Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Platitude (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Platitude
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This article contains nothing more than a definition and is not likely ever to be more than a definition. Delete in accordance with WP:DICTIONARY Exok (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 14:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Per nom. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛  Talk Email 16:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep/merge The point of WP:DICTIONARY is not that we should delete definitions as all our articles are required to start with a definition. Its point is, instead, a structural one: "In Wikipedia, things are grouped into articles based on what they are, not what they are called by. In a dictionary, things are grouped by what they are called by, not what they are.".  So, how do we apply that principle here?  We start by considering other words which have a similar meaning: truism, cliché and bromide.  We see that these are all blue links and all are separate articles.  Why then would we make platitude a red link when we could instead merge into the best of these alternatives?  WP:DICTIONARY is telling us to bring topics together by their semantic meaning rather than their spelling.  As for the notability of the matter, consider sources such as H.L.Mencken's chapter on Proverb and Platitude or this entire book on the topic of clichés. Warden (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge or Redirect to Cliché. I essentially agree with Col. Warden: the topic is notable and encyclopedic, but it is already covered on multiple pages (at least platitude, bromide, and cliché, and possibly others). All of these pages should be merged per DICTIONARY. Cnilep (talk) 00:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * keep&mdash;redirecting to cliche seems wrong to me. cliches and platitudes are two different things.  according to fowler's english usage (old edition), " a platitude is a thing the stating of which as though it were enlightening or needing to be stated convicts the speaker of dullness" (p.85) whereas cliches are "such hackneyed phrases as, not being the simple or natural way of expressing what is to be expressed, have served when first used as real improvements on that in some particular context, but have acquired an unfortunate popularity & come into general use even where they are not more but less suitable to the context than plain speech." (p.602) the essential difference between them is that platitudes are platitudes because of their content and cliches are cliches because of their wording.  notability per Warden.&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 17:21, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, eminently discussed in a significant number of independent and reliable secondary sources. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2011 (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.