Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Does WP:TIES apply to articles related to Hong Kong?

How about if the topic is debateably tied to either one of HK or Mainland China, the latter of which would definitely not be covered under TIES. Faye Wong has had a mixture of British and American spellings for over a decade, the earliest versions seeming to favour American spelling ("flavor" has apparently survived since 2004), but could an argument be made that the article should be using "Hong Kong English", which presumably (I don't know) would be closer to British? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:05, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

• There's a {{Use Hong Kong English}} template, so I assume the answer is "yes". Hong Kong English tells us "Hong Kong predominantly uses British spellings. Pronunciations and words are also predominantly British ..." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:27, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I figured as much, but the question is whether Hong Kong English is widely enough used among native Hong Kongers to justify enforcing TIES on all Hong Kong articles, even ones where the subject also has ties to obviously non-English-speaking parts of China. My understanding is that the first language of the majority of Hong Kongers is Cantonese, and probably the majority of people who use British English in their daily life are British ex-pats, not native Hong Kongers. Faye Wong is not part of either of these groups, as she appears to have been born and raised in Mainland China, and I would guess only learned Cantonese and English starting in her late teens. Applying TIES would be saying that because Faye Wong lives in a region that was once a British colony, where a majority of people are not native English speakers but learn British English as a second language, our article is so closely tied to a region that uses one variety of English that we should overrule the main ENGVAR guideline as well as WP:NOTBROKEN and replace the (older) American spellings in the article. Now, given that one of her most famous songs (the theme from that oneFinal Fantasy game) was entirely in English, a good argument could be made that if she has close ties to one variety of English, it is whatever variety she sings in, but... Ugh. My head hurts. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to pretend I understand the English situation of Hong Kong, but I suspect if it came down to a dispute then WP:TIES would side with BrEng, weak as those TIES may be, as I doubt TIES could be argued for any other ENGVAR. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:14, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but the majority of articles on English Wikipedia are not affected by TIES one way or another, and I think that at least some of the HK-related articles are the same. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:23, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

With most articles on WP no ENGVAR could be argued; with most of the rest TIES is unambiguous. Occasionally there's an article like War of 1812 that has strong TIES to more than one country, in which case WP:RETAIN applies. You've perhaps identified a grey area—you might get away with making the whole article AmEng, but I suspect if anyone disputed it, in the absence of any competing ENGVAR TIES, the result would be to go with HKEng. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:51, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe the explicit answer is that TIES applies to HK articles in case of disputes, but there's no immediate need for "enforcing TIES on all Hong Kong articles". Unless you really enjoy rewriting articles just for pedantry. ;) -- 5.12.115.133 (talk) 11:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

MOS:SUBSET

1. About one of the examples given, The elements in stars include hydrogen, helium, etc.... I must confess that i saw nothing wrong with it, until i searched the archives and realized that both "include" and "etc" cover the same idea. (Maybe there should be more emphasis on this detail in the guideline?) But, still, what is the suggested phrasing in this case, because i can't think of a different/better one? :">
2. And while i'm at it... The other example, Among the most well-known members of the fraternity are included two members of the Onassis family, seems a bit too long-winded to clearly make a point. Is the issue here that "among ... are" and "included" overlap?

Thanks. -- 79.115.170.40 (talk) 22:55, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC notice: Use of flag icons on genocide-related articles

FYI: Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons#Use of flag icons on genocide-related articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Ambiguity in the Plurals section

Under Plurals, it says "allow for cases" where the common dictionary plural differs from the original root-language plural. To me, "allow for" means it's OK to use the non-dictionary-preferred form, but the examples given seem to indicate the opposite. The two dictionaries I use most both list "excursuses (also excursus)" as the plural of excursus, so I assume we are not talking about words for which the dictionary omits the archaic plural entirely.

Full disclosure: I want to use the dictionary-preferred plurals in every case. I particularly dislike the affected "aquaria," which I see all over the place in Wikipedia.

Can we adjust the language in the MOS so that this is a little clearer, one way or the other? Krychek (talk) 19:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

"Aquaria" seems affected to you; "aquariums" seems quite wrong to me. There are ENGVAR differences, differences of usage in different topic areas, etc. The MOS sensibly allows variation. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:09, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure it does. The MOS is not simply vague; it's self-contradictory. Krychek (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Which ENGVAR uses "aquaria"? I know I do, but is that an American thing? Dicklyon (talk) 04:00, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Latin affected editors would prefer "aquaria". Does ENGVAR restrict its scope to variations that cross physical boundaries? To me, aquaria would be preferred to an uncountable plural, aquariums to countable plurals. Go stand near the aquariums. That type of fish are usually bred in aquaria. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, the Latin-affected variant of English. I didn't know about that one. Dicklyon (talk) 05:06, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Didn't know, or had not thought of it that way?

Look here and tell me if you agree that the circumstances are primed for an aqauria battle? Law and medicine subjects, which are more-so latin-affected, aren't ready yet. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

It is quite a bit of antiquarian nonsense, if you ask me. "Moratoria" or "referenda"? No way. "Moratoriums" and "referendums", certainly. There is no reason to retain Latin structure in English, and it merely confuses people who do not have the luxury of a classical education. Indeed, the OED considers "referenda" to be archaic. "Aquaria" is even worse.... RGloucester — ☎ 05:13, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I had forgotten we were fighting about moratoriaums. Added here. I don't think the case is made that latin-affected plurals are archaic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

This is one case where Ngrams really isn't helpful. It has a disposition towards good book sources, which is usually a good thing, but in this case results in a bias toward to stilted academic writing that is not meant for a broad audience, and which doesn't represent how people actual speak. The vast majority of people are not usually in the habit of saying curricula, syllabi, referenda, planetaria, &c. It simply doesn't make much sense to make life harder for the reader, given that the "s" forms are in common usage, and are nowadays even found in "good" sources. Indeed, I find such usages "affected", and this is coming from someone who naturally has a very "affected-sounding" speech pattern. RGloucester — ☎ 05:22, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

"This is one case where Ngrams really isn't helpful". Did you look at the result first? Redirects will solve any problems. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Except that very often the main article title is singular and so doesn't give guidance, resulting in slow edit wars in the content and auxiliary articles, particularly lists, often get moved backwards and forwards because there's no central control. CFD has similarly had a few problems over the years because there's usually no main article to follow. IME this is most definitely not a case of national variety - the same debate seems to be waged everywhere and I suspect the real difference between countries can be chalked down to a) how long a classical education remained standard amongst those who got published and b) the levels of deference or hostility to those who have that classical education in a particular society (seriously how many people get pissed off at being berated for not using a plural that was part of their berater's education but not their own and instinctively reject it outright?). Timrollpickering (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. I have no real world experience of people being emotionally affected by classical spelling styles. I maintain support for the ENGVAR-style Latin-affect suggestion, along the lines that the original style of the first non-stub version of the article should be maintain until there is a consensus supporting a good reason to change it. Categories should defer to parent articles. Categories without parent articles in active dispute over styling I see as examples of WP:LAME. The few times I have engaged, my opinion tends towards deleting categories without parent articles; there are too many categories already, if there is a good case for a new category there is a case for writing the parent article. I expect there may be good counter examples, but I don't think every issue is important. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Usually the category does have a main article but it's named in singular and so sidesteps the plural debate. The use in the article's content often changes and has never really carried the day at CFD. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

• Seriously, I suggest that Latin-affected variants of English be accepted as ENGVARs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:27, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I think that's just called English, though I admit that with the lack of classical education in recent decades, Latin plurals are on their way out, slowly. I sat through a tech talk where the new Ph.D. speaker used criteria and criterion exactly reversed; it was painful. Dicklyon (talk) 05:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Yep. It is English. There never has been a reference, or perfect, or classical English. Latin plurals are being let go, very very slowly. New PhD speaker? Typically, they should be thought of as an apprentice, head full of PhD stuff often with poor context, but instead the expectation is of expertise. An hour later, he probably realised what he'd been saying. The shame burns. My interpretation for a message to us? Advise newcomers of the teachings of the MOS, gently. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:06, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I work in a shop, with barcoded stock. Today I sold several "cactii", according to both the label on the pot and the till VDU. It's clear to me that although Latin singulars (aquarium, cactus) may be familiar to many, their correct plurals are not. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Fundamentally, ENGVAR is a compromise allowing Yanks and Brits to work together. Even the other national varieties are mostly a distraction — mostly their formal written versions are close enough to BrE not to really matter much in encyclopedic writing, maybe with the exception of Canadian which is 50% or so.

But phrasing it that way too straightforwardly would not have gone over well, so we have the "national varieties for English-speaking countries" workaround.

Trying to generalize that further, to things like "Latin-affected", does not strike me as a good idea. --Trovatore (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps we should all agree to use Canadian spelling as a compromise? :-)

@RGloucester: so would you recommend criterions? I doubt biologists would agree to accept genuses rather than genera. And then what? Specie as the singular of species, which I see all the time? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:47, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't want to play the académie anglaise game. What I said above is rather simple: in as much as a form based on English grammar (as opposed to being based upon arbitrary notions of correct grammar in a "dead" language), such as "referendums" or "aquariums", is common used and accepted, I believe that that form should be used. I've not seen any evidence of common acceptance of "criterions", but who knows? I haven't spent any time looking into it, and don't plan to. To be clear, I do not want the MoS to proscribe or prescribe a form in cases like these. This is pure conjecture, on my part. RGloucester — ☎ 20:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

No need to prescribe, but I'm pretty sure that criterions would just be corrected as an error. Nobody does that. Dicklyon (talk) 20:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, a look at the Ngrams for "criteria" versus "criterion" shows that usage of "criteria" and "criterion" roughly matched each other until some point in the 1950s, when "criteria" began to rise heavily, whilst "criterion" began a long decline. Presumably this implies that many people began to start saying "a criteria", which is certainly something I've heard before. I'm sure you fellows don't like that either. RGloucester — ☎ 20:33, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• Why must we constantly try to reinvent the wheel? Dictionaries exist for a reason. Standard spellings have already been sorted out for us. I know dictionaries might not always agree with each other, but when they do (as is the case with aquariums), can we for once just take the path of least resistance? Please? Krychek (talk) 20:39, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• Forcing others onto a single path is not taking the path of least resistance. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• Then why have any MOS at all? The goal of such an endeavor is to make Wikipedia somewhat consistent. If you disagree with that notion, I guess you'll need to start a campaign against the entire MOS. Krychek (talk) 21:12, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

• You are posing a classic false dichotomy. If not complete direction on everything, why have any direction? Either the style guide must be absolute, comprehensive and rigid, or have no style guide at all? It is very easy to have somewhat consistency while allowing editor's to choose for aquaria/aquariums according to what seems to best suit the use. when writing, do you get hung up on synonyms? Please don't suggest, for example, always using the shorter synonym. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:08, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

@Krychek: but there isn't a standard plural for aquarium in dictionaries; as far as I can tell all the most authoritative dictionaries give both aquariums and aquaria. So both are allowed here. Consistent use of either in an article should not be corrected. The fact that you don't like aquaria and I don't like aquariums is irrelevant. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

"because titles with en-dashes are hard to type"

User:AnomieBOT has been adding new redirects to talk pages with en dash in their titles, "because titles with en-dashes are hard to type". Do people really ever type the titles of talk pages? I understand it's encouraged for article titles, but talk pages, too? Anyway, since about April 7 it has added about 30,000 of them. That tells me that the MOS has succeeded in educating users about how to use en dashes in various contexts (scanning quickly I didn't notice any misuses, but there could be some of those, too). Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I can say that I strongly support this. I've always known the difference between an en dash and a hyphen, but when I first came to Wikipedia, I was confused by the fact that typing something like "Blah blah blah xxxx-xx" would not get me to "Blah blah blah xxxx–xx". Typing an en dash is a pain, and most people are not even aware of the distinction between en dashes and hyphens. They look very similar when viewed on a computer, as opposed to in print, and the redirects do nothing but prevent the type of confusion that arises when one types the proper name of a page into the search bar, except with a hyphen instead of en dash, and ends up at the search page with a "no such page exists" message. And yes, I do type talk page names into the search bar. RGloucester — ☎ 03:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, it's all good then. I usually just type the article name, and click talk when I find it, since there are many good redirects for articles. By the way, they're real easy to type on a Mac keyboard – at option-hyphen since 1984. Dicklyon (talk) 03:58, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I've never been good with key commands (or other computer-oriented tasks), but I shall remember that for the future. I've previously resorted to copying one from wherever I'm able to find one, and then pasting it in to where I need it. Such a method suffices in most cases... RGloucester — ☎ 05:00, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

An en dash is pretty easy on a Windows machine, too: Hold the ALT key and type 0150 on the numeric keypad, then release the ALT key. An em dash is ALT and 0151. The NUM LOCK can be on or off, doesn't matter. Chris the speller ^yack 21:23, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Single quotation marks

Even though MOS:SINGLE says that in simple glosses, "unfamiliar terms are usually enclosed in single quotes", that section links to Gloss (annotation) § In linguistics, which references only Historical Linguistics: An Introduction, a book printed and bound in Great Britain (where in most contexts, ' is used instead of "), and a book in which the author does not distinguish between the singles and doubles (for example, "books or articles on ‘proper’ English ..."), and moreover, uses ‘typographical quotation marks’ instead of the typewriter‑style 'apostrophes' and "straight quotation marks" that MOS:QUOTEMARKS recommends.

I am not aware of any other English‑language encyclopedia that differentiates between single and double quotations in the way we currently recommend, and the contents of MOS:SINGLE appear to be what came from a 2006 discussion which found house style recommendations for double quotation marks or parentheses, but not for single quotation marks in glosses only. There is no support whatsoever for the use of apostrophes in glosses and quotation marks elsewhere, which is what we currently recommend.

The answer is probably just that: replace the text like so:

• Simple glosses that translate or define unfamiliar terms are usually enclosed quotation marks or parentheses:
  • Cossack comes from the Turkic qazaq "freebooter" or
  • Cossack comes from the Turkic qazaq (freebooter).

—LLarson (said & done) 15:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

"No support whatsoever"? Um, no. Try a tsunami of support from every style guide in entire field of linguistics. As for what we're linking to internally being inadequate, it's just because we have a gap in our linguistics articles, and no better place to link. There's no reason for us to be linking to it. Anyway, it's completely standard practice to write Mi casa es su casa, 'my house is your house'. This is done with or without the comma; it tends to be dropped in journals, but the text is clearer with it in many cases in encyclopedic writing, or sometimes preceded by "literally" or "lit." or "meaning" or "translated as", or used in a " foo, [Language name here] for 'bar'" construction, etc., as the context seems to warrant. As a linguistic style sheet from Albany U. [1] puts it: "Glosses (i.e. translations) for data are given in single quotation marks. Unless sentence structure warrants otherwise, glosses follow the cited data immediately, with no other punctuation." On WP, our sentence structure often does warrant otherwise.

The single quotes are uniform, very nearly universal, usage in all linguistics materials, and it's very useful since it distinguishes precisely what the thing is, a gloss of what just came before, and not some other kind of annotation. Most obvious external source for this is the Linguist Society of America stylesheet: "After the first occurrence of non-English forms, provide a gloss in single quotation marks". The Chicago Manual of Style also covers this. So does the Canadian Journal of Linguistics style guide [2]. So do university linguistics dept. style guides (e.g. this one): "Use only single quotation marks for quotes within quotes and for glosses of foreign words. ... Cited forms in a foreign language should be followed at their first occurrence by a gloss in single quotation marks." And this one from U. of Alabama: "After the first occurrence of non-English forms, provide a gloss in single quotation marks". And various ones provided by linguistics professors/researchers like this one by Haspelmath ("Single quotation marks are used exclusively for linguistic meanings, e.g. Latin habere 'have' is not cognate with Old English hafian 'have'."), and another by Gruyter Mouton, and so on. There are only two major linguistics journals that don't insist on it. But seriously, you can just Google this in five seconds and find a whole flood of material about this [3]. Interlinear, morpheme-by-morpheme glosses should be formatted as un-bordered tables. This is part of the Leipzig Glossing Rule], and widely adopted standard (may well be near-universal now; I can't remember the last time I saw linguistic material that did not follow it, and it was already standard by the 1990s in all the classes I took in the subject. One of the above cited pages says it is part of basic competency in the field now.

If I didn't have real work to do today, I could easily provide 50+ citations for this stuff in about an hour or two. Please do your research before coming here and declaring what the real-world "facts" are. "There is no support whatsoever"? When you come here with confrontational declarations like this but clearly haven't looked into the matter and are just going by your vague opinion of how things should be, you will not gain any traction on any concern you might be trying to raise. PS: You seem to be unaware that in plain ASCII, as we use for punctuation characters (i.e. not curly quotes, per MOS:CURLY), the apostrophe and single quotation mark are the same character. PPS: The parenthetical style is sometimes used, but only with the single quote style, and the distinction between them is that the parenthetical is an extremely literal translation and the singled-quoted one a usage gloss, e.g. "Soy bien cabrón danzando (I am [a] good goat dancing) 'I'm darned good at dancing'". This is "high academic" style that one would not normally use in an encyclopedia, because it will not be clear to non-linguists what the distinction is; we would explain it in prose, and probably link to wikt:cabrón so people can see the literal and informal meanings and usage. 20:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

You’re 100% correct about the parenthetical—that’s garbage and I definitely wasn’t channeling high academy but just confusing it with another concept. Mea culpa.

Months ago, I found something on your user page that’s stuck with me and been inspirational: “Greetings! I'm a real person, like you. Collaboration improves when we remember this about each other.”^[4] I’m disappointed and apologize for my post coming across as “confrontational declarations”; similarly, I’m disappointed that in light of this, you’d respond with what came across as somewhat patronizing and heavy on sarcasm. This is about how an English‑language encyclopedia should look, not about us; to that end, two days ago, I left an additional message on the talk page of the template that brought me here.

Your response seems to discount the core of my message, that is: How does an English‑language encyclopedia use quotation marks for in‑text translations, (and not so much how the Leipzig Glossing Rules apply to linguistics papers)? While I am aware that MOS:CURLY prescribes 'apostrophes' and typewriter‑style "quotation marks" in lieu of ‘single’ and “double” quotation marks respectively, that doesn’t mean that “the apostrophe and single quotation mark are the same character”. Even though the apostrophe suffices on Wikipedia in all instances where an editor might wish to use ‘ or ’, that doesn’t mean we’re working in an environment constrained by ASCII‑only conventions: 🤔. As technology begins to allow for it, I believe that the English‑language Wikipedia too will eventually graduate to the typographical punctuation seen in offline encyclopedias.

To substance, I apologize for citing the 2006 talk page conversation and its sources instead of better sleuthing before posting. What remains is that neither of us found an encyclopedia that uses apostrophes for glosses and typewriter‑style double quotation marks elsewhere. What I have found, but hadn’t sought prior to my previous post—sorry—is Encyclopedia Britannica, which, although also published in Great Britain, uses double quotation marks (albeit “typography” not "typewriter") where Wikipedia does and ‘single quotation marks’ (but not our 'apostrophes') for short foreign‑language glossing. Ignoring these two differences, I believe we are otherwise in agreement.

I remain admiring of your work, grateful for your attention here, and thank you for your helping me, especially in the Template namespace. —LLarson (said & done) 16:34, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Single quotation marks (this version)
• Campbell, Lyle (2004) [1st pub. 1998 by Edinburgh University Press]. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-53267-0. LCCN 2004042637. 
• “You know I’m pretty fond of you and your work, but this doesn’t look quite right to me; apologies if I got the order of operations wrong, but I brought it up on MOS talk instead of here. Thank you, again.”