Talk:hard to handle

hard to handle
Err, looks like hard + to + handle to me. ---&gt; Tooironic 06:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. It is referring specifically to the "handling" (emotional management?) of a "difficult" person, but a sense at handle: can (and I expect already does) cover that. Equinox ◑ 09:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, though I imagine it's the most common collocation of the "X to handle" range. --Mglovesfun (talk) 11:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * even in it's alternative form of "hard-to-handle"? As in When a level transmitter is selected for a hard-to-handle service, the radiation type or the load cell might seem to be obvious choices, [...]? What is the difference then between this and a compound, or a phrase such as good to go:? Just the fact that it is plain to make out? Leasnam 12:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete this form. It's #80 in the list of collocations of "hard to [bare infinitive]" at COCA. [[hard]] needs work. "Handle" is #117 in mutual information score with "hard to" there. Hard to see why it would be a redirect to either [[hard]] or [[handle]]. DCDuring TALK  13:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would agree that as hard to handle, as in He is hard to handle is sum of parts. But as hard-to-handle, placed before a noun as a modifier (e.g. He is a hard-to-handle boy.), it warrants inclusion? No? Leasnam 16:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It does not belong in my personal dictionary, but probably would be includable here in that spelling for some reason. But by a reading of WT:COALMINE some might argue that it be included, though I would argue that only a spelling like "hardtohandle" would warrant including hard to handle, even under the over-reaching readings of WT:COALMINE. DCDuring TALK 17:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In my personal dictionary such hyphenated spellings that appear as predicates only with low relative frequency (arguably erroneous or idiolectic) would not be included, as is typical in dictionaries other than Wiktionary. DCDuring TALK 17:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hard-to-handle is to me three words, just linked by hyphens, not spaces. --Mglovesfun (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What then is the difference between hard-to-handle and other idiomatic phrases like against the law: or after the fact:? Leasnam 18:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Mostly that we hadn't gotten around to RfDing them. Some are more different than others. "All to smash" appears in no current OneLook dictionary, though it does appear in an 1848 dictionary of Americanisms. OneLook also has no entry for "against the law", though it does have a redirect-type entry at Dictionary.com's legal dictionary. (I would have in a phrasebook-type wiki.) "After the fact" appears in a few dictionaries. DCDuring TALK 19:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Besides following our comrade lemmings in our treatment of these, we could rationalize keeping [[after the fact]] based on its use of an obsolete sense of fact:, [[all to smash]] based on its somewhat ungrammatical structure. DCDuring TALK 19:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * take a fresh look now at hard to handle: (if you haven't done so since my last edit), and see if there is anything salvageable in it. Leasnam 19:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't like the noun sense being there when the only citation has it hyphenated. Equinox ◑ 21:11, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To me it still looks like an instance of a general grammatical construction. Just as we don't have a real phrasebook with criteria, we don't have a wikigrammar. Something modeled on Appendix:Snowclones might be nice for showing such constructions/schemas/patterns (as in Construction grammar). This one is something like "[AdjP] to [Verb bareinfinitive ]". Not every single imaginable combination or [AdjP] and [Verb bareinfinitive ] is semantically possible, let alone attestable, but the meaning is NISoP decodable if the expression does not rely on obsolete senses and yet continues in use. I don't think we can solve the translator's problem of finding the most idiomatic translation using a dictionary format. DCDuring TALK 21:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak move to hyphenated form. RFV the noun. DAVilla 04:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

deleted -- Liliana • 17:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)