Talk:give someone what for

Note, this refers only to certain redirects, not this entire page. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I object to the forms with colloquialised pronouns: giving 'em what for, giving 'em what-for, giving 'er what for, giving 'im what for, giving 'im what-for, giving 'er what-for, givin' 'em what-for, givin' 'er what-for, givin' him what for, givin' him what-for, givin' her what for, givin' her what-for, givin' 'im what-for, givin' one what for, givin' one what-for, givin' them what for, givin' them what-for. This is like having get what's comin' to 'im as a form of get what's coming to one. I don't dispute that they exist (though I'd like to know what kind of unfortunate gutter-driven aristocrat would say "givin' one what-for"), but the pronouns are non-standard forms and don't seem "phraseworthy". Equinox ◑ 20:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This looks like a very good of increasing our entry count. Having inflected forms of phrases with pronoun was a good way of doing it. This illustrates further ways to execute that program. Hyphen-non-hyphen (2) X inflected forms (4) X personal pronoun (6) X alt forms for pronoun (2-3) X alt forms for verb (2-3) X fer/for (2). I could see 400-900 entries for one true lemma, each of which should be attested. Well, a slogan's a principle: all words in all languages. Too bad we don't have ligatures for this. DCDuring TALK 23:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But since they're redirects they won't count anyway. Frankly, I don't care. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A google search from the US for these terms does not lead to our lemma entry even though they have been in place for eight and a half months. Also no joy on OneLook. The justification for having them must rest on the good results in Mediawiki search and any effect in discouraging users from adding full entries. I wonder whether having an "inflected form" entry instead of a redirect would lead to hits on Google and other search engines. DCDuring TALK 18:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep as redirects any that are attested (and don't start sending them to RFV now: they're probably most of them attested). Someone might look it up under the spelling, and the redirect won't hurt. &#x200b;—  msh210  ℠  18:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Kept, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)