Talk:Placeholder name
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A fact from Placeholder name appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 14 December 2004. The text of the entry was as follows: "Did you know
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[edit] Guys aren't necessarily male
In the mid-western US, the terms "you guys", "those guys", etc. does not immediately indicate that the group being referred to is all men. It's a collective that can be used to refer to any group of people. Dismas|(talk) 08:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Scope of terms as defined in opening paragraph
The opening paragraph defines the term (and thus the scope) of the article as follows:
Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant or unknown in the context in which it is being discussed.
So, this page should contain terms that are used when the real name is forgotten, unimportant, or unknown. IMO this does not include terms where the real name IS known but the speaker is being evasive. Therefore such terms as "up the chimney" or "went to hell in a hack" are not placeholder names -- just sardonic retorts. I suggest they be removed. (I'd remove them myself, but I got reverted, so I guess this really seemingly obvious point needs to be hashed out here.) - 174.46.204.210 (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Section for things
There's no section for placeholders referring to things such as thingamajig and whatchamacallit - they are mentioned in two different prefatory remarks, attesting to their ICONIC status, but they don't have their own section.
Netrapt (talk) 21:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Distinction in use
Shouldn't there be more distinction drawn between words used to refer to specific antecedants (like thingy, whatsit, dude, etc.) and words used as hypothetical examples of something, but with no particular antecedant in mind, (e.g. a metasyntactic variable), like foobar [programming], Vic [police], John Doe, 555-1234, 123 Main St., Anytown, etc? 65.0.212.213 (talk) 13:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Doohickey
Doohickey is used similar to thingamajig and was in the article a year ago. Not sure where would be best to fit it in. Just noting it's abscence. 124.169.210.244 (talk) 02:43, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Suggestions
I've noticed a few placeholder names that are missing that may be added. Some for people include "tough guy" (specifically used to address someone familiar) and "whats-his-bucket" (or "whats-her-bucket," for a female). One for an unknown object is "whatchamacallit." Zeke64 (talk) 03:33, 10 December 2011 (UTC)Zeke64
