Talk:shitgibbon

Etymology
@WordyAndNerdy - I don't think we can say that this is the first shitgibbon that existed and that all other shitgibbons derive their format from it. It's just the one that happened to get noticed by linguists. That's also why it's useful to include it as an example, because it makes that point extra clear. Theknightwho (talk) 03:30, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I was objecting specifically to the use of the template in the etymology section, which presented this word's etymology as "Shitgibbon of shit + gibbon." That's a circular explanation. It isn't helpful and may not be not accurate. It would be like describing the etymology of  as "Eggcorn of ." WordyAndNerdy (talk) 03:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * It isn't a circular explanation, because the concept of the shitgibbon existed long before the term did. "Shitgibbon" did not inspire all other shitgibbons - it just gained a lot of prominence on Twitter, got noticed by linguists, and then got coined for a second time as representative. That's precisely why I went into the background of the tweets, because it shows how this one ended up leading the pack. That doesn't mean we can call it prototypical, though, even if it's archetypal. It would also be completely accurate to describe the etymology of that way, so long as the linguistics coinage was also explained as well. In that context, it's fine. Theknightwho (talk) 03:57, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * On a separate note, some pages explain different-but-related senses with bulletpoints like this in etymologies. I'm not sure why you have an issue with that. Theknightwho (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2022–February 2023
Rfv-sense: "A music bootlegger" At most two of the cites support this definition and neither of them are unambiguous. Arguably All of the cites are just the generic use of the term directed at music bootleggers. Obviously derogatory. DCDuring (talk) 13:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * DCDuring, I'm pretty sure the Sara Wylde quote (which I originally added to the generic term) referred to e-book piracy. I moved the cites back to the original sense. Alexis Jazz (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The use of a derogatory term to a particular group does not thereby make the meaning of the term "a particular group". Can anyone produce cites that show that the term means "music bootlegger". DCDuring (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with DCDuring (and apparently also Alexis, apparently we're all in agreement here?), these cites all look like the general insult. Calling a bootlegger a shithead to insult him doesn't make "shithead" mean "bootlegger". Looking back through the edit history I'm having a hard time finding who split the cites off to their own sense to begin with; the users who added most of them (Hugovk and Alexis) correctly understood they were the general insult. - -sche (discuss) 21:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * -sche, shitgibbon (Diff 67381638) by User:Theknightwho. Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:09, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I did not add the sense of music bootlegger, though, but I’m not sure I agree with the others on this thread anyway. The term was first coined in relation to music bootleggers, and seems to have seen consistent use in respect of them. That doesn’t seem like coincidence to me. Theknightwho (talk) 07:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Theknightwho, I did not add the sense of music bootlegger Actually, according to the diff I linked, you did? and seems to have seen consistent use in respect of them To the degree that's true, it could maybe warrant a usage note, but the term is obviously not restricted to bootleggers. Alexis Jazz (talk) 16:16, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I legitimately forgot that I did. Having looked in more detail (and jogged my memory), it's because these two sources directly refer to it. The term is not restricted to bootleggers these days, but I disagree with the claim that the cites that were previously under that sense don't support it.
 * get the f*ck off this newsgroup,shitgibbon!! is a clear cite for that sense. It's in response to somebody offering to sell bootlegged wares. In isolation it could be a generic insult, but it's part of a pattern.
 * The other 2000 cite is now broken, but it's saved in more detail here: It's clear that some of you expect others to do the hard work for you (ie filming)then belly-ache nauseatingly when you're asked to cough-up for it! .As for taping,I totally endorse taping trees and suchlike but franky audio-ing is a piece of piss compared to filming and 99% of filmers will only trade with other filmers.Why should lazy so-and-sos like you get copies of our tapes for free? But if you really baulk at buying videos,I'll tell you what,I will film the London show but because I don't want to be accused of bering mercenary,i'll keep the tape to myself-no sales,no trades.Good luck and goodbye to the most sick-making,hypocritical bunch of shitgibbons i've yet encountered on the Web! Another reference to bootleggers.
 * The 2001 cite is another obvious reference: So they should be,when he's the feller "what" films them.If you want cheap then feel free to buy from any one of 10,000 shitgibbons out there "who film from their computer keyboards" (as it were) thereby saving so much $,that they can cut you a GREAT deal for a 4th gen mastepiece!
 * I don't think it's reasonable to say it was simply a generic insult back in the early 2000s, to be honest. There is a clear pattern of usage and - importantly - they're being used with the assumption that other users understand that the term is more than just an insult. I would definitely argue that the sense falls under WT:JIFFY, if nothing else. Theknightwho (talk) 16:35, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ehh. The blog and Slate both cite one researcher saying the earliest uses he found were directed at bootleggers, but he points out that more than one of the early Usenet uses, though from different usernames, are by one person, and the Slate article goes on to point out other earlier uses of shitgibbon in the music scene where the term was pointed at musicians, showing that the definition was not restricted to bootleggers even when early users were mainly in the music scene. Nothing in the cites themselves distinguishes them from e.g. political forum posts referring to whichever end of the political spectrum their enemies are as fuckheads or retards or whatever else, which obviously doesn't make shithead mean "(in right-wing parlance) a leftwinger; (in left-wing parlance) a rightwinger". Wylde's "Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. In short, don't be a shitgibbon." is of a piece with countless hits describing some particular frowned-on behaviour(s) and then saying ; finding three that described the same frowned-on behaviour(s) would not, by itself, make definitionally mean someone who committed that behaviour. It's obviously possible for a general insult to take on (or have originated with) a more specific sense, but the evidence doesn't point to that here. (I also strongly suspect that if I perused the newsgroups, I'd find them describing people they disliked, including the bootleggers and disliked musicians they slurred as shitgibbons, with other slurs.) I could see adding a usage note that the earliest uses seem to come from the music scene, directed at disliked musicians or hated bootleggers, or if we preferred to handle that via a definition / context label then "(originally UK music scene) A disliked musician or fan or bootlegger", but just defining it as "A music bootlegger" isn't supported by the cites AFAICT. - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

RFV Failed Ioaxxere (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Again, this needs to have the CFI mandated discussion first. You can't just fail it outright without that. Theknightwho (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm getting mixed messages here— was complaining (edit: should have been "pointing out") that I created a CFI vote for an uncited term, and now you're asking for a CFI vote on a sense which had no quotations. I'm not sure how to proceed here. Ioaxxere (talk) 00:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I maintain that CFI votes should not be created for terms without cites, thus I believe that @Theknightwho erred here. (Also, I do not like the tone that "complain" in that sentence gives, as if I was not proceeding with the explicit policy that we have.) AG202 (talk) 05:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)


 * AFAICT this fails RFV; there are no cites to discuss the durability of, as all the cites which were [initially correctly assigned to the general sense but then] previously moved under this definition have since been moved back under the general sense, as agreed by AFAICT everyone except the one user who had temporarily split them off... unless we want to debate broadening the sense (to also cover musicians and anyone else disliked in the music scene, but then it's hardly distinct from the general sense)... - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2022–February 2023
Rfv-sense: A type of antibacchic compound word used as an insult, consisting of a single-syllable expletive, followed by an absurd or innocuous two-syllable noun as a trochee.

Could be, but it needs cites, especially if used as part of Wiktionary text, categories etc. We particularly need to make sure that the academic-sounding definition is the sense that people actually mean as opposed to a definition like "any word that reminds one of shitgibbon". DCDuring (talk) 01:42, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The blog post by Jones (2017) is cited as coining the term, so naturally it does use it (albeit only once, in the heading "how to make a shitgibbon in two easy steps"). The piece by Tessier & Becker (2018) is durably archived and uses the term many times. So we need at least one more use, I guess. Should be easy to find if we admit web sources; probably impossible at present otherwise. 98.170.164.88 04:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * For our credibility, we need them visible in the entry. And we still don't have a policy that citations that are not durably attested satisfy WT:ATTEST, do we? DCDuring (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * They're already visible in the entry, in the references section and referred to in the etymology. Plus there's the academic article Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon. Plus WT:ATTEST was changed a few months ago, which is something that's already been flagged to you. Theknightwho (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That's not where we put attestation cites. BTW attestation is supposed to show uses, not mentions. Arguably coinage cites that define the term are mentions. DCDuring (talk) 13:09, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It isn't, but they're particularly relevant to the etymology given that it's a coinage. Nevertheless, the term clearly has gained traction given its use elsewhere. It's trivial to find more online uses in this sense. Theknightwho (talk) 13:20, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Find them and insert them where they belong for the sake of our credibility as a dictionary. DCDuring (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Cites do not have to be featured in-entry to count toward attestation. There's a reason we have a whole namespace dedicated to filing citations. That said the ridiculous circular etymology in this entry does hurt our credibility. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 02:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Drop the stick. I’ve already explained how it’s not circular in detail, which you simply ignored. Theknightwho (talk) 03:40, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You ignored my explanation of how a self-referencing etymology is unhelpful and went ahead with edit-warring it back into the entry. At a certain point one realizes one has a greater chance of extracting blood from a turnip than budging the inexplicably entrenched. Doesn't mean the etymology isn't a blemish on an otherwise informative entry. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 08:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It’s clearly unhelpful to define shitgibbon as ‘shitgibbon of shit and gibbon’, we should simply write ‘From shit + gibbon’ in the etymology (like we do for knobjockey). Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:12, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn’t ignore that at all. I will repeat what I wrote on the talk page, because this argument comes from you mixing up the concept with the term:"It isn't a circular explanation, because the concept of the shitgibbon existed long before the term did. 'Shitgibbon' did not inspire all other shitgibbons - it just gained a lot of prominence on Twitter, got noticed by linguists, and then got coined for a second time as representative. That's precisely why I went into the background of the tweets, because it shows how this one ended up leading the pack. That doesn't mean we can call it prototypical, though, even if it's archetypal. It would also be completely accurate to describe the etymology of that way, so long as the linguistics coinage was also explained as well. In that context, it's fine." By your logic, we would have to remove the “shitgibbon of” etymology from every shitgibbon coined before the linguistics sense. Are you going to argue needs to be revised, too? It’s currently given as a nominalization of nominalize (with the  suffix). Theknightwho (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * We could make a special exception for the entry because "Shitgibbon of shit + gibbon" doesn't read well due to repetition, and instead just use "Compound of shit + gibbon", but still categorize it as one. 70.172.194.25 20:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we need to include it being a shitgibbon in the etymology, even if we expand the phrasing. Fundamentally, it was coined due to having the linguistic qualities of a shitgibbon; if they were called "fucktrumpets", we'd be having this discussion about that term instead. Given that both pre-date the linguistics blog post, either could have been chosen, but the fact none of us have an issue with the etymology of being "Shitgibbon of..." suggests this argument comes from a conflation of the term with the concept it describes. Theknightwho (talk) 20:19, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I fully understand the point you're making and from a logical standpoint it makes perfect sense. The word shitgibbon (sense 1) is a shitgibbon (sense 2). If this was a pure consistent database for robots there would be no issue. But it could be confusing for human readers, which is our audience, even though I admit there is something kind of fun or satisfyingly consistent about "Shitgibbon of shit + gibbon". For that matter, if said "Nominalization of nominalize" (it doesn't), that might be considered confusing phrasing too, even if it's entirely accurate.
 * What about something like "Compound of shit + gibbon, being the prototypical example of what later became known as a shitgibbon word (sense 2)"? 70.172.194.25 20:37, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I do see your point, and I agree with it. I think what riled me was that it was called circular (it isn't), and then I was simply dismissed as irrational when I pointed that out.It is actually a coinage, too, so how about "Coined by journalist David Quantick as +  in British music magazine NME in January 1990, as what would later become the quintessential example of a shitgibbon." I'm not sure we can call it prototypical, as I don't think it was the first of its kind (I don't have any evidence either way, but I suspect not). Theknightwho (talk) 20:52, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I think IP 70's proposal would help resolve the readability issues presented by the current format. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 09:02, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

RFV Failed, only 1 durable cite. Ioaxxere (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * @Ioaxxere This needs to have the CFI mandated discussion first. You can't just fail it outright without that. Theknightwho (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

CFI vote for shitgibbon
(Requested by )


 * 1) Delete, usage seems limited to a single academic study and a few non-durable quotations. striking my vote, it can stay. Ioaxxere (talk) 18:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep: The point of using durably-archived source is to evidence that a term has been used in a particular way at least three times. Given that the origin and original use of this term can be clearly traced, I'd say we know more than enough about the term to say that it's real. The fact that only one "durable" source exists does not mean - as it often does - that it's only been used once ever. Theknightwho (talk) 18:27, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 3) Keep. Binarystep (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV Passed. (2-0) Ioaxxere (talk) 06:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)