Talk:Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa
Rfv-sense: Any piece of art that is exceptional. In the example sentence It's a pretty picture, but it's no Mona Lisa., it seems to refer to the actual Mona Lisa, not a countable common noun. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Really? If it was referring to the actual Mona Lisa, surely the structure would be: it's not a Mona Lisa? ---&gt; Tooironic 22:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would think "it's not a Mona Lisa" would be a clear example of "any piece of art that is exception", like *"she was speaking a German" is "she was speaking a German dialect or language, such as Plattdeutsch", whereas "he was speaking German" means he was speaking the actual language. I think the actual Mona Lisa would be "it's not the Mona Lisa", and I'm divided on whether "it's no Mona Lisa" genericises it or not. - -sche (discuss) 22:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's no Mona Lisa strikes me (a layman) as referring to the actual Mona Lisa. The construction exceedingly productive ("he's good at putting the right punctuation in his sentences, but he's no Victor Borge" etc.). &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * IMHO it seems to be in line with ..., but he's no Einstein. type of comment, which makes the current Mona Lisa entry OK for me. -- A LGRIF  talk  12:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Can "Mona Lisa" be used in a positive sentence as synonym to "a piece of art that is exceptional", like saying: "Mark Rothko's No. 61 (Rust and Blue) is a Mona Lisa"? If it cannot, I'd suggest that the term to be defined is not really "Mona Lisa" but "not a Mona Lisa" or "no Mona Lisa", which mean "not an exceptional piece of art". --Hekaheka 23:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Btw, in Elton John's "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" Mona Lisa definitely means something else than "exceptional piece of art". --Hekaheka 16:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, RFV-failed for now, because it's uncited. - -sche (discuss) 02:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

RFD

 * I would keep the Mona Lisa if, as I suspect, much figurative usage of "Mona Lisa" can be found. ("Has [overly-acclaimed artist] painted another Mona Lisa?" is unlikely to be asking if the artist has made a copy of the old painting, it's likely asking if she has produced a work that shos comparable talent and is comparably valuable / culturally significant.) - -sche 22:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I would want to keep as translation targets all that have foreign names distinct from the English names (not counting mere transliterations into other writing systems). That appears to be all of these except Guerrillero Heroico. —Angr 22:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * All of these except Guerrillero Heroico? "Mona Lisa" is "Mona Lisa", "Mona Liza", "Μόνα Λίζα", etc. (French also refers to it as "La Joconde", but does no more to make it a dictionary entry, IMO, than the various insulting nicknames Latin America has for George W. Bush do to make [[George W. Bush]] a dictionary entry.) - -sche (discuss) 19:50, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * And Italian calls it La Gioconda. Sounds like dictionary-appropriate information to me. —Angr 20:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Italy has other names for Bush, too. Is [[George W. Bush]] dictionary-appropriate? - -sche (discuss) 20:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * They have other nicknames for him, they don't have a different name for him. A better example would be [[John Paul II]] and [[Benedict XVI]], both of whom do have different names in different languages, though our entries [[John]], [[Paul]], and [[Benedict]] probably suffice for that. —Angr 20:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I would want to delete the specific proper names of buildings and/or works (all already well detailed at Wikipedia): Arc de Triomphe, Chopsticks, Guerrillero Heroico, Hansel and Gretel, Jabberwocky (but keep the unnominated adjective jabberwocky, which is a generic word), Leaning Tower of Pisa, Mona Lisa, Romeo and Juliet, Star Trek, Venus de Milo. Equinox ◑ 21:56, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 01:00, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep as having translations that cannot be guessed from the English term: French: la Joconde, Italian: la Gioconda. Furthermore, the English pronunciation may be unclear, although that rationale may lend itself to including a vast number of names of works, which I am unsure is a good thing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep: per Polansky Purplebackpack89  (Notes Taken) (Locker) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)