Talk:dead men tell no tales
Latest comment: 8 years ago by BD2412 in topic RFD
RFD[edit]
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Not always about men, but could be also women; yet I can't imagine it was coined with the general "man is mortal" gender-neutral sense in mind. I think it'd be a pity to lose such a colourful unguessable set phrase. Equinox ◑ 00:28, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
- Keep per Equinox; the wording isn't as guessable as e.g. "a promise is a promise", which fits the usual format bd2412 outlines ("a deal is a deal", etc). "Dead men tell no stories" is nowhere near as common. "Dead men tell no tales" is included as an idiom in Cambridge and McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, and in several language-to-language dictionaries, e.g. A Dictionary of English Idioms and Their Arabic Counterparts, Stefanllari's English-Albanian Dictionary of Idioms, Akenos' 4327 Chinese Idioms, Learn to Speak Like the French: French Idiomatic Expressions,Tuttle Concise Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English. - -sche (discuss) 15:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
- So archaic wording in a proverb-like expression makes for including it, as does the lemming rule. DCDuring TALK 15:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
- Nobody is arguing for this on the grounds of archaic wording. You're trying so hard to come up with a robotic assembly-line rule for proverbs! It's so cute. Equinox ◑ 08:40, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
- @Equinox: I think your argument "could be also women" depends on a shift in default meaning of men from "people" to "males". I was thinking of the overall wording of the expression, but was probably wrong about that, confusing its setness with archaicism. DCDuring TALK 14:27, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
- Nobody is arguing for this on the grounds of archaic wording. You're trying so hard to come up with a robotic assembly-line rule for proverbs! It's so cute. Equinox ◑ 08:40, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
- So archaic wording in a proverb-like expression makes for including it, as does the lemming rule. DCDuring TALK 15:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
- Additional comments: the phrase is used in reference to secrets, not any tale, a (possibly weak) argument for keeping it. The fact that the phrase can be varied as "dead men don't tell tales" and inverted as both "dead men tell tales" and "dead men do tell tales" might be a weak argument for deleting it. - -sche (discuss) 09:04, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
- Or conversely those might illustrate that it's such a widespread everyday phrase that people will understand and appreciate a humorous reversal, as with cereal killer for serial killer. I don't think "dead men do tell tales" would mean anything without the prior general understanding (i) that dead men generally don't, and (ii) that this is a well-trodden metaphor. Equinox ◑ 09:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
- This "proverb" has speech-act functions. At least in fiction, it is used as advice among conspiring wrong-doers (Let's make sure potential testifiers are dead.). It may also be used more widely as reminder to all of the absence of potential testimony from a possible witness. DCDuring TALK 14:27, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
- Good point. - -sche (discuss) 23:41, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
- Or conversely those might illustrate that it's such a widespread everyday phrase that people will understand and appreciate a humorous reversal, as with cereal killer for serial killer. I don't think "dead men do tell tales" would mean anything without the prior general understanding (i) that dead men generally don't, and (ii) that this is a well-trodden metaphor. Equinox ◑ 09:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)