Talk:absolute power

RFD discussion: February–July 2018
Strikes me as SoP. Equinox ◑ 07:52, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, delete for that reason. — SGconlaw (talk) 10:35, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Obviously not literally "absolute" (i.e., godlike). Also a set phrase. bd2412 T 21:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't get this. absolute is used in its literal/etymological sense of "unfettered, unchecked". It doesn't mean "godlike". --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 10:25, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What is it about the phrase "absolute power" that tells you which sense of "absolute" is meant? bd2412 T 22:53, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Reason? Anyone, by looking at the 21 "different senses" at, can discern the overarching etymological idea of "unfetteredness", and deduce that "absolute power" means "power that is untied, unconstrained, unbound, unlinked", etc. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 00:03, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hardly so. I certainly, from looking at all the senses, cannot discern any overarching etymological idea of "unfetteredness". And I don't see why I should even try to do so; when looking for semantics, I don't care about etymology, as I should not. If this is a sum of parts, it is a sum of parts with respect to some of the 21 senses. The required sense seems to be the subsense "Having unlimited power, without limits set by a constitution, parliament, or other means; independent in ownership or authority." The subsense does not match perfectly for syntactic reasons; it is formulated to fit the phrase "absolute monarch" or the like. From the usability standpoint, it does not help that someone ordered the absolute entry chronologically, so you have to wade through obsolete and archaic senses to find the most commonly used senses. The entry looked sane in (2012) before someone reworked it to be more like OED, for which there is no consensus as per Beer_parlour/2012/December. Merriam-Webster has a sane entry, and its exemplifications of the adjective in adj-noun phrases are excellent; so does AHD. Sorry for the digression.
 * As to whether we should have "absolute power": its use of "absolute" is in the same sense as "absolute monarch", "absolute ruler", and "absolute monarchy". It reminds me a bit of Talk:free variable. If a user enters "absolute power" in the dictionary, they will be better served by the entry in that they do not need to search among the clutter that is now in absolute. Nonetheless, abstain. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:17, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, you're right. Just ignore our crappy/nonsensical entry, look up that word in any other dictionary than ours, and you won't have any trouble understanding absolute power. In other words, the entry absolute power is currently somewhat helpful only because the entry is completely unhelpful. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I looked up absolute in the Oxford English Dictionary. It has around a dozen definitions, and is clearly not as cut and dried as you might think. bd2412 T 18:33, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * (Heads up: en.oxforddictionaries.com is not OED. --Dan Polansky (talk))
 * Still, there's another dictionary for comparison. bd2412 T 18:06, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. I recognise this as a set phrase. John Cross (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. We don't keep set phrases merely because they are set. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:43, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Doesn't seem strongly lexicalised to me. And other dictionaries don't have it. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 10:25, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is a bit more specific than just [[absolute]] + [[power]]. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 13:19, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. The fact that absolute power is only sometimes godlike seems like a pragmatic rather than a lexical issue, like an absolute monarch/absolute ruler may rule only a single country or lack the power to revive the dead and reverse the flow of time, the way they could if "absolute" truly meant "godlike", and a brown car may not be entirely brown (the turn signals might be yellow, etc), and so on. - -sche (discuss) 19:19, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I heartily agree with that. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:41, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. SOP. -- · (talk) 07:38, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not even a set phrase. absolute control, absolute rule, absolute supercalifragilisticexpialidociousness. PseudoSkull (talk) 01:32, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. As per PseudoSkull. Also, there's this. Not that it helps at all, but I figured it might be useful to bring it up. --SanctMinimalicen (talk) 02:19, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 02:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)