Talk:Harlequin romance

RFD discussion: November 2019–March 2020
The entry tries to make this sound like a generic term, but in fact all the citations could be about romances actually published by the Harlequin company. Equinox ◑ 22:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * They could be, but they're not. DTLHS (talk) 23:39, 18 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I disagree, for all of the citations. It's true that "looks like the heroine on a Harlequin Romance cover" isn't referring to any specific H~ romance in existence, but it still means "a romance actually published by Harlequin". Compare "this sounds like a Beatles album" (not a specific named existing one, but still SoP meaning a real album the Beatles would produce). Equinox ◑ 00:48, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I have heard this used as a generic term on several occasions, and see no reason to believe that the quotations are referring to a specific publisher. Keep. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
 * There are many GBS hits for “straight out of a Dickens novel” in which should not be taken literally – one shouldn’t ask, “Oh, which one?” – but, nevertheless, we should not have an entry defining this as a generic term with the sense “a novel set in the Victorian era characterized by realism, humor, satire, and keen observation of character and society”. If Harlequin romance truly has a generic meaning that merits inclusion, it should be attestable by actual references of use in an unambiguously generic sense. If such are not forthcoming, Delete.  --Lambiam 08:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * My feeling, generally speaking, is that we should include definitions of terms that are commonly used for their associations, where these associations may be non-obvious. How far this applies to Harlequin romance / Dickens novel is a matter of judgement. Mihia (talk) 00:07, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Many collocations (such as British politeness, Christmas morning, Florida swamp, Siberian winter) are commonly used and evoke associations; yet their meanings, although evocative, remain literal and SOP. Only when their meanings become figurative or generic should we include these. --Lambiam 13:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If any of those examples have conventional associations that are non-obvious from the literal words, then we should include them as entries, in my opinion. For example, I do not know any non-obvious associations for "Florida swamp". If any such exist, and I were to read such, for example in a US publication, then I would wish to be able to look this up. Mihia (talk) 00:25, 23 November 2019 (UTC)


 * So what you're basically asking for is for every single cultural reference to be a dictionary entry: "this is a Bill Clinton-style policy", "this is a Franz Kafka-like plot twist", etc. etc. No, we can't go that far. That is not lexical. There is a point where you need to have some understanding of the world around you. Equinox ◑ 05:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * No, I'm only talking about fixed, conventional associations that may not be clear with ordinary knowledge of the subject. For example, I can guess that a "Siberian winter" is very cold, arduous, dismal etc. from common knowledge. I wouldn't expect that to need mentioning in a dictionary. However, if something is commonly described as a "Siberian winter" to mean something non-obvious from common knowledge about Siberia and winter then I would wish to be able to look that up. Obviously judgement is required as to where to draw the line, but that is true of almost all aspects of our entries. Mihia (talk) 17:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * There is some "creep" going on here. Suppose that we agree to include "Harlequin romance" because that particular romance is very famous. Fine. But my point still stands: it doesn't have a generic sense; rather we are talking about it in the specific sense (ACTUAL real romances published by Harlequin) and expecting readers to know what those are. Equinox ◑ 05:25, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete as SoP. — SGconlaw (talk) 05:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Weak delete, per Equinox. I think the comparison to "sounds like a [such-and-such band] song" is apt; looking at the citations in the entry, "looks like the heroine on a Harlequin Romance cover" is clearly of the same sort (looks like the heroine on one of Harlequin's romance covers), "She might as well have written a Harlequin romance" again means she could've written a romance for Harlequin, because she wrote romances of their type. Possibly we could solve this by creating an entry at Harlequin (noting that they typically publish romances of type X) and redirecting the entry thither. - -sche (discuss)
 * Delete, SOP. Canonicalization (talk) 12:21, 15 February 2020 (UTC)


 * RFD-deleted. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)