Talk:don't shoot the messenger

Hello, in french
we do not use the equivalent, which would be : "ne tirez pas sur le facteur" ("facteur" = "post-man" in french). But we ought to : Théophile Gautier in "Le roman de la momie" (1856) wrote a magnificent page about Pharaoh dispatching the messengers who brought him the news that the beautiful women he had taken a fancy to could not be found. And painter Lecomte du Nouÿ presented at the "Salon des peintres de 1972" a gorgeous "style pompier" picture of the ill fate "Les porteurs de mauvaises nouvelles" ("The bad news bearers")  met on the terrace of Pharaoh's palace.

Though, as we have yet in french "ne tirez pas sur le pianiste", & "ne tirez pas sur l'ambulance" , I vote for accepting "ne tirez pas sur le facteur" in french, as it is a cute & explicit expression. What do you think of it, my dear Hégésippe Cormier ? (cf § today's WOTD history, March 2008...). T.y. Arapaima 09:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I am a French people but I do not exactly the equivalent proverb. There are a lot of expressions such as « tirer sur le facteur », « tirer sur le messager », « tirer sur le messager n’efface pas la mauvaise nouvelle », etc. Google give the more of results for « tuer le messager » and very few results for « tirer sur le facteur » . French WP has an article about tuer le messager. So, it is very difficult to choose one of these expressions. I will ask to other French "wiktionarists". Pamputt 21:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Russian translations
Russian translations have the qualifier "somewhat" - somewhat what? Somewhat equivalent? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Somewhat equivalent. --Vahag 16:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't delete this.
THIS IS REAL. 76.208.27.235 21:40, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you considered reading and commenting on the deletion debate? --Mglovesfun (talk) 21:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If only you made it easier to find this said discussion. Why isn't there a direct link. Also don't understand why this is even considered for deletion. I hear this saying all the time.
 * There is a link to the discussion in the deletion box. DCDuring TALK 04:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

don't shoot the messenger
Sum of parts - don't + shoot the messenger. ---&gt; Tooironic 21:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought we included sum-of-parts proverbs. And also, isn't "shoot the messenger" an allusion to this proverb? —Ruakh TALK 22:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * What is the original etymology I wonder? If this form came first I can see why we would keep it, but otherwise, no, we don't keep sum-of-parts proverbs AFAIK. ---&gt; Tooironic 22:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, at least until I see some strong evidence to delete it. Shoot the messenger seems me dubious of the two. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. "not"/"'nt" "[shoot] the messenger" appears 15 times in COCA vs 84 hits of "[shoot] the messenger" without an immediately adjoining negative. The number of non-idiomatic uses of "[shoot] the messenger" seems small. DCDuring TALK 15:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yet, this is a proverb, shoot the messenger is a verb. That seems to me to bypass any potential redundancy. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

kept, no consensus -- Liliana • 13:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)