Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Winged word


 * 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 delete. Minimal participation in the AfD, but the only keep argument doesn't actually present any sources to establish notability, so calling this a soft delete. If anybody wants to work on this to improve it, ping me and I'll be happy to recover the current text and move it to draft space. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Winged word

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I question whether the concept of a "winged word" has any real notability. Its supposed current meaning, of a well-known phrase that has literary origins, seems to come from the fact that Georg Büchmann gave the name Geflügelte Worte ("Winged Words") to his 1864 book of quotations. Then, according to the article, Thomas Carlyle used the phrase similarly in an essay. Has anyone else ever referred to "winged words" in this way? Not to my knowledge, and the article doesn't say. The article consists mostly of a list of phrases; no evidence is presented that any of them have specifically been described as a "winged word".

One other option besides deletion would be to rename this article to something like "List of phrases with literary origins", although I don't know the benefit of such an article.

There's also the matter that, as the article currently stands, I think many or most of the entries in the list fail the basic definition, by either not having literary origins ("Can't see the forest for the trees"), not being a commonly-used phrase ("Ignorabimus"), or both ("You forgot Poland"). Which is ironic, given the large number of real phrases that have come from literature. Korny O&#39;Near (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:24, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:24, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:25, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete: Not a neologism, but not an attested term. This is an idiosyncratic usage. Carlyle's usage doesn't appear to be along these lines, and the concept supposedly described is allusion or just quotation. I try to keep the milk of human kindness and remember that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, but some are lost in the maze of schools/ And come out coxcombs Nature meant for fools. The article is about a particular German language adaptation of a Homeric image (which was also found in Irish literature). Hithladaeus (talk) 02:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 02:59, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep I fail to understand the rationale. Is it "I've not heard of this, so sourcing from Thomas Carlyle is wrong"?   We (as usual) have topic, title and article content. The nominator seems to have no quibble with the topic or even the content and the expression of the title is the more minor of the three. So why delete all of them, just on that basis? Andy Dingley (talk) 20:55, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I do have a quibble with the topic: it doesn't seem to be notable. Korny O&#39;Near (talk) 22:42, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JAaron95  &#40; Talk &#41;  14:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - the topic of phrases which originated in literature or public speech and have become widely used popular expressions ("have created wings") is certainly an encyclopedic subject and is very much talked about in philological circles. There must be hundreds of references to something like that. But, it is uncertain whether this subject is correctly termed "Winged word" or "Winged words" (as the German "Geflügelte Worte" is plural). Also, the current list presented in the article is an indiscrimunate mixture of such "winged words", idiomatic expressions of uncertain or known different origin, and dictionary entries without any "wings". There are different ways to handle the situation: Either userfy/move to draft and rework the article, agree on the proper name and then move back to main space; or delete per WP:TNT and wait for somebody to write an article on the subject in proper form; or relist this AfD discussion and start working on solve the problems of the article within a week. Pick one. Kraxler (talk) 18:08, 9 July 2015 (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.