Talk:red letter law

RFV discussion: October 2021
"A law that is a large-scale attempt by a government to regulate business in the interest of society at large." I can't find anything on this at all. IP's invention? Equinox ◑ 19:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * cited Kiwima (talk) 21:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see that our cites unambiguously support the definition. DCDuring (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell this "definition" comes from a misreading of a passage in a popular US history textbook American Pageant.
 * 536 Yet the act [The Interstate Commerce Act] still ranks as a red-letter law. It was the first large-scale attempt by Washington to regulate business in the interest of society at large. It heralded the arrival of a series of independent regulatory commissions in the next century, which would irrevocably commit the government to the daunting task of monitoring and guiding the private economy. It foreshadowed the doom of freewheeling, buccaneering business practices and served full notice that there was a public interest in private enterprise that government was bound to protect. - American Pageant
 * A straightforward SoP reading of red-letter ("Particularly significant or positive") + law fits this usage and every citation that we have. That we haven't caught this since the entry was amateurishly created some 13 years ago, means that this pseudo-definition appears with Wiktionary's name attached appears at the top of any online search for "red letter law". DCDuring (talk) 03:07, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree this is not cited in support of the definition. There may be a different meaning to be extracted. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've RfDed it as SoP. DCDuring (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 22:15, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

RFD discussion: October 2021–May 2022
Our definition is not unambiguously supported by any of the citations, which instead support the SoP reading red-letter ("Particularly significant or positive.") + law. DCDuring (talk) 03:10, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * As currently defined, delete. I suspect from the quotations that there is a meaningful sense to be found, either contrasting with  or as a mistake for it.  Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:48, 21 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Leaning delete. All of my legal dictionaries contain black-letter law, but none of them contain this. As noted, the quotes provided are not all clearly examples of the term as defined. bd2412 T 02:07, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The definition was taken word-for-word from a commentary on a US history textbook. See the RfV discussion. DCDuring (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I stand corrected, and withdraw my !vote. bd2412 T 04:34, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * keep As the person who supplied all the supporting citations, the thing I noticed when searching is that all the citations refer to laws that regulate businesses rather than individuals. I don't think "red-letter" in these quotes means "particularly significant or positive". In fact, in some cases, it seems to mean quite the opposite (such as the 2012 quote, which was ultimately about suspending public interest laws and regulations in order to more efficiently manage the recovery from the devastating earthquake of 2011). Kiwima (talk) 19:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Kiwima. Fytcha (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 05:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)