Talk:Tom, Dick and Harry

2007-02-9 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 11:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Documentable sources

Not sure how much is worth adding, but here are some factoids:

• Heavily used by Shaw: The Proverbial Bernard Shaw: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of George ...
• Lyrics of "Tom, Dick or Harry" from Kiss Me, Kate, including:

I'm a maid who would marry

And will take with no qualm

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Harry, Dick or Tom,

I'm a maid mad to marry

And will take double-quick

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

• "Thomas, Richard, and Harold", Rowan Atkinson eulogy
• "About Tom, Dick and Harry", description of 1894 Talbot Baines Reed novel
• A blog quoting a good-sounding 1955 work (that should be easily confirmed) that's done some hard research, e.g. finding a 1904 ref that quotes an 1815 one "Re: Tom, Dick & Harry" on The Phrase Finder

--Jerzy•t 20:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Origin

An etymology would be edifying. -- Beland (talk) 04:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I found the below in an historical journal. Ca 1524 seems to be the first mention I can see. Not sure if Martin Luther originated phrase though! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzlord1 (talk • contribs) 21:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"Nowadays everyone thinks he is a master of Scripture", he said, "and every Tom, Dick and Harry imagines he understands the Bible and knows it inside out" Martin Luther ca1524 Luther's Tischreden, no. 6008. cited in Protestantism and Literacy in Early Modern Germany Author(s): Richard Gawthrop and Gerald Strauss Source: Past & Present, No. 104 (Aug., 1984), pp. 31-55 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.241.90 (talk) 20:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds apocryphal, German-language usage of the phrase is different from English, probably the result of a modern translation. We'd have to see the original German to verify. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Tom, Jack or Richard

I've been reading Great Expectations, and this is what Wemmick said. Kayau Voting IS evil 11:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing comma

I'm fairly sure that proper grammar would have two comma's in the phrase, "Tom, Dick, and Harry". Currently it is "Tom, Dick and Harry". Green Cardamom (talk) 16:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

There are two "correct" ways of doing it, with and without the second comma. Broadly speaking, American usage has two commas and British usage has just the one. See serial comma. But I think any attempt to change this article would fall foul of WP:ENGVAR. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 17:09, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks. I'll mention this in the article, shamelessly borrowing your words verbatim :) Green Cardamom (talk) 17:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In other languages

A section about this phrase in other languages was recently removed from the article. I'm posting it here in case anyone wants to reconsider adding it to the article, adding to it, or has a use for it. Green Cardamom (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

• Пера, Жика и Мика (Pera, Žika i Mika) — in Serbian
• Pierre, Paul ou Jacques — in French
• Sulio i Pulio (Сульо и Пульо) — in Bulgarian
• Hinz und Kunz — in German
• Kreti und Pleti - in German
• Hans und Franz — in German
• Jan en Alleman - Jan, Piet & Klaas — in Dutch
• Fulano, Zutano, Mengano y Perengano (usually the first three only) — in Spanish
• Tizio, Caio e Sempronio — in Italian
• Per, Pål og Askeladden — in Norwegian
• Fulano, Beltrano e Sicrano — in Portuguese
• Иванов, Петров, Сидоров (Ivanóv, Petróv, Sídorov), каждый встречный и поперечный (kázhdy vstréchny i poperéchny) — in Russian
• Are, Oore, Shamsi Kooreh — in Persian
• Andersson, Pettersson och Lundström — in Swedish
• فلان وعلان (fulaan wa-`allaan), كل من هبّ ودبّ (kull man habba wa-dabba) - in Arabic
• Era Ghera, Nathu, Khera (ایراغیرہ نتھو خیرا) — in Urdu/Hindi
• Phalana Dhingra — in Punjabi
• Nodaai Bhodaai - in Assamese
• Joži or Džony - in Slovak (slang)
• 阿貓阿狗 (pinyin: ā māo ā gŏu) — in Chinese (lit. "cat and dog")
• 張三李四 (pinyin: Zhāng sān Lǐ sì) — in Chinese (張 and 李 are common surnames, while 三 and 四 are the numbers three and four)
• 猫も杓子も (Rōmaji: neko-mo shakushi-mo) "cats and ladles too" - in Japanese (neko-mo shakushi-mo)
• 개나 소나- in Korean (dogs or cows)
• Ahmet, Mehmet - in Turkish
• Urlia, Sandia eta Berendia - in Basque

Delete again. New list follows: -- Green Cardamom (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

• Ali, Ah Kow and Ramasamy - in Manglish or Singlish
• Пера, Жика и Мика (Pera, Žika i Mika) — in Serbian
• Sulio i Pulio (Сульо и Пульо) — in Bulgarian
• Hinz und Kunz — in German
• Kreti und Pleti - in German
• Hans und Franz — in German
• κάθε καρυδιάς καρύδι (káthe karydiás karýdi) — in Greek
• Jóska-Pista or pityipalko — in Hungarian
• Jan en Alleman - Jan, Piet & Klaas — in Dutch
• Gud og hver mand - in Danish
• Fulano, Zutano, Mengano y Perengano (or Perensejo) (usually the first three only) — in Spanish
• Tizio, Caio e Sempronio — in Italian
• Pierre, Jean ou Jacques — in French
• En Pau, en Pere o en Berenguera — in Catalan
• Per, Pål og Askeladden — in Norwegian
• Fulano, Sicrano e Beltrano — in Portuguese
• Иванов, Петров, Сидоров (Ivanóv, Petróv, Sídorov), каждый встречный и поперечный (kázhdy vstréchny i poperéchny) — in Russian
• اره و اوره و شمسی کوره (Âre, Ure, Šamsi Kure) — in Persian
• Andersson, Pettersson och Lundström — in Swedish
• فلان وعلان (fulaan wa-`allaan), كل من هبّ ودبّ (kull man habba wa-dabba) - in Arabic
• Era Ghera, Nathu, Khera (ایراغیرہ نتھو خیرا) — in Urdu/Hindi
• Phalana Dhingra — in Punjabi
• Nodaai Bhodaai - in Assamese
• Joži or Džony - in Slovak (slang)
• 阿貓阿狗 (pinyin: ā māo ā gŏu) — in Chinese (lit. "cat and dog")
• 張三李四 (pinyin: Zhāng sān Lǐ sì) — in Chinese (張 and 李 are common surnames, while 三 and 四 are the numbers three and four)
• 猫も杓子も (Rōmaji: neko-mo shakushi-mo) "cats and ladles too" - in Japanese
• 개나 소나- in Korean (dogs or cows)
• Ahmet, Mehmet - in Turkish
• Urlia, Sandia eta Berendia - in Basque
• குப்பனோ சுப்பனோ (Kuppano Suppano) - in Tamil
• అప్పారావు, సుబ్బారావు (Apparavu, Subbaravu) - in Telugu
• Cikku l-Poplu - in Maltese
• I Kunto i Panto - in Bosnian
• Pedro, Paco y Juan - in Spanish
• Marko i Trajko - in Croatian

---

All of these have now been moved to wiktionary, except for Tamil, Telugu and Manglish which Wiktionary had trouble with (left a not for help over there). Green Cardamom (talk) 00:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Pop culture and translations

Removing the pop culture references per WP:IPC: passing mentions in books, television or film dialogue, or song lyrics should be included only when that mention's significance is itself demonstrated with secondary sources, translations per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Please refrain from restoring it before reaching consensus on the talk page. Thanks. Abolen (talk) 17:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I think some of the "popular culture" material is worth retaining - the Galapagos tortoises and Third Rock from the Sun, for example. Less convinced of the need for the long unsourced list of alleged equivalents in other languages. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 18:01, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree regarding the cultural references, need to go over one by one and not deleted en-mass with a single "WP:TRIVIA". Trivia means different things to different people, and different things depending on the subject matter.

Regarding the list in other languages: You will not find a list like that anywhere on planet earth except on Wikipedia. It is only through the power of collaborative editing that such a list would ever be created. Everything else in this article is found elsewhere, it's unoriginal (by design) - however that list is the one thing Wikipedia has on this subject that can't be found anywhere else (in one place). It's damn fascinating to see how other cultures have similar-but-different phrases. Sourcing is an issue, but I wonder even with sources someone would still try to delete it. Green Cardamom (talk) 18:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a wiktionary entry for this phrase where the translations should go. Abolen (talk) 20:04, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

A few are translations but most are not, they are cultural equivalences, with different names and different numbers of people. Do you think Wiktionary would accept that? Green Cardamom (talk) 21:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Found the answer, it does appear there are translations so will work on adding the rest. Green Cardamom (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

As noted above I've done the transwiki. In the future on this sort of thing, rather than just deleting and burying it in the history which no one reads or sees, either copy it to the talk page and request a transwiki, or do the transwiki. It's bad practice to delete material that should be saved and transwikied. It took dozens of people to create that list, no small thing, hard to make and easy to destroy. Green Cardamom (talk) 00:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This is an interesting material, and it's worth retaining indeed — in the articles about The Voyage of the Beagle and Harriet the tortoise. But this article is about the phrase. Did naming the reptiles Tom, Dick and Harry make the phrase itself more notable? Abolen (talk) 20:04, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It would seem odd for an encyclopedia article about a phrase not to include some notable examples of the phrase. We don't need to show that those examples "increased notability" of the phrase, that's an impossible bar because notability itself is a value judgement that is purely subjective, its circular reasoning. Rather we just need to agree that that the occurrence of the phrase is notable enough for inclusion in the article. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

We should not "reason" or "agree", that would be an original research. The article collects facts important for the subject itself, not the things it influenced. If the influence has a (properly sourced) back effect on the subject itself, this should be mentioned; if not, not. I'm not objecting including examples, but the examples should demonstrate the main meaning of the phrase ("common people"). A notable speech by a politician, or a magazine article, or whatever would do. But currently it reads: "Tom, Dick and Harry is how common people are called. Example: Darwin named that his tortoises". What? Are tortoises common people? Is it how we use the phrase, name the turtles? This makes no sense. Abolen (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

"What? Are tortoises common people?" The article makes no such claim. You seem to be confusing a dictionary article with an encyclopedia article. And yes, it is our job to decide if something is notable for inclusion, that's what we do. You may disagree and challenge it, it may even go to RfC and maybe 50 people will vote on it, but in the end, we make that decision. Notability is an opinion, not a fact. Green Cardamom (talk) 23:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Tom , Dick & Harry were brothers & highwaymen in Oxfordshire

Is this where the saying comes from ? 213.18.131.217 (talk) 13:39, 12 November 2022 (UTC)