Talk:here be dragons

here be dragons
Equivalent to either here + be or here be + dragons. See there be. DCDuring TALK 10:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You say that, I don't see the relevant sense of dragons. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is sense 1 at the singular dragon:. You aren't suggesting that we need a separate definition for "an image or representation of" each noun in Wiktionary, are you? DCDuring TALK 10:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I would keep this one and delete the others. I believe that it has entered the language as a shorthand for something / somewhere unknown and potentially dangerous. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * @DCDuring it does say 'unknown danger' not 'legendary, serpentine or reptilian creature'. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

keep, this one has pretty much evolved into a meaning all on its own. Don't keep the other three, though. -- Liliana • 11:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep. Definitely not SOP. When cartographers of yore put this on maps, it wasn't a literal warning to watch out for real, live dragons, but an idiomatic statement that the area in question was as yet unexplored, and hence possibly filled with unknown dangers. Today it's used in a broader idiomatic context to indicate when something is venturing outside the bounds of convention/knowledge/experience/etc., into possibly pernicious territory. Astral (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Can you find an instance of this with clear evidence of what the intended meaning of the cartographers was? 12:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This may be relevant. Apparently the English phrase itself never appeared on any of the ancient maps, so the phrase has always had "a life of its own". It looks to me like it does have a set metaphorical sense of indicating an uncharted, dangerous (metaphorical) place, but a normal Google search on "here be" mainly turns up a snowclone where people substitute various things in place of "dragons" for humorous effect. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * @DCDuring The link provided by Chuck Entz above shows there's only one known case of a phrase similar to "here be dragons" ever appearing on a map in any language — that being "HC SVNT DRACONES" on an early 16th century globe — so admittedly what I learned about this phrase's history at some point seems to be incorrect. But the fact that "here be dragons" never actually appeared on maps seems to indicate that it's less a historical map notation than a more recent idiomatic (and somewhat meme-ish) phrase used to sum up archaic ideas about terra incognita. It's also become a broader idiomatic expression used to indicate that something is unknown/uncertain, as the cites provided by BD2412 below show. Astral (talk) 22:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there any attestable metaphorical interpretation of anything rendered into a catchphrase that wouldn't merit an entry? How about there might be giants:?

What subset of the "cultural knowledge" of the subcultures that we tend to represent are we going to enshrine here? It's hard enough to maintain some objectivity when we have reference to the work of other lexicographers (ie, in covering ordinary words other than proper names) without including every catchphrase that catches a contributor's fancy. It's not as if we actually have any objective criteria to test such fanciful candidate entries against. DCDuring TALK 12:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * @DCDuring I have no idea, I've never heard of it, but I think it's unwise of you to ignore the comments of other editors who claim to know the phrase and know how it's used. From what they say, it clearly meet WT:CFI as "easily derived from the meaning of its separate components". Mglovesfun (talk) 12:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep, of course. This is a well-attested phrase. See: Furthermore, it has slipped into pure idiomacity. See: Cheers! bd2412 T 16:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * 2011, Susie Vrobel, Fractal Time: Why a Watched Kettle Never Boils, p. 255:
 * When the old seafarers encountered uncharted territory, they would find those blank areas on the map marked with the phrase “Here be Dragons” and the image of a sea serpent or a similarly ferocious creature.
 * 2004, Nornie Campbell, No Dragons Here, p. 253:
 * The awakening world scrawled ‘Here Be Dragons’ across the unknown territory.
 * 1997, Charles Jones, The Edinburgh history of the Scots language'', p. 336:
 * In undertaking such a task, I realise that I am venturing into uncharted waters, or at least waters for which only charts of the ‘here be dragons’ variety exist.
 * 1994, Steven Henry Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering, p. 11
 * It's like in those old maps of the world, where the mapmakers wrote, "Here be dragons" on the unexplored parts of the globe.
 * 1993, Incorporated Association of Organists, Organists' Review, Volume 79, Issues 309-312, p. 219:
 * Speaking of money... here be dragons... Do you charge?
 * 1997, William R. Everdell, The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought, p. 191:
 * Analytical philosophers mark "Here be dragons" on the part of the intellectual map that belongs to phenomenology.
 * 1962, Geoffrey Fletcher, The London Nobody Knows, p. 16:
 * Here be dragons in the shape of London landladies, owners of small hotels ('B. & B.') in the streets off the lower end of Euston Road. ..
 * 1931, Ritchie Calder, reported in New Scientist, Vol. 114, No. 1559, May 7, 1987, p. 61:
 * . . . let me go into what was the unknown, ‘Here-be-Dragons’, hinterland of science, to find out what made scientists tick. ..

there be monsters
Fully analogous to here be dragons. Also need proper formatting. DCDuring TALK 10:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If here be dragons is kept, as it should be, then these should be kept. I did a Google Books search for each before I made the entries, and each one gets several thousand hits even after excluding trivial variations such as "Here, there be dragons". bd2412 T 16:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * See also:
 * 2003, w:Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:
 * Barbossa: You're off the edge of the map, Jack. Here there be monsters!
 * Cheers! bd2412 T 03:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * here be dragons kept. there be dragons, here be monsters and there be monsters deleted. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:33, 16 August 2012 (UTC)