Talk:Safe deposit box

What my Bank Teller Said

I was told that here in Missouri it is illegal to put cash into your safe deposit box, that drug dealers would certainly do the same thing. Can this really be true ? TIA. 64.240.149.185 (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Moving page to Safe-deposit box

I am moving this page, currently named Safety deposit box, to Safe deposit box. ""Safety" is rarely pronounced very differently from "safe-D" so it is natural that many people suppose they are hearing the word at the beginning of this phrase, but the correct expression is in fact "safe-deposit box."" http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/safety.html

You can also look at bank websites and see that they all call them safe deposit boxes, and a search for "safety deposit" either return no results or redirects to safe deposit. Fuhghettaboutit 04:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I will point out that your last statement, "a search for 'safety deposit' either return no results or redirects to safe deposit" is flawed. Do you mean a search on Wikipedia? If you do, since the redirect was created by Wikipedia, that is circular reasoning along the lines of "since X is true on Wikipedia, it is true". If instead you mean a search on Google, then, as of this writing, "safety deposit box" returns 2,210,000 results (compared to 2,520,000 for "safe deposit box")--2 million is definitely not "no results" as you claim. —Lowellian (reply) 09:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I can see how you might have read the beginning of the sentence as disconnected from its end (my fault for writing without perfect clarity), the search at issue was of the bank websites, using their internal search functions. Try not to slap your forehead too hard:-)--Fuhghettaboutit 18:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

We should look at usage in general in published sources, not just the banks' websites. They do not own the language used to describe their facilities. A search of Google News archive for 1998 through 2008 (to make sure it is contemporary usage) shows 5820 entries for "safety deposit" [1] and 22,700 for "safe deposit"[2]. Over all the dates covered by Google News archive the numbers are 30,800 for "safety deposit" and 106,000 for "safe deposit." The useage "safety deposit" is less prevalent than "safe deposit" but certainly quite common in published news articles. As for pronunciation, I do not agree that "Safe deposit" sounds anything like "Safety deposit" unless the speaker uses the Slurvian [3] dialect of English. Edison (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Although I agree that "Safety Deposit Boxes" is an incorrect term for safe deposit boxes, in an online discussion with Professor Paul Brians, referenced by Fuhghettaboutit, the professor argued that Wikipedia states "Safety Deposit Boxes" as being incorrect, building on the argument for circular reasoning. In the end he opted for a democratic argument, People who manufacture and sell and rent safe deposit boxes mostly use that term, so that's enough for me." This comment being made without sufficient, let alone rigorous, research is anecdotal and not so overwhelming as my experience, working with the safe deposit box department at a mid-cap bank. --daleallenbaker 2:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.170.62.235 (talk)

Looking at the source[4]that Fuhgettaboutit cites, it actually says that manufacturers of safe(ty) deposit boxes are split in their usage, meaning that some manufacturers use one term and some use the other. There are at least some banks[5]that use the "safety" term. —pfahlstrom (talk) 20:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Remove

Removed "Today's Safe Deposit Box" under the See Also section, blatant advertising. 118.210.77.142 (talk) 16:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Safe Deposit Box

Hello, Just wanted to point out that there is no such thing as a 'safety deposit box'. The correct (and only) term is SAFE deposit box. Obviously, it is a box in the SAFE in which you deposit things, such as valuables, to keep them SAFE. If you consult your (or my) dictionary, you will find SAFE deposit box, but there is no 'safety' deposit box. Maybe you should scan your articles and either expunge 'safety deposit box' or change them all to 'safe deposit box'. It just amazes me how many people get this simple thing wrong. On Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, in their puzzles, they said 'safety deposit box' and no one corrected them, not even Alex and the clue crew (except me). There is also no such thing as NITCH (as in, he found his nitch). Check the dictionary again. There is no such word (in my dictionary, at least). The correct word is NICHE, Just like the man in Vermont said, "The problem is not what people don't know, it's what they KNOW that isn't so!" Thank you. d — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.193.56.240 (talk) 20:03, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Lest this complaint ever be used to justify removing the term "safety-deposit box" from the article entirely, I should point out that while the previous poster's dictionary might not list safety-deposit box, the OED most certainly does, and Merriam-Webster includes "called also safety-deposit box" under their safe-deposit box heading. Moreover, while the OED dates safe deposit (in the sense of "a secure place in which money and valuable items are stored") to 1768 and safety deposit doesn't show up until 1867, the compound safe-deposit box only shows up in 1870—with safety-deposit box attested just two years later. So both terms have, at least, a nearly equal weight of 140+ years of common usage behind them. Articles should certainly be consistent in their use of one term or the other, but to argue that only one is "correct"—and that the other should be "expunged" as a consequence—is, quite frankly, prescriptivist BS. And besides, if you want to play that game, all I have to ask you is: where's your hyphen, bro? --24.19.57.152 (talk) 03:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"Safe Deposit Box or Safety Deposit Box?". Straight Dope. Retrieved November 26, 2014 .. that's a totally unreliable source. It's not researched by the Snopes staff; it's just a forum with no vetting of reliability. It cites this Wikipedia article, which is a circle jerk. It's a safe deposit box. Some people say it wrong; that doesn't make the incorrect wording noteworthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.19.204.201 (talk) 01:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Prevalance

I came to investigate why they are so prevalent in the US, and generally not elsewhere as far as I know, but it seems the only interest in the topic here is fighting over the name rather than actually providing content to the article. Guess I should look elsewhere for useful content. --86.144.158.177 (talk) 23:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)