Talk:double as

RFD discussion: December 2016–December 2017
SoP, redundant to double sense: "(intransitive) (often followed by as) To play a second part or serve a second role. A spork is a kind of fork that doubles as a spoon." Equinox ◑ 01:08, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Additional thought: can something just double, without an as: "this kind of fork doubles"? I suspect not. Even so, the as feels strongly like an external preposition and not a particle. Equinox ◑ 01:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Someone can double for someone else. Also see and, which show that some lemmings have both of these. DCDuring TALK  02:42, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Also note double up as (the definition of which seems slightly faulty actually). Mihia (talk) 10:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree that this is just a use with a preposition, like act as, and am inclined to support deletion. To my surprise, this is in Macmillan. As for double up as, I would see the home entry to be double up. I don't quite like that we have multiple phrasal verbs entered both with a particle (or whatever it is) and a preposition, like come out with, come up with, crack down on, get around to, get out of, and many more; I would intuitively drop the preposition. I do have to admit that, e.g. for "come up with" (invent), while M-W does not have a wholly separate "come up with" entry, it has a boldfaced separate "come up with" section in "come up". I got some notes on this at User:Dan Polansky/Phrasal verbs and there is Appendix:English phrasal verbs. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:36, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. --Barytonesis (talk) 20:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete Kiwima (talk) 03:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 20:10, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

RFD discussion: December 2020–March 2021
Original discussion: Talk:double as

Tea room discussion: Tea_room/2020/December


 * Undelete >SOP, phrasal verb, lemmings &mdash; Dentonius 22:00, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What's absolutely infuriating about this one is that Equinox asked himself the right question. He even came up with the right answer. He should then have withdrawn his RFD. But he didn't. Then the other destroyers came along and took out a useful term. Ridiculous. &mdash; Dentonius 22:07, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It gets better. That sense of double + as has been gone for a while. Someone recognised it was bullshit. &mdash; Dentonius 22:34, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Correction: I overlooked it. The double entry still shows it as sense 9. Presently, it says that sense is often followed by "as". Can something "double as" without the as? &mdash; Dentonius 01:56, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Barytonesis is 212.224.X.X (aka PUC), by the way, since he asked out loud if he's a destroyer. &mdash; Dentonius 22:40, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:27, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. The only ridiculous thing here is opening yet another undelete request thus flooding an already busy forum. Are you planning on dragging every deleted entry out of the woodwork? Ridiculous. --Robbie SWE (talk) 00:19, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Despite the present lack of examples without "as" at the relevant sense of "double", IMO this is "double" + "as", in the same way that e.g. serve as is "serve" + "as", or work as is "work" + "as", so Keep deleted. Not a "phrasal verb" according to most definitions. Mihia (talk)
 * According to us, a phrasal verb is: "A phrase, consisting of a verb and either or both a preposition or adverb, that has idiomatic meaning" (sense 2). &mdash; Dentonius 07:39, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. Imetsia (talk) 01:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep deleted for the reasons expressed in the last deletion discussion. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In the original conversation, the person who put forward the RFD works out that double is always used with as to express the meaning double as and that it can't be done without the combination. He then says he's just deleting it on a gut feeling. Yet all of you above still support keeping this deleted? We have the term in other dictionaries &mdash; more dictionaries, more lemmings than back then. Yet you &mdash; Vox, Robbie the Swede, Mihia, Imetsia, and SGconlaw &mdash; still support keeping it deleted? Your loyalty isn't to words, or terms, or even this dictionary. Your loyalty lies elsewhere. &mdash; Dentonius 08:37, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Why did you feel it necessary to point out my nationality instead of writing my username like you did everyone else you were criticising? Careful now, your true biases are starting to show. --Robbie SWE (talk) 08:56, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it sounds cool and kind of charming. But I'll just say "Robbie SWE" instead. &mdash; Dentonius 08:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure you did...--Robbie SWE (talk) 09:01, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you think Vox would have minded if I called him/her "Vox the Squirrel"? &mdash; Dentonius 09:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Better ask Vox about that, I can't comment on their behalf. I just find the way you conduct yourself interesting and can't wait to see where you go from here. --Robbie SWE (talk) 09:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows. &mdash; Dentonius 09:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * PS: Where does our loyalty lie to be precise? This is the second time in two days you've accused other users of being disloyal and having other agendas without providing actual proof or divulging what you really mean. Put your money where your mouth is and stop being coy about it so we all can at least try and understand you. --Robbie SWE (talk) 09:24, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Vox Sciurorum is Latin for "voice of the squirrels". Might I remind you that what you say you're trying to accomplish requires consensus from the community, and you're basically doing everything you can to alienate as much of the community as possible. I suspect even the people who agree with you on policy are cringing right now. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:31, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Chuck, I'm over having people like me here. I'm not trying to become an administrator or get promoted or anything like that; I just want words to stay in this dictionary. I'm doing my thing. Other people can do theirs. Robbie SWE, we all understand each other very well, even without words, don't we? &mdash; Dentonius 09:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * When an anon a while back called you a troll, I just brushed it off as nonsense, but I'm not so sure anymore. I only asked you to explain yourself - if you go around throwing accusations left and right, at least have the decency to tell people what you're accusing them of and on what grounds. You don't need to be friends with anyone, but you have to at least try and find some common ground with people regardless if you click with them or not. Lord knows there are users I don't get along with, but darn it I respect the hell out of them and would never dream of accusing them of disloyalty or trying to undermine this project. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Robbie SWE, yes, I remember clearly when 212.224.X.X (aka PUC) called me a troll. But PUC is possibly the worst among you. He creates automated entries without definitions relying heavily on templates. He says it's because he doesn't feel confident about his English, yet his English is at the C2 level (heck, I'd say practically native). That same PUC spends his day looking for other people's entries to vote delete on or RFD himself under his various pseudonyms. As for me? I don't delete people's pages; that's their hard work and love for the project. I do my thing. I let them do theirs. Call that whatever you want to. As for my accusation, it's rather simple: you destroyers are a clique. In fact, you behave like a "pack" and when you all build a consensus among yourselves of whose hard work you're going to devastate next, you go on a rampage. Case in point, the decision to take away a letter from the Old English folks. It's only a few of them. We can see in the ongoing vote now that these poor O.E. contributors want the option to use that letter in the language. Yet you menaces who don't even contribute to their language, took it away from them, still insist that they don't deserve to have their wynns, and continue to refer to their wynns as a stylish fixation. That's scum behaviour! &mdash; Dentonius 10:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think you have it backward: Widsith is the only person on the pro-wynn side who's actually contributed much to the Old English entries (a whole lot, actually, though not as much recently). Unless things have changed over the last few months, Birdofadozentides hasn't really contributed much of anything beyond "wynn spelling of" soft redirects. The people who have been contributing the most lately are on the anti-wynn side or don't care. It certainly looks to me like you're the outsider who's trying to ram wynns down the throats of the Old English community because it fits your politics. Have you ever even edited an Old English entry? Do you even know the first thing about Old English beside what you've been reading in the discussions? Accusing the people who are actually doing most of the work of "scum behavior" because they disagree with you is a bit much. Right or wrong, their opinion matters. Chuck Entz (talk) 11:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Chuck, I've never been able to disagree with you outright. In a sense, however, you have confirmed my point: there are few OE contributors and there's a huge onslaught of non-OE editors determining what's best for them. I don't want to ram anything down their throats. BOADT believed he was powerless and I advised him of his options. Whether or not he succeeds, he knows that he gave his best. That's something precious. I let my passion get the better of me a while ago. My emotions escaped as I thought about the injustice of what's going on. We inclusionists don't even have any admins we can properly call our own. They just stay out of everything and seldom vote. I agree with you. The deletionists' opinion absolutely matters. Their vote is just as valid as mine. I believe they're useful in small numbers. But it's extremely lopsided here on en.wikt at this point in time. There are just so many deletionists and only a handful of inclusionists. The deletionists keep hounding me about my voting preferences. Ever since I removed "my politics" from my signature, I stopped seeking them out to talk to them. They're the ones who are always asking me questions. It's so simple. All they have to do is ignore me collectively. &mdash; Dentonius 12:21, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All that is needed is a note at double saying that it is chiefly followed by as. There is no need for a separate entry that will say essentially the same thing as double. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:28, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you one of those people who believe get in, get on, take off, put on (phrasal verbs) in general should just be under the verbs, get, take, put? &mdash; Dentonius 09:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Every entry needs to be considered individually. In the case of a term like take off, the word take has many different meanings. Also, take off itself has a range of meanings which are not always obvious from the words take and off, including an aircraft or spacecraft leaving the ground, and a project doing well. On the other hand, double as really just means double + as. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:23, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That's why I was angry about what happened. We erroneously have that sense at double with the word "often" followed by as. However, it's necessarily always followed by as. Double on its own cannot have the meaning that "double as" has. Just to expound: I would only accept your reasoning as valid if we said that "as" is a conjunction in "double as", but it's not. "Double as" falls squarely under the category "phrasal verb." Though the "as" here isn't an adverb, it's still a phrasal verb (belonging to the types with prepositions) &mdash; Dentonius 13:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * One can say, “That’s when it really took off.” But not, *“That’s what it doubles as.” The first citation establishes that is a lexical entity. The impossibility of the second establishes that  as used in “the bed doubles as a couch” is part of the prepositional phrase “as a couch”.  --Lambiam 12:34, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Why can't you say "that's what it doubles as"? It's been used once on the WWW before you, and it sounds okay to me. "That's what it doubles" gets the same one hit, once you filter out stuff where it's not a unified sentence and the one hit from "that's what it doubles as".--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:17, 27 December 2020 (UTC)


 * FY'AI, I added a non-"as" example at the relevant entry at double, "In the film he plays Mr Cheeseworthy and also doubles in the role of the butler", which I think will do. Mihia (talk) 17:26, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you haven't the cracked the case, Mihia. That's still + giving rise to the idiomatic sense. The preposition in this case is the prepositional phrase in the role of which is none other than as. &mdash; Dentonius 17:38, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That ux belongs with the recently-added theater senses. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That's not correct. The "theatrical" sense is about substituting (for another person). In my example, the actor is playing the butler (that is, "playing a second part, serving a second role", just as the definition says), not substituting for anyone. Mihia (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There are two theater senses following the double as sense. It belongs on the second, currently sense 11, "To play (both one part and another, in the same play, etc).". Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK, sorry I didn't notice that second sense. But as far as I can see, sense #11, "To play (both one part and another, in the same play, etc)" is merely a special case of sense #9 "To play a second part, serve a second role or have a second purpose". Doesn't the definition of #9 exactly fit my example? Mihia (talk) 20:35, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I added the "to play..." sense only recently; it's possible I'm off-base and it should be folded into the "spoon" sense (or that the wording of the sense should be revised!), but I added it as its own sense because other dictionaries seem to have it as its own sense focused on theatre, and the grammar seems different (the ability to drop "as" doesn't seem to be possible when referring to an object, only a role a human has). - -sche (discuss) 22:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * When I was looking at this previously, I found a sparse few "as"-less Google hits for inanimate objects. One example that I can find again now is "Serving cart doubles in the role of a dining table." So, the non-human use apparently does exist. Mihia (talk) 22:40, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * If we can locate such cites (ideally enough that we could rule out that one or two writers just accidentally a word), that would resolve the Tea Room question and would make a better case for merging the two senses. - -sche (discuss) 01:32, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * For me, "accidentally a word" would be more of a concern if the usage sounded odd or wrong. I don't know how others feel, but to me, "Serving cart doubles in the role of a dining table", and others like it, seem like correct English without the need for further "proof", albeit "double up" might be more common. Mihia (talk) 02:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

If we had to choose one of those words to house the meaning of double as, I'd say as houses more of that meaning, and not double. There are a handful of verbs which can be used with as to render that meaning. The resulting phrasal verbs are idiomatic (and, of course, synonymous). &mdash; Dentonius 19:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. This discussion has been a waste of everyone's time. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Stays deleted. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 08:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)