Talk:common or garden variety

Why 'variety'? It seems the idiom is simply 'common-or-garden', as a composed adjective...as in, "This fridge is common-and-garden but it works fine."zigzig20s 01:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That must be British English. In the U.S., I’ve never heard of "common-and-garden" or "common-or-garden" and I would not have known what it meant. We use garden variety: A garden-variety refrigerator, etc. —Stephen 01:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well perhaps we should create two different pages then?zigzig20s 01:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually it seems you have your own page for "garden-variety", so I'll just fix this one if I may.zigzig20s 01:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there a way of getting rid of the 'variety' thing in the title? Or should we just scrap this one and create another page under the name of 'common-or-garden'?zigzig20s 01:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that requires a new entry. The headword, or title, has to match precisely the page name. Therefore, the only way to remove variety is to have this page deleted. —Stephen 01:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Right, I'll let you delete it though, as I am a bit unsure how to do that...zigzig20s 02:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There is no reason to delete this entry, it gets 382 google book hits . Kappa 02:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point.zigzig20s 02:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

RFD discussion: February–August 2016
SoP: +. ( should be created as an alternative form of .) This, that and the other (talk) 23:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * What are the other nouns common or garden modifies and what is their relative frequency compared to variety. DCDuring TALK 00:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm used to hearing . I'd expect the RFDed term to be  +  instead.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I would say that it's common + garden variety, not common or garden + variety, and RFD common-or-garden at the same time. Just because two synonyms are often used together as alternatives doesn't make them idiomatic.  P Aculeius (talk) 00:57, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * While I would initially have agreed about the common + garden variety, I have done some investigation, and common or garden does seem to be an idiom. There are a lot of quotes that use the term for plants, which is where the term probably comes from, but it is also used for things that have nothing to do with gardens and do not have 'variety' at the end. At this point, I think should be created as an alternative form of . In any case, common or garden variety is clearly SOP, however you parse it, so I say delete. Kiwima (talk) 01:13, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) It's a pondian thing: common-or-garden is used in the UK, but not in the US. The phrase "common or garden Sauine" can be found in John Gerard's herbal of 1597, and "garden variety" doesn't really show up in Google Books until the 19th century. Of course, that's not the metaphorical sense, which might have a different history. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * common or garden is more frequent than common-or-garden at BNC. 17 to 11. Also, though the expressions are used in the US, they are apparently ~25 times less common. (COCA)DCDuring TALK 01:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak keep as per inclination; there's something about being a set phrase to it. Not in OneLook dictionaries. suggests the phrase forms a significant portion of all uses of "garden variety". --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:56, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. bd2412 T 13:27, 5 August 2016 (UTC)