Talk:banana peel

RFD discussion: March–April 2014

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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banana peel

banana skin

Banana + peel. Pure SOP; how is this any different from apple peel, potato peel or any other peel? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 22:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. This term is American, as opposed to banana skin in British English. Banana skin is listed in my Oxford Dictionary of English. Donnanz (talk) 23:38, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

  Nominating the literal sense of banana skin as well then, to be converted to &lit if it fails as there is an idiomatic sense. — Ungoliant ^(falai)

• No, I think you miss my point. If banana peel is only used in Am. English, and banana skin only in Br. English, they are not terms used throughout the English-speaking world, so it makes sense to retain both of them. Deleting one sense from banana skin doesn't make any sense either. And I take it the translations do not matter either in your eyes; there is a redirect from banana skin to banana peel. Donnanz (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

  Keep per Donnanz. DCDuring TALK 00:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  Differences in usage of skin and peel should be listed in their respective pages. Translations matter if enough languages have idiomatic words for a banana’s peel, in which case the definition can be converted into {{translation only}}. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 01:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep banana peel. There's an idiomatic sense that we don't have yet: it was a favorite gag in old movies to have someone slip and fall after stepping on a banana peel, so it came to be used metaphorically for anything that makes you slip or make yourself look foolish if you aren't careful. There's also the phrase "have one foot on a banana peel", referring to being in an unstable situation- the most common permutation being "have one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave" for someone at great risk for death. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  It is the object itself that is the gag, not the word "banana peel". --WikiTiki89 08:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  In the US I don't think banana skin is idiomatic in either of the senses given. It just means the skin of a banana. In my idiolect banana peel refers to the skin once it is removed from the rest of the banana. This fits, for example, WordNet's definition. The second banana skin sense or something similar would probably be attestable in the US, but I haven't heard or read it.

BNC: banana peel - 0, banana skin - 11

COCA: banana peel - 52, banana skin - 5

The US usage seems to often be an allusion to the vaudevillean pratfall, rather than have the UK sense in the COCA sample. DCDuring TALK 02:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. Otherwise, we would need to have overly narrow senses at skin and peel, reading for example: With respect to a banana, the removable outer layer (U.S. only/UK only). bd2412 T 03:40, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  We already have these senses. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 03:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  Not specific to their regional limitations as applied to bananas (and apparently bananas alone). bd2412 T 11:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. --WikiTiki89 08:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
• I'm trying to find a case for murder weapon (see mordvåpen), but I haven't found one yet. But there's definitely a case for retaining these two entries. Donnanz (talk) 09:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Let me ask something: should apple peel/skin, passion fruit peel/skin, lemon peel/skin, grapefruit peel/skin, grape peel/skin and all other citable fruit + skin/peel combinations be added as well? If not, why is banana peel/skin different? (Don’t say “there are idiomatic senses”, only the senses relating to the actual skins of actual bananas are being nominated). — Ungoliant ^(falai) 10:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

My gut feeling tells me there's no case for the non-existent entries you mentioned; there's probably a better case for murder weapon. But that doesn't alter my stance regarding the two entries under discussion. Donnanz (talk) 11:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Why is there a case for banana peel and not for other fruit peels? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 11:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Both banana skin (in the UK) and banana peel (in the US) have at least one metaphorical use, referring to some kind of possibly comic hazard. The UK metaphorical usage seems clearer to me than the more nearly allusive use of banana peel in the US. {{&lit}} would probably cover the other usage, but not in the opinion of all some professional lexicographers. See “banana peel”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. and “banana skin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. Other fruit peels/skins don't have any metaphorical uses that I am aware of, though potato peel would be one I'd like to check. DCDuring TALK 14:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said, only the senses relating to the actual skins of actual bananas are being nominated. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 14:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

But why? One trait of a banana skin/peel (slipperiness) relates to the figurative usage. I remember seeing a Mini slip on a discarded banana skin when it pulled up at the traffic lights. The driver wondered what on earth was going on. Donnanz (talk) 15:19, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat what I said above: It is the object itself that is the gag, not the word "banana skin". --WikiTiki89 15:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding "murder weapon," 1) a "murder weapon" isn't necessarily a "weapon" in the narrow sense that it is something intentionally designed to cause injury (e.g., a brick, length of pipe, or other heavy everyday object used to bludgeon someone to death), 2) a weapon like a hunting rifle was designed for killing, but it wasn't designed for murder, 3) WMDs are weapons used for murder, but they're generally not considered "murder weapons" when used. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 02:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, food for thought on murder weapon. Thanks. Donnanz (talk) 07:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The way I see it is that "murder weapon" refers to a weapon that was already used for murder, whether a switchblade, hunting rifle, or brick. WMDs are weapons used for mass destruction; calling a WMD explosion "murder" is a drastic understatement. --WikiTiki89 07:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Delete the literal sense. CFI doesn’t tell us to include SOP expressions just because we can tag them with usage labels. Maybe we should change this – usage is a lexicographical characteristic, and arguably gives idiomaticity. On the other hand, every English speaker will know what banana peel or banana skin means, even if that is not her regional preferred form, so I don’t know if this case warrants changing CFI.

Is there any evidence that peel/skin have a broader American/British bias, or is it only with bananas? A usage note in each of these entries could explain this, whether it’s restricted to banana + X or universal.

Strathy corpus records 4:0 for banana peel, supporting that it is North American. —Michael Z. 2014-03-31 17:04 z

Of the seven nouns banana, orange, potato, lemon, onion, fruit, and grapefruit for which there was both COCA and BNC usage, UK and US usage agree in collocating the noun more frequently with skin or peel in five of the cases. With banana the numbers showing different collocation frequency are above. With potato COCA collocates skin and peel equally (12 and 12) and BNC has two peels and no skins. It actually seems that banana skin and banana peel occur with different frequency (UK and US) than one would expect based on the usage of skin and peel, which do not much differ otherwise between US and UK. DCDuring TALK 21:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I would think that potato skin would be an outlier because of the dish. bd2412 T 22:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think potato peeling (usually peelings} is more common in British usage, when the potato skin is peeled off. Donnanz (talk) 22:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• I have created an entry for potato skins, although this is admittedly not quite comparable to the issue at hand. bd2412 T 21:49, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I personally consider "potato skin" and "potato peel" to be two different things. The potato skin is the actual skin of the potato, while the potato peel is the potato skin plus some of the flesh that is cut off during the peeling process. --WikiTiki89 22:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep both as both have metaphorical meanings, and {{&lit}} exists for a reason. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

  I don't think {{&lit}} does justice to the non-figurative sense. Banana skin and banana peel are both used in the US, with slightly different meanings. Banana skin seems to be used much more often than banana peel in the UK, covering the non-figurative definitions of both US terms. DCDuring TALK 00:31, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. My initial reaction was, "clear-cut SOP entries, delete," but the arguments above have convinced me otherwise. Presenting information on the regional difference in the usage of these two terms in separate entries rather than trying to work the information into the (understandably) crowded entries for peel and skin is the simpler solution. I think there's ultimately a balance to be struck between weeding out unnecessary entries and striving to make our wiki as accessible as possible to readers. Peel and skin also both have additional senses that could lead someone who's only ever encountered either banana peel or banana skin to misinterpret meaning — e.g. banana peel as a banana-based facial peel. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 01:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 20:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)