reorganization to fit with a particular dictionary's style guidelines, but that's not important.)  I challenge anyone who thinks this article is an acceptable encyclopedia article to find a single item of discussion here that would not belong in a dictionary.  Powers T 12:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I am looking: but I don't find your argument any further forward now than it was to start with: it still remains an assertion. There the argument ceases: and here are the voices of several editors who, without rejecting what you say absolutely, do clearly and in good faith disagree with you, even if there are some borderline issues. Your 'challenge' cannot elicit any 'proof' either way, because an encyclopedia article is in the business of definition and description. British people who use the word 'Bollocks' (in any or all of its meanings) by doing so project social and cultural signals about themselves which are recognised by others. As the article points out, the British military is one field in which the usage is understood, but it transcends conventional classes because it is also used by journalists, private school and University students, and cockney barrow-boys, with equal freedom. Its use establishes a kind of informal freemasonry or subculture of the heartier types across all classes, as opposed to the straight-laced and po-faced, who wouldn't use it, and carries combined implications of informality, sincerity and directness. (The example of a formal 'bollocking' - an emotionally violent verbal chastisement - is a good one, because if you accept the chastisement (and call it a bollocking, as Kelvin McKenzie did) then you prove that you are 'on side' with the person who administers it, and not going to run off moaning about political incorrectness and saying the employer is abusive etc. Ditto for the army or police - a test of loyalty as against self-importance or self-conceit.) The fraternity of the word Bollocks is for some very interesting reason closed to American society. All this and more is surely worth saying in Wikipedia. I think the article is simply incomplete, but that it contains much that will be valuable supporting material when such improvements occur. Eebahgum (talk) 16:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well now, that sort of thing maybe could be made encyclopedic. But what's there now is clearly dictionary information, and no one has put forward any sources that take could be used to create an encyclopedic work on the topic you mention.  Powers T 03:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we can agree to disagree amicably enough there. But really you could direct your attention, with far greater validity, to the article called Asshole, which has all the faults you condemn in this without any redeeming aspects at all. I'm sorry to have to widen reference to these scatological and prurient terms, but there is a direct bearing. That article simply explains (by definitions) that the American form Asshole is equivalent to British Arsehole (which redirects there), and then goes on to explain that the word is used as an opprobrious epithet and gives examples. That is indeed the material for a dictionary, while the primary meaning could simply redirect to Anus. What's worse, I find that the British word 'Arse' has been made to redirect to Buttocks, which to my mind is factually inaccurate: one can think of expressions in which the substitution of one word or concept for the other would not produce good sense. An alternative word for both of these contexts is bum but of course there we meet the Anglo-American divide again, and it takes us to a disambiguation page. All this is very unsatisfactory, and Wikipedia really does need to avoid being misleading in such ways. It may be, therefore, that even a conscientious attempt to re-frame the position of the word Bollocks in Wikipedia along similar lines might produce a far worse result than leaving matters as they are, and keeping all the Bollocks material in one place. Eebahgum (talk) 18:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Thanks for notifying me. I did some work on the article two and a half years ago, but have long had it off my watchlist. IIRC my main contribution was re-organisation, but it seems to have slipped a little in that regard, so yes the article needs work, but that is not a reason to jettison it. There is material in here of a depth and range that no dictionary, not even the Oxford English Dictionary, would cover. WP seems to be the place for it. BrainyBabe (talk) 07:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not our job to make up for dictionaries' deficiencies. Powers T 18:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 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.