Category talk:Interjections

RFC discussion: October 2007–October 2009
I think there are a number of terms that do not belong here.

The fact that an exclamation mark is used to end a sentence or phrase does not, in itself, make that sentence or phrase an interjection.

"Go to the dickens!" is a complete sentence (a verbal phrase in the imperative) so I don't quite see how this can be considered to be an interjection just because it ends in an exclamation mark. Similarly, although "Every man for himself!" is not a complete sentence, I wouldn't say it is an interjection. "Does a bear shit in the woods?" is another complete sentence, and is definitely does not belong in this category.

Ideally, I would like to see the part of speech "interjection" reserved for words that express an emotion and have no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence (interjections in the purest sense), such as "oh!" and "phew!". It is not possible (or even practical) for us to be this strict, however, because there are some phrases that function like interjections, like "good riddance" and "for heaven's sake". Strictly, we would classify these as pro-sentences, but this is not a part of speech.

Certainly, however, some of the terms listed in Category:Interjections (and the corresponding category for other languages would more accurately be described as pro-sentences, verbal phrases or complete sentences.

See the Wikipedia article for more discussion. &mdash; Paul G 05:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Moved to Category talk:English interjections. DCDuring TALK 20:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)