Talk:safe pair of hands

safe pair of hands
Looks like safe pair of hands to me. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 13:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * ‘Pair of hands’ meaning what exactly, in your assessment? Ƿidsiþ 14:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It's in several Learners' Dictionaries and Dictionaries of Idioms, including Oxford Dictionary of Phrase And Fable and phrasefinder. I have never heard a bungling politician described as a "dangerous pair of hands". Jnestorius (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've never heard this term at all, regarding politicians or anyone else. Is it more common outside of the US?  -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 15:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's certainly used quite a bit in the UK, especially in sporting contexts (see the many articles calling new England manager Roy Hodgson a "safe pair of hands"). Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. If safe is taken as meaning secure or free from risk, then pair of hands would have to mean (something like) capability to perform a task - thus making pair of hands do the heavy lifting of the idiom, for no good reason. — Pingkudimmi 15:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's marginal, but I lean towards delete as it's a pretty transparent metaphor. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep (sense 3 at least): Though pair of hands does have a metaphorical meaning, it's along the lines of "help" or "assistance" - "It's good to have another pair of hands around here". pair of hands meaning "management" is, as far as I can tell, a sense unique to this phrase. Not so sure about the "good at catching a ball" sense - that seems pretty clear, surely? Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sense 1 is defined as a verb and could be speedily deleted, perhaps replaced by . DCDuring TALK 16:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps move to etymology section? Jnestorius (talk) 18:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * We haven't made it a practice of explicating derivations of senses, but it might be useful. DCDuring TALK 00:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As we feel compelled to lexicalize terms produced by normal operation of metonymy and live metaphor, this will be kept, notwithstanding my feeling that it be deleted. Something called "Phrase finder" (UK-based), the sole OneLook reference to have this, defines it as follows: "A reliable, if somewhat dull, person who can be entrusted not to make a mistake with a task." That seems to me sufficiently far removed from literal meaning to be includable. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Kept. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)