Talk:seven-layer cake

It's idiomatic, right?

Yes, I am aware of sum-of-parts issues. I believe that it survives, in accordance with Wiktionary:Idioms that survived RFD because of the Lemming Test. (Except I have no dessert dictionaries on hand to check.) If not, I believe that "seven-layer [cake] test" (or "redundant pleonasm exam test") could be the name for a test that includes the three so-far unclassified surviving idioms:

While the meaning is clearly derived as a sum-of-parts from the individual terms' meanings, the phrase is idiomatic in that this particular combination has essentially become cliché, while slight variants are hardly known.

For example, "empty space" versus "empty arena", "Hasidic Jew" versus "Hasidic Israeli", "human being" versus "animal being", "seven-layer cake" versus "six-layer cake". Choor monster (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Seems fine, as it isn't just any cake with seven layers (like a Christmas cake isn't just any kind of cake made at Christmas). Personally I think we shouldn't have chocolate cake (any cake with chocolate, really), but ah well. Equinox ◑ 18:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)