Talk:maternal uncle

maternal uncle
Sum of parts: useful only as a place to hang translations. (Unlike some editors, I'm not thoroughly opposed to having such a place in cases like this where a lot of languages make this distinction; but if we're going to do that, the entry should be structured so as to make that clear, and it should only include the translations that rightfully hang there. A lot of the translations we currently list are either catch-all words for "uncle", or equally-SOP translations.) —Ruakh TALK 12:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is it really sum of parts? A genealogically naive user might assume it means "mother's uncle." -- Visviva 13:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Or a matronly uncle. —Stephen 13:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Not sum of parts. No combination of maternal or uncle will define the term without ambiguity.--Dmol 14:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Necessary, and desirable, in English. Translations which are SOP should have their component words wikilinked separately.  Widsith 20:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

So, question: would y'all argue that since undefined: isn't already taken as a genealogical term, it might indeed indicate a mother's brother, or to a motherly brother? It's true that maternal: has multiple senses, but I believe that undefined: has only one, and various examples of this fact are all SOP. —Ruakh TALK 03:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I would say that "maternal brother" can only mean a brother who is quite motherly. At any rate, it is pretty confusing to interpret it any other way.  More to the point, it is an almost non-existant phrase, whereas maternal uncle is a very common collocation, and furthermore is idiomatic in the sense that this is the most natural way to express the concept in English.  Widsith 05:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, all the b.g.c. hits I can find for "maternal brother" use it to mean "brother with whom ego shares a mother" only... however, a web search for "maternal brother"+"mother's brother" turns up a number of sites which appear to treat these phrases as synonymous. (For example, on a professor's course-notes website, "He notes in European stories the maternal brother is good and the father's brother is evil." ) This does seem to indicate that "maternal" can be polysemous even when applied to relatives, at least when the author is not paying strict attention.  Personally, if I encountered "maternal brother" out of context, I wouldn't be sure which way to interpret it, if only because the notion of distinguishing siblings by shared parent is rather foreign to me. -- Visviva 06:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, good point. You could obviously have a maternal brother and a step-brother.  Widsith 06:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * So if I may paraphrase: there's a strong tendency to interpret maternal uncle: as "uncle on one's mother's side", just as there's a strong tendency toward that interpretation of undefined: in all other cases. (Is that fair to say?) That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of the term's non-SOP-ness. —Ruakh TALK 21:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. IMO reasonable doubt exists as to compositionality, and the value of this and related terms as translation-hangers adds some weight in favor of keeping.   -- Visviva 14:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. Not sum of parts. very useful for translations and linguistic analysis. --Diligent 05:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep as a family term. Interestingly, a maternal uncle can have special status in some placs, see On the function of the maternal uncle in Torres Straits. --Jackofclubs 16:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Kept per consensus. --Jackofclubs 12:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)