Talk:immortal

RFC discussion: April 2012–April 2013

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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immortal

All the subsenses seem to be saying the same thing, and badly, e.g. "Always perfectly cured from injuries" is not a meaning of "immortal"; it's just the never dying that makes such a creature immortal. Equinox ◑ 13:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

This [1] is where the trouble started, IMO. Equinox ◑ 14:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd start from scratch, I'm not 100% happy with any of our adjective definitions. Perhaps the last one. Also are "more immortal" and "most immortal" not attested? I suspect they are. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Immortal doesn't mean "Always perfectly cured from injuries". Consider two fictional examples, Torchwood, Miracle Day (2011) and Death Becomes Her (1992). It's a bit like diabetes and obesity; one may or may not imply the other, but they are not synonymous. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, "more immortal" and "most immortal" are very easy to attest, although mostly in the historical sense ("his most immortal poem") and the negative sense ("He was no more immortal than her"). Smurrayinchester (talk) 17:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

("No more immortal than her" isn't using "more" as that kind of comparative, though, is it? Cf. "you're no more a fireman than I am".) Equinox ◑ 18:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

(Since "immortal" is an adjective, I think it is. "He was no more intelligent than her" or "He was no cleverer than her" are definitely comparative, right?) Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The comparative would be "He was not more intelligent". "(He) was no more ..." is a figure of speech related to "(He) was no...". Chuck Entz (talk) 15:24, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I've taken out the pointless context tag (seeing as it listed so many contexts that it was basically universal). My suggestion for cleanup would be to replace the first senses and all its subsenses with two senses:

1. Living forever; incapable of dying.
2. Undergoing an eternal cycle of resurrection, reincarnation or metempsychosis.

and then have a link to biological immortality in derived terms. Smurrayinchester (talk) 17:02, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you're missing an important sense. "Immortal" does often mean "living forever; incapable of dying", but I think it more often means "potentially living forever; capable of not dying". In particular, characters who don't age, and will never die of old age, are generally considered "immortal", even if they are still susceptible to certain forms of death (either very specific forms such as beheading or a stake through the heart, or more general categories such as injury or poison). —Ruakh_TALK 18:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, good point. How about "Capable of living forever" and "Incapable of dying" as the two separate senses? Smurrayinchester (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Striking the discussion: the entry was sorted out a while ago. Equinox ◑ 13:29, 28 April 2013 (UTC)