Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of shapes with metaphorical names

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 no consensus to delete. Can still be transiwiki'd, then revisited at AfD. Merge or a rename could also be discussed without AfD. W.marsh 16:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Glossary of shapes with metaphorical names[edit]

Reason:This article was created "in order to provide a place for shape references to redirect to, as V-shaped, which used to redirect to V-shaped valley." It's been copied to Wiktionary, where (as a set of dicdefs) it belongs. Why do we need this? Let V-shaped redirect to Wiktionary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

keep. First, you cannot "redirect to wiktionary". Second, there is more than that explained in talk:Glossary of shapes with metaphorical names: "to collect definitions of various shapes, which would otherwise have got small articles." People continue to confuse the difference between "dictionary definition of a word" and "description of a thing, notion, or a concept". The size of the description of an object does not matter and it belongs to encyclopedia. The description of a word belongs to a dictionary. Some of these descriptions are minor, yet improtant. E.g. "I shaped" is not what you would think while looking at this word printed in sans-serif. If you have nothing better to do, why don't you try and delete the Cleveland Steamer for an exercise? `'mikka 03:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Because Cleveland steamer is a thing, not a word. Whether it is notable or real enough to have an article is another question, on which consensus has not been reached. (If there is consensus to keep this article, fine by me; but I think it should be discussed.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because it borders on incoherence. If something is shaped like a U, it is shaped like a U. There is no metaphor. If something is "triangle-shaped" does that mean it's a metaphor? The entire premise of the article is untenable, and its poorly written and confusing to boot. I am not swayed by the above comment that retires to the old "why not delete all these other stupid articles first" argument.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 06:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
merge into Shape. For such a well used term the shape article is very brief. Shape itself is a tricky term to deal with especially in a mathematical way, and comparision with other objects is one of the major ways in which the shape of something can be described. On Talk:Shape I've briefly outlined an expansion of the article which incorperates some of the ideas from this glossary. --Salix alba (talk) 08:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
keep, rename into Glossary of shapes of List of shapes. With some exceptions (most of which are in List of geometric shapes) all names of shapes are comparisons with typical "real" objects. By the way this situation is called simile, not metaphor, i.e., the article title is wrong anyway. But the content is useful and informative, in many instances goes beyond simple dictionary definition, i.e., encyclopedic. By the way, I noticed that an overview article Names of shapes or shape naming may be handy as well: a quick google search reveals that this issue is widely discussed, at least in the context of children learning. For example, there is a very interesting article "Etymology of Geometry Terms" (which may suggest a wikipedia title, Etymology of shape names, in our context). Mukadderat 16:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete I keep reading this article and talk page thinking I will finally figure out what this is doing. I keep failing. It says the name is somehow metaphorical, but I cannot find it. Even if I assume "metaphorical" is misused and it's actually an example of simile or symbolism or whatever, I am at a loss. "V-shape" - I suppose that's an explicit comparison to the shape of a V, but what else would V-shape mean? Same with heart-shaped and the likes. One argument seems to be that the terms specify exactly what the shape these adjectives denote is, but if this is the intention, it is not the result. If one did not know what something pear-shaped was, for example, I do not think s/he will be helped by being told it is a comparison to the shape of a pear. Possibly housing this in some context in shape or something similar would work, but I must admit this entire article continues to perplex me. GassyGuy 06:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.