Talk:Dime (slang)

Drug Terminology

Marijuana, the drug most associated with the term "dime", is not a narcotic. This should be modified.

Is $10/gram standard? Also, I've heard many people incorrectly refer to half of an eighth of an ounce as a dime, regardless of price... this is probably because cheap marijuana is often sold in $20 eighths. For instance, most marijuana is sold at $50 an eighth around my parts, but many people still incorrectly call half of that a "dime", even though it would cost $25. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.123.65 (talk) 00:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Unverifiable

Actually attempting to put any kind of measure on a 'dime bag' is near impossible, as every area has it's own prices/strands. Also, in most cases, when the drug is sold on college campuses prices are grossly inflated, I'm told, as students typically are short on cash and are looking to make maximum profit. As a majority of Wikipedia editors are attending college, and have never purchased the drug outside of it may have biased perceptions on prices.

Nevertheless, though, as I mentioned before, prices vary so much it's pointless to quibble over them, unless maybe in the context of medically sold cannabis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.4.34.56 (talk) 18:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Another meaning

Although I don't have any refrences, I know I and a lot of people i know use the word 'dime' sometimes in place of word's like cool, although it's usually used more with feminine things like an attractive woman, or a place (places are sometimes referred to as 'she' in AuE). I think this may be a strictly regional use, as I haven't heard anyone from a different area use 'dime' like this. Guitarhero91 02:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Weed isnt a narcotic. are you people dense?

slangily

Im pretty sure slangily isnt a word —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.31.133.169 (talk) 01:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

From dictionary.com:

slangily adverb

with slang; in a slangy manner; "he expresses himself slangily"

Formatting

The sort of bullet list in the intro seems a bit odd, maybe move it to the body at some point and turn into a proper bullet list and provide a more compact version of the primary usages in the intro? --86.128.252.182 05:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious, and have never found a reference to; What is the origin of the usage for assists in basketball? Informant obviously originated from the cost to use pay telephones before the price was raised.

Everlast

Everlast actually makes mention of "dime" to refer to an atractive female in hs song What It's Like" that predates the Yin Yang Twins' usage of terminology.

2007-12-13 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot (talk) 06:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Cdn-dime-reverse.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Speculative etymology

At one time enforcement officials would tell their tipsters "If you have any information please drop us a dime."

Any cite for this? —Wiki Wikardo 18:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "drop [me] a dime" traces back to US public payphones which charged 10¢ for a local call in almost all jurisdictions until the late 1970s (and in some areas beyond that). I know of no evidence that the usage originated with law enforcement, though. Rossami (talk) 23:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge or redirect

For all the well-researched content on this page, everything here is dictionary material, something that Wikipedia is not. Nothing here rises past what I would expect to read in a truly great unabridged dictionary. The definitions and usage discussions belong over in Wiktionary where folks with the right skills, interests and lexical tools can more easily sort out the meanings and origins.

Typical options to fix the page include:

1. Expand the page with encyclopedic content - that is, content that goes well beyond the merely lexical.
2. Redirect the page to a more general page on the appropriate sub-genre of slang.
3. Replace the current contents with a soft-redirect to Wiktionary (usually done using the {{wi}} template).

Pending a better answer, I'm implementing option 3 for now. All the definitions described here are already on the Wiktionary page. What additional detail and usage examples are not already there can be easily incorporated. Rossami (talk) 23:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

In a recent edit summary, a user commented "When did this get deleted. Don't blank it procedurally. Either AFD it or leave it alone." This page has never been deleted. The pagehistory is intact. The contents of this page were, however, merged to a better target page and this title redirected to the new target. In this specific case, the redirect is a soft redirect because hard-redirects do not work properly to pages within other MediaWiki projects. The contents of this page are now at wikt:dime (and several related pages since Wiktionary uses a separate page for each phrase rather than consolidating the phrase definition into the word's entry).

Regarding the comment to "Either AFD it or leave it alone", AfD has no juristiction over the decision to move, merge and/or redirect content from one page to another. If anyone sees content on this page that should not have been merged, we are expected to discuss and decide it here on this page. Rossami (talk) 23:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

No, we are not expected to discuss it. Contrary to popular belief there is, in fact, no Wikipedia policy requiring talk page discussion for anything. This page went through AFD once, with a resounding keep, and transwikking is only appropriate if it can never be more than a definition. Lots of slang words have been upheld by community consensus—nucular comes to mind—and replacing the page with a link to wiktionary is not the same thing as merging. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 02:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

We're not expected to discuss disputed edits and editorial decisions? That's news to me.
Like all AfDs ending in a decision other than "delete", the binding part of the AfD decision was merely a decision to not delete the pagehistory. That's all that the deletion process has jurisdiction over. Once the pagehistory has been kept, normal editing resumes including decisions about whether to add or remove content, reword sections, merge to a different page, etc. The comments made in the AfD discussion can illuminate subsequent discussion - but in this case they didn't much.
So I will ask again, what content on the old version of this page should not have been merged into the alternate page and why? Rossami (talk) 18:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

And I will say again, sending content to wiktionary is not a merge. What articles has this content been merged to here, on Wikipedia?

The AfD decision isn't permanently binding, but neither is your unilateral decision to change it to a redirect. And, no - we're not expected to discuss ad nauseum with a single editor who has decided he owns this redirect. From WP:MERGE: "If you are uncertain of the merger's appropriateness, or believe it might be controversial, or your merge ends up reverted, you can propose it on either or both of the affected pages."

If changing this to a redirect was uncontroversial, that would be one thing. But now at least two editors (along with, presumably, those at the old AfD) have stated they have a problem with it. So we're allowed to revert your "merge" (or lack thereof). If you want to work toward consensus, I suggest adding a {{merge}} tag here and wherever you think the content should be. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 22:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary is not a different site, it's a sister project. Content can be freely merged, redirected or moved from one project to the other as appropriate. The question that remains unanswered is "what content on this page goes beyond the merely lexical?" Because I and a number of other editors have looked at it and repeatedly found nothing. Reverts without ever answering the question is not working toward consensus.
To answer your other question, I have not added the {{merge}} tag to the page because the all content has already been merged to the appropriate pages. It's not a proposed merge, it's an accomplished one. Those mergers, by the way, were completely uncontroversial. The wording of the {{merge}} template doesn't fit the question. The decision is what to do now with this leftover. Rossami (talk) 23:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary is a sister project, but it's still a different site. But I'm not here to argue semantics. We can have overlapping content; that's what {{TWCleanup}} is for. At least, that's what it would be for if this article needed to be cleaned up. In this case, the article cites reliable third-party sources and has already been expanded past a simple dicdef, so it satisfies the first option. You can also send it to AfD if you want. Soft redirects are an option for transwikis, but nowhere does it say that the articles need to be blanked and turned into soft redirects over the objections of other editors. It's not like you were reverted by a couple of vandals here. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I'd probably support deletion of the current version if you want to go that route. I don't deny that it's essentially a usage guide, with a few trivial things thrown in. But it could be expanded to something more, and it should be allowed to do so if possible. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

No, Wiktionary is not a different site - that's more than mere semantics. Regardless, we can have overlapping content but this page has to have something more than mere lexical content or it's nothing more than a dictionary definition, something which Wikipedia policy explicitly says that encyclopedia articles are not. You assert that this has been expanded past a dicdef. I challenge you to show that. That, in fact, is the only question I asked at the start of this thread and the question I have continued to ask since. Where is there anything on this page that you would not expect to see in a truly great unabridged dictionary? If there is nothing that currently exceeds merely lexical content, then the project is better off with a redirect while preserving the pagehistory against the future possibility that someday there might be actual encyclopedic content. Rossami (talk) 04:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

"When pay-phones were the prominent form of communication, the burden of payment was on the calling party." Not a dicdef.

"In the Run-D.M.C. song "Rock Box" on the 1984 album Run-D.M.C. the following lyrics demonstrate its use as a noun." Not a dicdef.

"In American football the standard defense has 4 Defensive backs on the 11 man defensive unit. In certain situations where the offense is likely to pass, additional defensive backs are substituted. The fifth back is referred to as the nickel back. A sixth is referred to as the dime back. When the defense is in a formation with 6 defensive backs this is called either the dime formation and the group of players in the formation are referred to as the dime package." Most definitely not a dicdef.

I could go on, but I don't need to. That's already plenty - a history lesson, a music lesson, and a sports lesson. Of course, as I already said, it's trivial stuff. If you think it's all too trivial for an article, AfD it. But it's certainly not a dicdef. You say you're saving the page history for the future possibility someone might improve the article. At what point do you plan on letting people do that? I improved it a little bit (okay, a tiny bit, but that's life in the wiki) and you reverted me out of hand, as though some talk page post you made in March is the final word on it and nobody can touch this until they get your approval. What's that about? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

<outdenting> To your specific examples:

• "When pay-phones were ..." Explains the etymology of the slang phrase 'to drop a dime'. Etymologies are characteristics of dictionary definitions.
• "In the Run-D.M.C. song ..." Demonstrates the usage of the noun in a sentence. Usage notes and example sentences are characteristics of dictionary definitions.
• "In American football ..." Explains the etymology of the technical term 'dimeback'. Again, etymologies are dictionary definitions. The fact that this etymology is described in particularly complex prose doesn't change the fact that it's an etymology of a word.

Look, even you're conceding that much of the original content was trivia. The proper response when there is inappropriate content within an article is to prune it out. That does not and never has required an AFD discussion. After you do that pruning, what do you think will be left for this page? Rossami (talk) 17:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

A full transwiki or nothing

I don't necessarily oppose soft-redirecting this page to Wiktionary on the grounds that all of its content could be hosted there. However, I do oppose redirecting it there until all the content from this page actually is hosted on Wiktionary. That includes every definition, every usage example and every bit of etymology.

If Wiktionary's treatment of the subject is less complete than Wikipedia's, then overwriting this page with a redirect to Wiktionary represents a net loss for the project. It doesn't make sense to do it if that is the situation.--Father Goose (talk) 03:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I've not yet found anything verifiable that was not already at Wiktionary. Note that Wiktionary puts phrases on their own page so you may have to check multiple pages to check my work. But if I missed anything, please pull it out of the pagehistory. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 19:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)