Talk:cook up

RFD discussion: October 2020–October 2021

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cook up

2 senses: "To prepare a heroin dose by heating."

"To manufacture a significant amount of illegal drugs (LSD, meth, etc.)"

Both seem like just particularizations of the main sense "to prepare by cooking or heating". Chemists "cook up" some or batches of lots of things. The two stages of levels of cooking are also omnipresent. Sukhis's cooks up vats of chicken tikka masala and I cook up what they sell in my microwave. DCDuring (talk) 17:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Delete. I never use cook as a synonym of heat; there is always a chemical or structural change even if it is as simple as denaturing proteins. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not sure if you're making a case to delete or keep. DAVilla 20:41, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

• Keep the heroin one, that strikes me as a real idiomatic use. I'm going to cook up always means preparing a bit for personal use, probably one dose. That's enough for me. 76.100.241.89
• Noting that these senses are presently defined as intransitive, but it is unclear to me how far that was a conscious intention. As far as transitive use is concerned, the two challenged senses are IMO too specific, but I would like to see a mention of chemical preparation generally, either in the one "prepare by cooking or heating" sense, or as a main sense separate from the "food" one. I don't know about any intransitive uses, e.g. 76.100.241.89's example of "I'm going to cook up". Mihia (talk) 20:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

FYI, I have changed the label of sense #2 from "especially of food" to "of food or chemical substances", especially given that two of the three usexes relate to the latter. Mihia (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Darn, but does "cooking up" chemicals always involve "cooking or heating", or can it just involve mixing together? Mihia (talk) 20:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

• Keep and merge (probably) the RFD's senses. It's a pretty clear, though euphemisitc. separate meaning. Darren X. Thorsson (talk) 21:55, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

{{look}}

• Delete the heroin sense, as it is trivial to find references to cooking heroin without "up"; send the other drug sense to RfV. bd2412 T 05:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  So if the verb is just "cook", what does "up" mean in the cases where "cook up" is used? DAVilla 20:41, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

  I think it has no meaning. - excarnateSojourner (talk|contrib) 01:35, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Closing as no consensus. DAVilla 10:02, 29 October 2021 (UTC)