Talk:Cougar (slang)

message: A little background from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/language/
cougar: slang: an older woman pursuing or dating a younger man.
Mentioned on The Late Show with David Letterman on 7/13/06.
Wow, Dave's using Wikipedia as an information resource now? 24.91.211.93 04:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think he read this whole Wikipedia article verbatim on the air. Michael Hardy 00:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  He did, but stopped after the "started in Canada, spread to US" part. --TheTruthiness 06:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, he did not.  I remember his saying "carnal activities". Michael Hardy 18:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Background from CBC 

message: *If you Google "Twilight Cougars" you will find fan fiction, some of an adult nature and a variety of forums.  There is a huge cougar mom fanbase as they seem to call themselves.  I have added some info and refs to get people started but it needs expanding I think.  I had no idea what a cougar mom was 24 hours ago but it looks to me like it's a middle aged women who watches twilight lol.  Anyway there are far too many articles about this phenomena for me to read and summarise so I don't have the time to do this new section justice so I hope someone else will :)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottonsocks (talk • contribs) 02:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Twilight cougars 

message: Single man? He's her daughter's boyfriend. --50.197.137.1 (talk) 17:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it. And keep in mind that you can be WP:Bold when it comes to editing Wikipedia articles. I also made this tweak to the line. Flyer22 (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

text: Agreed, it's ridiculous to suggest this concept only goes back as far as 1961, slang or no slang. Let's be real, I'm sure such a relationship has first occurred not long after the dawn of man, and there hasn't been any period of time since where it wasn't happening somewhere, it's only natural. 66.208.24.98 (talk) 19:37, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graduate? 

message: "However, the term can also refer to any female who has a male partner much younger than herself, regardless of age or age difference."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.21.73.12 (talk) 16:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Jim Michael (talk) 05:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this sentence sound right to you? 

message: I've noticed that multiple autoconfirmed users have removed this useless trivia but, only IPs (and one sockpuppet) keep putting it back. Nothing in either of these two sources1 2 ever refers to her as a cougar. "Mrs. Robinson"-type stories are soap opera staples. If we're going to add Eve Donovan, we'll need to add all of them (including non-noteworthy characters like Anita Hodges). Having Eve referenced in this article in no way improves it. This trivial info keeps getting added to the Kassie DePaiva page too and (as I stated in that page's talk page): IP address and location tracked.Cebr1979 (talk) 09:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eve Donovan/[[Days of Our Lives]] 

message: Friendly reminder to be civil.
The problem with the current lede is that it practically invites additions like this: 
Cougar is a slang term that refers to a woman who seeks sexual relations with considerably younger men. ABC News states that these women pursue sexual relations with people more than eight years younger than they are, while The New York Times states that the women are over the age of 40 and aggressively pursue sexual relations with men in their 20s or 30s. Men's fitness uses it to refer to "hot women" who are "several" years older than their partner,http://www.mensfitness.com/women/dating-advice/5-secrets-to-dating-older-women while the Online Slang Dictionary uses it to refer to "middle-aged women" who are pursuing "much younger" men.http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/cougar Wingman magazine states that cougars are women in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, beautiful, fit, and confident with the energy and enthusiasm they are not always able to find in the company of men their own age.http://get-a-wingman.com/dating-older-women-why-and-how-to-date-a-cougar/ [and insert more and more and more and more and more ...] However, the term can also refer to any female who has a male partner much younger than herself, regardless of age or age difference."
Additions in italics. You may say that NYT / ABC News are more authoritative than Wingman magazine etc, but that's missing the point. Explicitly referring to them in the prominent position they are currently in implies that they are the sources to refer to, with more authority than any other source, including what I would have expected is the go-to resource for this kind of definition: dictionaries. Are they? I doubt it. Therefore they should not be explicitly mentioned. Banedon (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this. The entire point of citing references is that we don't have to have "so-and-so said this". There are certainly times when that's called for, but I don't think this is one of them. I think it's sufficient to say that the definition is fairly broad and then give a couple of examples, with refs, as to what kinds of definitions are out there. Alternatively, you can summarize all the definitions by simply listing the various attributes attributed to cougars and then give all the relevant refs at the end. We just did that recently for the lead at Twink (gay slang). – Robin Hood  (talk) 03:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

text: Regarding this and this, I agree with Banedon, which is why I thanked him via WP:Echo the first time he made that edit. The WP:In-text attribution wording that is in dispute is my wording; I added it back when this article was much shorter and much more likely to be deleted. My wording is not needed, and Banedon's is more encyclopedic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

text: This doesn't make any sense. In stating "ABC News says..." we're saying "ABC News says something and it's up to you to believe them or not." In saying what ABC News says and not saying they said it, we're making what they said authoritative. If this article were to say "Cougars wear blue" then we'd be stating that, to be a cougar, one must wear blue. If we say, "Dick says cougars wear blue" then we're saying that, according to Dick, cougars must wear blue but, that's just Dick so it's up to you to whether to believe Dick or not.Cebr1979 (talk) 02:31, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, but in this case, it's not just Dick or ABC News or whomever. In a broad sense, pretty much everyone knows what a cougar is, we're just spelling it out and using a couple of different newspapers as sources, since there's at least some variation in the term. It's not like ABC News is really any more authoritative on a slang term than anyone else, since they didn't create the term or decide on exactly how it should be defined. – Robin Hood  (talk) 04:21, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

text: I don't disagree with that but again, only authoritative sources should be cited. ABC news is not more authoritative than most other sources, since as Robin Hood said they did not create the term nor do they decide exactly how it should be defined. If we accept any source that has an opinion on what cougars are, then the section could easily become very long indeed (see the blockquote example above). I concur with Robin Hood as well on the lede at the Twink page. The same style should be applicable here. Banedon (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're going to take out who said it, you have to take out what they said. Otherwise, you're changing the article to say, "Cougars wear blue" even though they don't that's only what Dick says. You're making ABC/NYT's comments authoritative by removing who said it. You're making it fact which is what it's not, it's their opinion... and you "don't disagree with that" so... either take it out all-together or leave who said it in.Cebr1979 (talk) 01:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  NYT / ABC News as sources for what 'cougar' means 

message: Dan Keoh (played by Clark Cable) told Ma McDade (played by Jo Van Fleet) that she was a cougar when confronting her near the end of the movie entitled "The King and Four Queens".  This film was made in 1956.   The story on which the screenplay was based was written by Margaret Fitts, and the screenplay for the film was written by Margaret Fitts who was assisted by Richard Alan Simmons.   The director was Raoul Walsh.  The story involves a middle-age cowboy (Gable) who learns that a stolen fortune remains buried on a remote ranch that is the home to four beautiful young widows and their controlling mother-in-law (Ma McDade).  Keoh charms the lot of the women until he finds the gold.  After finding the gold, Keoh, in confronting the women, says, in opening to Ma McDade, ..."Ma, you old cougar".     Three of Ma's four married sons had burned up in a barn fire while one son (identity unknown) had escaped and fled after burying the gold on the property.    Ma was blocking the romantic interest of Keoh in any of the four daughter-in-laws because her surviving son (identity unknown) still was married to one of the four young women living with Ma, though to which being unknown.    Jo Van Fleet was about 14 years younger than Clark Gable although she was acting the character of an older woman.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Gnu (talk • contribs) 19:53, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of word "cougar" as it relates to older women 

message: I have noted the snarky digs and patronizing tones of some of the users implicitly directed at me, and I don't appreciate them. But that's the nature of Wikipedia I guess. I started the discussion in order to improve my understanding of how formatting regarding this issue should work, and thanks to the inputs of different users I have got a better idea of things. In fact, now the very first word of the article suggests that it is about a word, which wasn't the case before I started editing the article. 
As far as I can gather, this is the guide to follow :
Use italics (or quotation marks) to denote words as words and do it consistently throughout the article. Most of the cases, italics is preferable because in many articles, quotation marks are used a lot for actual quotes. If the word is not used as a word, then neither italicize it nor put it inside quotation marks. If the word is mentioned in somebody's quote, leave it be. Only format it when using wikipedia's own narration of things. 
Thanks again to everyone. Zaheen (talk) 20:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Zaheen, I was not trying to be snarky or patronizing at all. I'm glad you started the above discussion. If the current style we've agreed to helps readers, that's a good thing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:46, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: My takeaway from this discussion

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thread_title:  External links modified