Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style: Difference between revisions

I do not have an opinion but want to set out the argument as I understand it. An example of the issue is diff which changed three {{lang}} instances including from the first of the following to the second.

Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as

raskol

(раско́л), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as

raskol

(раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

Should the article show how to spell a word (раскол) or how to pronounce it (раско́л)? According to comments above, Russian dictionaries etc. (and ruwiki) show the pronunciation for a word. The ruwiki equivalent of Old Believers in the example above is ru:Старообрядчество and it seems to use the example word without stress marks. @Kwamikagami: I've seen you working on things like this; do you have an opinion? Johnuniq (talk) 02:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: The ruwiki equivalent of Old Believers in the example above is ru:Старообрядчество and it seems to use the example word without stress marks. -- Have a better look: the Russian word does have stress marks, and so does the second Russian term: "Старообря́дчество" and "Древлеправосла́вие". Anyway, even if some Russian pages don't have stress marks in the entry word, that's because nobody bothered to put them, not because they are not necessary on ruwiki. P.S. Note that both Russian terms are a mile long, so it would be virtually impossible for a foreigner to tell where the (main) stress falls. – Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I edited Mike Novikoff's essay on stresses to make it more neutral. I removed the irrelevant info and added both points of view. Everyone is welcome to leave their constructive comments and suggestions on the essay's talk page. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When I search the wikitext of ru:Старообрядчество for the word "раскол" I get 10 hits (there are 39 hits for the text including not as a whole word). However, there are no occurrences of "раско́л". If you see something different, perhaps you could quote a few words so others can see it. That seems to support my above summary, namely that "раскол" is used to spell the word while "раско́л" is used to pronounce it. Do you disagree? Johnuniq (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

Wikipedia:Stress_marks_in_Russian_words for more explanations. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:58, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

"раскол" is used to spell the word while "раско́л" is used to pronounce it – the short and simple answer is yes. — Mike Novikoff 22:55, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not true. Didn't I ask you on your talk page not to mislead non-Russian users? To show pronunciation in Russian, one obviously uses phonetic transcription, while the placement of a stress mark helps with the pronunciation (to pronounce a word in Russian, you basically only need to know where the stress falls). And one can't claim that a stressed word is not a valid spelling or something. Any spelling is used to spell, that's kind of obvious. I already explained all this stuff slightly above, anyway. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be just playing with words. Your "helpful" variant exists solely for the pronunciation, and it's a special one, not the regular. — Mike Novikoff 09:30, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not "playing with words". A stress mark helps with the pronunciation but doesn't constitute a pronunciation as such. That would be the IPA or the Cyrillic phonetic transcription or something similar. A sign on an office door stating one's name, e.g., "John Smith", doesn't mean that this sign is actually John Smith. It only means that the office belongs to John Smith. Same thing with the stress. Anyway, both spellings are valid and correct; whether they are special or regular, that's a different question. P.S. In a nutshell: A stress mark shows the phonetic stress, nothing more. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 10:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Phonetic. — Mike Novikoff 10:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I said. And I doubt that a foreigner with very little knowledge of the Russian spelling who sees, for instance, металлообраба́тывающая ("only" 11 syllables) would be able to pronounce it, even if the word comes with a stress mark. So you cannot quite tell that the above spelling shows one how to pronounce the word in question. You'll need a proper transcription for that. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 11:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're arguing. Of course stress marks are phonetic (so they are about pronunciation), and of course IPA is much better. — Mike Novikoff 11:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ruwiki is a very poor example since it never had a guideline nor even a consensus on these stress marks. The only thing that can be told for sure is that they never include them in article titles. The rest is chaotic: someone "bothers to put them" in leads just because they feel they should, and then gets very surprised to learn that there is no such requirement. — Mike Novikoff 14:30, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Those who remove stresses on ruwiki also get quite astonished when they are told that removing the stresses that were already placed "is not welcomed", to put it mildly. Adding stresses on ruwiki is OK, while removing them, not so much.
• They never include them in article titles. — That would have been preposterous indeed. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a single repetition of the word in accented Cyrillic, with a footnote to explain that the stress marks have been added for the benefit of the reader, and aren't normally found in print?

My opinion is that we should make WP as useful as possible. That's the general criterion I try to follow when deciding on things like this. And the accent marks are undeniably useful. Russian stress is unpredictable. Even disyllabic grammatical words include minimal pairs that differ by the position of the stress. (Not long ago I had to ask a native speaker about such a word, because it fit two dictionary entries and without stress marking I couldn't tell which.) But Russian orthography is otherwise close to phonemic. So if you are even slightly familiar with Russian, you can read it, as long as someone tells you where the stress lies. Without the stress assignment, you won't know how to pronounce the vowels, because they change drastically depending on stress. (E.g. unstressed a and o are pronounced the same, as are e and i.)

As for the contrary argument, that accent marks will confuse readers who don't know Cyrillic, I wonder why they'd be using Cyrillic in the first place. The situation is very much like English technical dictionaries, that mark stressed syllables and expect you to be able to pronounce Latinate words once that is given. Like Russian, English Latinate orthography is close to phonemic apart from stress. And I suppose that because of that convention, some people might conclude that English orthography includes an acute accent mark, but I would expect readers to educate themselves when they come across something new. There's only so far we can dumb things down.

Another parallel is vowel marking in Arabic and Hebrew, which is similarly useful in making written words pronounceable to L2 speakers but is otherwise only used for children and dictionaries.

I support stress marking in the Cyrillic, but would reluctantly accept removing it if the remover added the IPA to compensate, just as I would for English technical vocabulary. (I would prefer to keep the stress marking, in both Russian and English, and add the IPA as an additional key.) Or, as proposed above, have parallel Cyrillic with and without stress marking, parallel Arabic and Hebrew with and without vowel marking, etc.

The problem with these other solutions is cruft — they can lead to a ridiculous delay before you get to the topic the article is supposed to be about. And they tend to bloat over time. In a dictionary, you can skip the pronunciation, orthography and etymology sections if you're not interested and go directly to the definition. On WP they're all glommed together. I find it annoying to start the lead, and encounter a paragraph of detail about the keyword that has nothing to do with the subject. Repeating the keyword once in Cyrillic/Arabic/Hebrew/Devanagari/IPA is easy enough to skip, while being highly informative — that is, if we keep it short, there's a high ratio of utility to inconvenience. Repeat it two or three times, for Cyrillic with and without stress, or Arabic with and without vowels, or English with both IPA and respelling (or stress marks and IPA), and the utility ratio starts shifting the other way. I'd prefer a single repetition that covers orthography + pronunciation, and supply further detail if needed in a footnote.

— kwami (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Maybe a single repetition of the word in accented Cyrillic, with a footnote to explain that the stress marks have been added for the benefit of the reader, and aren't normally found in print? — Adding an explanatory note is an excellent solution in my opinion. I actually proposed it in this discussion already, and some users agreed with it. Just to clarify: we better only include the stressed word(s); the version without stresses would be redundant and confusing. Thanks.
• Both the IPA and the stress(es) can be kept, sure enough. If you have a car (IPA), it doesn't mean you are forbidden to walk (stress).
• Thanks for the information on stresses in English words; very useful and revealing. It looks like it's not "madness [sic] done by those who just don't know what they're doing", after all.
• Your other arguments and suggestions look very good to me. (I won't list them and won't comment on them so as to keep this discussion short.) Thanks much. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

English technical dictionaries, that mark stressed syllables – Can you please name a few? I think I've seen some in my life, namely FOLDOC and The Jargon File, and they don't mangle the words with accents. The latter does this at most. — Mike Novikoff 23:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I ... would reluctantly accept removing it if the remover added the IPA to compensate – That could be a feasible compromise, if we don't reach anything else.

MOS:REDUNDANCY that says "keep redundancy to a minimum in the first sentence". (Most articles that I care about have the IPA already.) — Mike Novikoff 05:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• This would actually be no compromise at all, not on your part at any rate. This is something you have been claiming here for months if not years and which you mentioned in your essay: no stresses, including when we have no IPA. No, just nyet. The stresses should stay whether we have the IPA or not. There's no harm in using them. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The dramatic track five of Battleship Potemkin. :-)
No matter what I've been claiming, I'm now ready to agree on something different. — Mike Novikoff 16:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• A stressed spelling would only be redundant if we indicated it along with a non-stressed one (раскол, раско́л), so that's really a non-issue. We do use respelling
  H:RESPELL for English words, after all, and nobody claims it's redundant. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Another possible solution: Stressed vowels can be emphasized in some different way, e.g., by using bold: "Александр Сергеевич Пушкин" ("Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin"). Aamof, some Russian dictionaries underline stressed vowels, but, as far as I know, it is not recommended to use underlining on wiki. P.S. @SMcCandlish, Moscow Connection, Nicoljaus, Johnuniq, and Kwamikagami: What do you think? — Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Acute accents are the standard convention for marking stress in Russian, and I see no reason not to follow it.

I don't care for emphasis by formatting. It's not stable, for one thing -- someone might want to copy these names into their own work, and the stress would be lost. It's easy enough to remove the stress marks if they want to, since they're combining diacritics and all they have to do is hit backspace.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have one person who wants to change consensus, and everyone else keeping to the existing consensus? He's brought it up, didn't get any support, so he needs to follow consensus. He can continue to campaign for a change, of course, but meanwhile the current consensus is valid. It's not really up to us to convince him, but up to him to convince us. — kwami (talk) 06:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You couldn't be more correct as far as that user's behavior is concerned. I also agree with your arguments regarding the use of accents vs. the formatting. Stresses are much more stable and common, indeed. I just tried to find a solution which would please every user, including the person you have just mentioned, but it appears that nothing would ever please him other than his own solution. Thanks. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are we discussing my behavior? And can you please stop flooding? — Mike Novikoff 07:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Novikoff, please choose your words. I'm not "flooding", just explaining things. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: What "consensus" you are talking about? There hadn't been one so far, not even in ruwiki. I do have some support already, and the discussion is far from being over. BTW, you didn't answer my question above. — Mike Novikoff 07:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus is that we've been doing this for 20 years without a problem.

As for English tech dictionaries marking stress, sorry, I never bothered to keep track. Too trivial to think twice about. You could probably find something as easily as I could.

I do remember seeing this in guides to Roman and Greek names, both historical and mythological, where the only guide to English pronunciation was an acute accent. I believe there are two reasons for doing that: (a) there are different traditions for how to pronounce Classical names in English, and it would create a mess to try to give them all, while upsetting people if the editor took sides, and (b) those pronunciations are generally predictable as long as the placement of the stress is known, so there's no need to give the pronunciation beyond that. The latter is exactly our situation with Russian. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Novikoff, please stop misleading people. Other users and I have already commented on the alleged lack of a consensus on ruwiki. This is what I wrote: Those who remove stresses on ruwiki get quite astonished when they are told that removing the stresses that were already placed "is not welcomed", to put it mildly. Adding stresses on ruwiki is OK, while removing them, not so much. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OMG, what a chaos. :(( You may repeat everything you've said some more times, in all possible threads, then it certainly becomes more convincing. :\ — Mike Novikoff 08:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please see

WP:CIVIL: Avoid condescension. No matter how frustrated you are, do not tell people to "grow up" or include any language along the lines of "if this were kindergarten" in your messages. — One way or another, even if I repeated a couple of my arguments, I only did so because this thread is very long and people might fail to notice them. Another reason for doing so is to rule out any possible misunderstanding; the fact is that some users tend to make clearly misleading arguments, which is not OK. P.S. I already asked you in this thread you to be civil, several times, but you keep ignoring my warnings. Should I ask an admin to intervene? — Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

In Hebrew Niqqud, e.g., vowel marking, is normal in, e.g., dictionaries, grammar texts, but is rare in, e.g., news, nonlinguistic texts. Would it be appropriate to make a similar distinction for stress marks? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chatul: I'm all for it. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a dictionary — Mike Novikoff 16:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody claimed that it was. Wikipedia is, however, a collection of articles on diverse subjects, some of them on aspects of linguistics for which stress and vowel markings are appropriate. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:10, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should a translation show its pronunciation?

Would someone not involved in the dispute please offer an opinion on my question at 02:38, 31 January 2021 above. Rephrased, that question concerns Old Believers which concerns a schism between groups with different religious beliefs. After defining "Old Believers" and giving its Russian equivalents, the lead says:

Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as

raskol

(раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

My question: should the translation of schism show how to spell the word (раскол) or how to pronounce it (раско́л)? It is conventional for pronunciation to follow the lead words that mirror the article title, as done at

I'm very sorry to intervene, but as far as I understand, pronunciation is this: 1) pronounced [rɐˈskoɫ] or 2) /ˈvɛnɪs/ VEH-niss. As to the stress mark in Russian words, it only shows where the phonetic stress is to be placed, nothing more. A stress mark helps with the pronunciation (basically, it's the only thing you need to know to pronounce a Russian word), but a stressed word doesn't constitute a pronunciation as such. That would be the IPA. The Russians have their own phonetic transcription which uses Cyrillic symbols: 1) [рʌско́л] or 2) /трʌнскр'и́пцыэjъ/ (IPA: /trɐnskrʲˈipt͡sᵻjə/). See Russian Phonetic Transcription Translator and Pronunciation Dictionary or Orphoepic dictionary (in Russian). On the second site, just type the Russian word in and click the first button on the left (ПОИСК = search).

For "raskol", the second site says: Транскрипция слова «раско́л»: [рʌско́л]. Translation: Transcription of the word «раско́л»: [рʌско́л]. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Kwamikagami: Any comment on this? There seems to be a misunderstanding as to what pronunciation is. (I'll take all the blame for calling an involved user, lol.) — Taurus Littrow (talk) 10:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The pronunciation is already there in the article linked to. But personally I think it would be nice to show where the stress is here too, so readers won't need to follow a link to know what sound should be in their heads when they read this article. Many readers won't and might end up hearing it as "rascal", so I'd add an acute accent. But since we're giving a transliteration, it might be better to put the accent mark there instead:

P.S. I wonder what would happen if someone started removing respelling from all the articles, arguing that this stuff "is not part of the regular English orthography", "doesn't represent the common spelling", "there's no consensus to use it", "it's madness done by those who just don't know what they're doing", etc. etc. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative essay on stress marks

Now that Novikoff's essay was userfied and he again restored his old version, I wrote an alternative essay, which contains the version he reverted and to which several users contributed. Unlike Novikoff's essay, this new essay is more accurate, more informative and more neutral (it presents both points of view). You can read it here:

• New essay on sttress marks in Russian words — Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard that all Wikipedia content goes under

CC-BY-SA (just look at the bottom of any page), so you must mention somehow that your essay is based on mine. BTW, the version that I've restored is by Retimuko. — Mike Novikoff 17:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

I can't seem to find what I'm looking for in the Manual of Style, but does Wikipedia follow the MLA's style and capitalise the first letter of direct quotations? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:11, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the guidance you seek is at the end of

MOS:CONFORM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EEng (talk • contribs) 01:24, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

MOS:PMC is more pertinent to this, and CONFORM is "subservient" to it (i.e. outlines minor exceptions to the PMC general rule).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Not sure. All I can say is I do as long as a capital letter appears in the original text. If it doesn't, I believe we should retain the lower-case treatment. Some editors go overboard with this, imo – retain the lower case and insert an opening ellipsis. To my way of thinking, the ellipsis is unnecessary. JG66 (talk) 01:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I personally wouldn't add the opening ellipsis either. I guess until this is revisited I'll just leave these cases be when I come across them. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, only do that if there is missing earlier material that is contextually important, but in that case it's better to use a longer quote rather than make readers to try to find it in the original material.

@Tenryuu and JG66:The two typical approaches are these (and they can of course be adapted to blockquotes):

1. According to Elbonian Prime Minister Jane Q. Public, it was "the worst disaster in the port's history".
2. "[T]he worst disaster in the port's history" was Elbonian Prime Minister Jane Q Public's description of the event.

In neither case should this be changed to "The  ..." if the original material didn't have that capital T. If it did (e.g. because the original quote was "The worst disaster in the port's history was today."), then what you're looking for is 'According to Elbonian Prime Minister Jane Q. Public, it was "[t]he worst disaster in the port's history".' Honestly, I'm also skeptical that MLA would actually advise 'According to Elbonian Prime Minister Jane Q. Public, it was "The worst disaster in the port's history".', which is what the OP's characterization of their style guide suggests, but I have not read theirs on quotation matters in a long time (and if I still have a copy, it's in a box somewhere.) If they do, that's downright aberrant; I don't think any other style guide would agree with that.

PS: The answer to every single question that begins with something like "does Wikipedia follow the [some other publisher] style" is no, because WP has its own style guide. If MLA or APA or MHRA or AMA or whoever say something eminently sensible in their style guide and WP has a consensus it should be in ours, then it will be. MoS is largely built from averaging all the academic style guides, plus various WP-specific adjustment. If MoS doesn't address something at all, it means it's left to editorial discretion on a case-by-case basis, as something not likely to affect encyclopedic tone, accuracy, or reader comprehension (or to spark recurrent editorial strife). But for this particular matter, we already have

MOS:PMC, and it's central concern is in fact accuracy.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

SMcCandlish, yep, I agree with that ("In neither case should this be changed to ..."). I imagine Tenryuu's referring to instances where the quoted text constitutes a full sentence in its own right – even with a phrase or word omitted up front – rather than just a fragment. That is, surely that's all the MLA style guide would be advising ... Otherwise, they seem to be suggesting the (gratuitous) use of an initial cap as some sort of secondary inverted comma. JG66 (talk) 05:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Well, that would be directly misleading, arguably outright falsification of source material. One of the purposes of logical quotation is to avoid manufacturing fake sentences and fake complete clauses out of partial source material. Lots and lots of fragments can by themselves incidentally form grammatically viable sentences, but we should not mislead readers into thinking that they were. Silly example: "Prosecuting animal abuse is my life's work" → "animal abuse is my life's work".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is something MOS regulars may have an opinion about, so please comment.

The MOS says use single quotation marks for simple glosses, e.g. "Cossack comes from Turkic qazaq 'freebooter'." But what about explicitly mentioning a translation, i.e. "The Turkic word qazaq means freebooter"? Is freebooter here being mentioned as a word, in which case it should be formatted in italics? But using quotation marks seems more common, and I sometimes see single quotation marks used, though this usage isn't really a simple gloss. The lang series of templates does this, e.g. {{lang-tr|qazaq|lit=freebooter}} gives "Turkish: qazaq, lit. 'freebooter'." Is it still a simple gloss if preceded by lit.? Or should double quotation marks be used? This would be correct if the sentence said: "The Turkic word qazaq is defined by the dictionary as "freebooter"." Is there a general rule that covers this though? --Paul_012 (talk) 11:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you have an opinion, please share at Talk:Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion HERE on the talk page for musician Sophie's article over pronouns. Sophie preferred not to use gendered or non-binary pronouns (Pitchfork and Slate sources) so we're not sure the best way to phrase things without the sentences becoming very awkwardly written. Could we get some input? Thanks. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest using Sophie or nouns like "the musician" & "the musician's" as much as possible. It looks this has already been suggested at Talk:Sophie_(musician)#Pronouns, so probably best to continue the conversation there. Peaceray (talk) 23:27, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a good suggestion and I second it. Jilliangrace (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Someone with a better memory than me can hopefully point to some

MOS:GENDERID, the relevant parts are: Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources [...] Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. To me I don't see a reason that shouldn't apply to a preference for averting pronouns entirely. — Bilorv (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Here is a ship FA with no “she” or “her”: HMS Calliope (1884). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is, stylistically, a fine example of using a name and title, (such as "the musician") in lieu of pronouns. And I second Bilorv's last point, we should defer to Sophie's self-identification. I think we now have some guidance on how that can be accomplished. Jilliangrace (talk) 23:57, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I must dissent: that article contains some of the most wretchedly twisted-out-of-shape writing ever seen on earth or any other planet. For example:

The crew of the helpless and doomed American ship cheered Calliope as the corvette slipped past. The British ship's drive for the open sea was called by the American commander on the scene "one of the grandest sights a seaman or anyone else ever saw; the lives of 250 souls depended on the hazardous adventure." Making for the harbour mouth, the British ship's bow and stern alternately rose and plunged ...

Believe it or not, all the bolded stuff refers to the same ship, for crying out loud, and that's in Wikipedia's voice. I mean, seriously??? This is what's it's come to? (And while we're on the subject, see WP:Queen Elizabeth slipped majestically into the water. EEng 01:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. And, no, we shouldn't defer to someone's preference for averting pronouns entirely. Ridiculous. Singular they is fine. EEng 02:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S. I'd completely forgotten that my esteemed fellow editor SandyGeorgia and I have discussed Calliope before -- see WT:Manual_of_Style/Archive_217#Commentary_on_"follow_the_sources". EEng 02:23, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When a person has expressed a clear preference for pronouns not to be used about that person, I don't see any particular challenge in respecting that preference, myself. Newimpartial (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And if they want us to refer to them as "The Emperor Eternal", then what? EEng 02:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EEng, if this article is the most wretched writing you have ever seen, you need to get more active in the Wide World of Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, you know I know better than to imagine there can ever be a final answer to the question, What is the most wretched writing on Wikipedia? Read what I wrote again, which was that it's the most wretchedly twisted-out-of-shape writing on Wikipedia (or, I actually said, in the solar system). That's different. For the amusement of the editors assembled here's a post of mine from the discussion just linked:

I'm compelled to say that the Calliope article shows only how to jump from the she frying pan into ... well, another frying pan. In an apparent attempt to avoid the she/it controversy, the Calliope article eschews all pronouns by indulging in an orgy of headache-inducing elegant variation:

• After retirement from active service, Calliope served as a training ship until 1951, when the old corvette was sold for breaking
• ... which gave the corvette one more knot of speed, a difference that would be crucial in the disaster that made Calliope famous
• The vessel nevertheless was a fully rigged sailing ship
• The ship was not activated until 25 January 1887, when the vessel was placed in commission for the China Station
• The vessel was reassigned to the Australia Station later in 1887. The cruiser was in New Zealand at the end of that year
• The crew of the helpless and doomed American ship cheered Calliope as the corvette slipped past. The British ship's drive for the open sea was called by the American commander on the scene "one of the grandest sights a seaman or anyone else ever saw; the lives of 250 souls depended on the hazardous adventure." Making for the harbour mouth, the British ship's bow and stern alternately rose and plunged ...
• Captain Kane then took his ship to Sydney
• Calliope returned to service on the Australian station after repairs were complete. At the end of 1889 the cruiser was recalled to the United Kingdom.
• Calliope was returned to reserve and promptly stricken from the effective list. The cruiser laid up at Portsmouth, and in 1906 was listed for sale for a time. The next year Calliope was moved to North East England

First prize goes to ... cheered Calliope as the corvette slipped past. The British ship's drive for the open sea ..., in which Calliope, the corvette, and the British ship are all the same thing, but referred to by three different names to keep you on your toes, or possibly for comedic effect. It's like one of those bedroom farces in which the characters go out one door then reenter via another in different guises ("Let's see... so Count Evander and the undergamekeeper and the barmaid are all the same person ... I think ...") Truly wretched.

EEng 04:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

exoplanets, in light of recent revelations that even more wretchedly twisted-out-of-shape writing exists on Gamma Cephei Ab. For all intensive purposes I could care less, but it's high time to set the wrecker's strait and rain in the peddling of blatant Ms. Information. jp×g 21:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Your mother wears army boots.^[FBDB] EEng 03:05, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The challenge is honouring that preference while avoiding clunky sentences. E.g. this current sentence uses 'their': "At the age of approximately nine or ten years old, Sophie confessed to their parents a desire to drop out of school to be an electronic music producer (although they did not let Sophie do so, and Sophie continued their schooling)." What is the alternative way of writing that without resorting to the ridiculous "Sophie confessed to Sophie's parents"? And there's this sentence, "Sophie was asked by a half-sister to DJ her wedding, later Sophie admitted that the half-sister "didn't know what I was doing in my room on my own" and had assumed Sophie was a DJ." You can't even specify that it's Sophie's half-sister, unless you want to use "Sophie" five times in one sentence. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 02:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the rewrite is, At the age of approximately nine or ten years old, Sophie expressed a desire to drop out of school to be an electronic music producer (although Sophie's parents would not allow this, and Sophie had to continue in school). Not going to win a Pulitzer, true, but not unencyclopaedic or terribly contorted IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 03:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just going to say this again, and then I promise I'll leave the rest of you to it: It's one thing to worry about pronoun genders and so on, but the idea that we're supposed to go out of our way to accommodate someone's absurd pretension that they don't want to be referenced by any pronoun at all is just idiocy. I'm sorry but there's no other word for it.

Oh, but guess what? The source [5] doesn't say Sophie eschewed all pronouns; rather, it says that they preferred not to use gendered or nonbinary pronouns. They is neither gendered nor nonbinary. This entire discussion has been based on a failure to read the source carefully, or (though I'm not pointing any fingers) an apparent desire to find an issue where there is none. EEng 04:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to think of prounouns that are neither gendered nor non-binary and am having trouble. I admit to having a couple of cocktails. Can anyone help me? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They. It's neutral, a nullity. It's the NPOV of pronouns. EEng 05:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"They" has at least three usages in English: as a plural pronoun, as a person-of-unknown-gender pronoun, and as a person-of-known-nonbinary-gender pronoun. Unfortunately, all (or at least most) of the potential uses of "they" in the article would have represented the last of these three, and for this purpose there is no difference between "they" and the nonbinary pronoun neologisms - this is what we are told Sophie preferred not to use.

On the bright side, first and second-person pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns, are apparently fine. :). Newimpartial (talk) 01:31, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there still discussion on the article's talk page over whether that request is considered to supercede what reliable sources have referred to the artist as? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly is still discussion, although the most recent RS follow the expressed preference and don't use pronouns. Newimpartial (talk) 03:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The reported choice of wording is indeed questionable; why say "don't use gendered or non-binary pronouns" if the intended meaning is "don't use pronouns at all"? It would have seemed "nonbinary" was meant to refer to xe/ze etc. However, the Guardian does plainly say, "Sophie’s team said that pronouns should not be used when describing the artist."[6] I'm in agreement with EEng here though, in that it's not our duty to acquiesce to every absurd personal preference when it's going to be detrimental to our task of writing a readable encyclopedia (e.g., we're not referring to the subject as SOPHIE as some sources do, as the MOS is clearly against that). Pronouns are an integral part of the English language; would we be willing to follow a request to avoid adverbs or conjunctions in an article? The subject was also fine with being referred to as she/her a few years ago, according to the Vulture: "She offered no concrete details about herself, gave few interviews, and, until recently, didn’t use third-person pronouns in her press materials, leaving just enough space for most of the music media to assume she was a man."[7] It's not very clear whether the obituaries repeating the no-pronouns request are necessarily more up-to-date regarding the issue. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alright time's up and none of you have got the correct answer: it's John/Eleanor Rykener. This is what I was thinking of as the precedent for averting pronouns entirely on the biography of a person where it is unclear from the historical record which pronouns fit best. With the case of Sophie the sources seem similarly unclear and contradictory, and so I think the same outcome is logical. — Bilorv (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The kow-towing to the old men who poke eyes out to get their way with sexist she-as-ship is shameful. These codgers scratch and shriek like cats when crossed. So no one's willing to take them on any more. Meanwhile en.WP lags in the wholesale movement of the English language toward non-sexist wording. Calliope certainly is a clumsy example of addressing sexism in a maritime article; I'd volunteer to fix it if I weren't scared of the nasties who would bite my head off. Tony (talk) 07:28, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question in this thread does not appear to be about whether we should use non-sexist language (singular they; of course we should do that when a subject requests it and in many circumstances even when they don't), but rather whether we should acquiesce to SOPHIE's wishes to always refer to SOPHIE as SOPHIE and not to use pronouns in order to ensure that we always write SOPHIE's name as SOPHIE in place of the more common ways we might fail to write SOPHIE's name when referring to SOPHIE. I don't consider that to be a reasonable request. Pronouns are a basic part of English grammar and, if this request was not made with promotional intent this time, it surely will in future. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    In deference to my username, I request that future posts use no words which include the letter E. EEng 03:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, we should not "acquiesce to SOPHIE's wishes to always refer to SOPHIE as SOPHIE and not to use pronouns". This project is written in English. The language is a pre-existing thing. This language happens to make use of pronouns. We use the language as it exists. We should not be caving in to unreasonable demands. The English language also happens to sometimes use gendered pronouns in reference to inanimate objects, ships, for example. Some say this is sexist. I disagree. And I haven't heard any ships speaking up about this. Here is an article from 2018 from the exceptionally erudite The Economist, containing sentences like "She never reached her destination: in June that year she was sunk by a squadron of British ships. For more than three centuries her final resting place remained a mystery." Bus stop (talk) 03:27, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please, not this shit again. You just can't resist shoehorning in your old

hobbyhorse, can you? "Speaking of the weather, did I mention that ships are referred to as she?" You're like the honourable editor from the 18th century. EEng 07:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm not "shoehorning" anything in, EEng. Bus stop (talk) 15:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: a stronger form of the argument to avoid pronouns goes as follows: it is not clear whether Sophie wished to use "she/her" or "they/them" pronouns, or something else entirely (as Sophie was known to avoid media appearances and withhold personal life details, this is not hugely surprising), and to demonstrate this ambiguity we have several editors completely confident that Sophie wished to use "she/her" only or wished to use "they/them" only. There is precedent like at John/Eleanor Rykener to avert pronouns entirely for a historical figure whose pronouns cannot be ascertained with confidence. There is no way to write an article with pronouns without implicitly assuming correctness of one of multiple valid but mutually exclusive perspectives on which pronouns are correct. This sidesteps the counterargument you make on the premise that people with COIs should not unduly dictate the content of our articles about them, because it becomes about us not knowing a piece of information rather than a figure making demands of us. — Bilorv (talk) 14:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do we actually defer to "exotic" pronoun usage anywhere? (As in, xir or any bespoke formulation etc. instead of he/she/singular they?) I feel like that's the moreover guiding principle. The MOS' respect for individual's gender expression is not a suicide pact, and indeed in looking at this in terms of branding (which it is, on top of gender expression) we don't honor stuff like ALLCAPS NAMES or putting trademarks and service marks in common language.

In the examples above, singular they would make the article read much better (although not without problems; in the example of schooling, you'd have to make it clear "they" referred to either the parents or Sophie.)

As to HMS Calliope (1884), that seems like a good place where "it" works much better than the constructions of trying to avoid "her", but also an example of where we should just be following the balance of sources. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:14, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The problem we have with that is that we have the singular they (indeterminate) and the singular they (nonbinary), and I don't see how we could use the former in the SOPHIE article without appearing to the reader to be using the latter - and the latter would be misgendering in two scenarios out of the three currently imaginable ones (if SOPHIE rejected the use of gendered and nonbinary pronouns, as the most recent RS state, or if SOPHIE preferred feminine pronouns, as some interview subjects and the record label imply). If we could somehow communicate that we were using the indeterminate they and not the nonbinary they, we would be off the hook, but I'm not convinced we have the linguistic technology to do that. Newimpartial (talk) 15:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how we would be misgendering if we used "they". Bus stop (talk) 16:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]