| Wiktionary:Requests for deletion Aug 2nd 2011, 02:21 gristle: Keep, I think. I'm a bit confused by Pingku's comment. | ← Older revision | Revision as of 02:21, 2 August 2011 | | Line 3,171: | Line 3,171: | | | ::The second does not seem to fit with the popular experience of embrittlement of bones with age. It also relies on what is neither observable directly nor supported by a social system of broad effect, like a religion, or a knowledge community. | | ::The second does not seem to fit with the popular experience of embrittlement of bones with age. It also relies on what is neither observable directly nor supported by a social system of broad effect, like a religion, or a knowledge community. | | | ::Not every metaphor makes it into the lexicon. [[User: DCDuring |DCDuring]] <small >[[User talk: DCDuring|TALK]]</small > 00:52, 2 August 2011 (UTC) | | ::Not every metaphor makes it into the lexicon. [[User: DCDuring |DCDuring]] <small >[[User talk: DCDuring|TALK]]</small > 00:52, 2 August 2011 (UTC) | | | + | | | | + | : '''Keep''', I think. I'm a bit confused by Pingku's comment. It is in fact literally true that most of the bones in our body, including for example the major bones of the arms and legs, develop from cartilage that is slowly replaced with bone tissue, and that this process isn't totally complete throughout the body until late adolescence or early adulthood. (See [[w:Bone#Formation]].) This is why children's bones are generally much more flexible than adults'. That said, this literal anatomical fact clearly took on a life of its own as a figure of speech, a symbol of the softness of youth; and it's often even applied to non-physical firmness, e.g. in "Persecution and controversy wrought her [Christianity's] gristle into bone." It's no coincidence that all three of our cites are speaking of men; literature of the time did not portray women in a way compatible with the gristle-to-bone symbolism. (Don't get me wrong, you can find uses on b.g.c. that apply the metaphor to women, but they are clearly in a tiny, tiny minority, and the ones I've found are all of the non-physical-firmness type.) —[[User: Ruakh |Ruakh]]<sub ><small ><i >[[User talk: Ruakh |TALK]]</i ></small ></sub > 02:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC) | | | | | | | | == [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] == | | == [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] == | | |
