Talk:Havana Daydreamin'

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The result of the move request was: moved. Wikipedia always follows

Not sure. Our copy of the album cover image is very low-res and does not clearly show the title lettering, but a full-size image of the album cover clearly shows "Havaña" (searching "Havana Daydreamin'" at http://images.google.com/ gives many examples, for instance http://whenyouputitthatway.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/appreciating-jimmy-buffett/ ). On the other hand, listening to the title song (on YouTube or elsewhere), it is clearly pronounced "Havana", presumably about the city, and not with the "'ny'-as-in-'canyon'" sound of n-tilde. So this is clearly the tilde equivalent of a

heavy-metal umlaut. The question is, how do we handle this? We could do something similar to the Spinal Tap article, keeping it at the non-diacritic title but mentioning the diacritical "flourish" in the lede (I will attempt an edit). But do we have Spinal Tap at the non-diacritic title because that's the best choice, or simply as a practical matter because n-umlaut is more or less nonexistent in real usage and the diacritic title would not display properly for many users. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 02:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

• Also not sure I must say it irks a bit to see Havana mispelled like that, but it clearly is there on the 1976 LP cover and hasn't been photo-shopped out in the CD reissue. Given the lyrics "Stashed his trash in Ecuador / Bought a good suit of clothes / Flew on up to Mexico / Standin' by the shore / Waitin' for some mystery" and the apparent reputation of general irony of Jimmy Buffet's Caribbean books and records, have to assume that this is a deliberate stylistic "heavy metal umlaut" as P.T. Aufrette says, not just a mistake. The fact that Havana is overlatinised with a mistaken tilde may be connected with the lyrics' irony about a gringo in Latinland? Who knows. But whatever we can't simply correct it because Havana doesn't have a tilde in real life. I would think first priority is to actually mention the oddity in the lede, not simply remove it as a recent edit has done. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Stero Review (1976) noted the "mistake," see source now in article. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:49, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. It's a gulf and western tilde. The original release (images), the 1980 MCA release (images), and the CD release of the album (on the cover and the CD itself, but not on the spine label) all use the tilde. Cf. Mötley Crüe (album), March ör Die, Ænima, and of course Rinôçérôse (album). —  AjaxSmack  03:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, per WorldCat, Amazon, CD Universe, AllMusic, and the Standard Catalog of American Records. Everyone called it Havana Daydreamin` even when the official name had a diacritic. It looks like the diacritic-free form is the title proper for the CD, i.e. it has been the official name since 1987. Kauffner (talk) 04:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Amazon CD image clearly shows the "ambiguous journey into B. Traven" tilde. Whether Amazon's inputters can/do input Spanish (particularly incorrect pseudo-Spanish) into indexing is not germane here. [Can't see the track-listing of course, to see whether it is still as the LP or has been dehumorised....] In ictu oculi (talk) 07:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Album covers are like book covers. They are just art. If the diacritic was part of the title proper, WorldCat would give it. Kauffner (talk) 07:32, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you a librarian, Kauffner? This is a pretty good description of how we catalog, by AACR2. If it was cataloged as "Havana Daydreamin'," that's what was on the album itself, assuming the cataloger didn't make any mistakes. When cataloging records or CDs, the title on the disc is the "title proper" for librarians. I'm not sure how much it informs this debate, however. --BDD (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I dug out my original '70s LP and sure enough the tilde is on the cover and vinyl album's Side A song list. Had long since faded from memory (due initially to Buffett ignoring its pronunciation, then decades of it not being used even in the US music media (per current example of artistsdirect.com cited at the start of this thread)). If we were rewriting history and adding one where it never had been I would continue to oppose its use; accepting reality is something else. Should have rooted out the old LP to begin with. Wikiuser100 (talk) 18:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This is the epitome of what
  MOS:TM is referring to when it says "Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words (e.g., ♥ used for "love")." The title is recorded sans tilda in all the sources currently used, as well as, for instance, here: [1][2][3]--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Hmm, I've had so much recent experience of following MOS pages and then finding they've been edit-warred by editors at odds with article-reality that I daren't even look. If it applies to music it may just mean that whoever's edit is on top there has a problem with articles like Mötley Crüe. But as above Stero Review (1976) noted the "mistake," and that source is now in article. We don't know it is "included purely for decoration", but what does "included purely for decoration" mean anyway? Isn't Häagen-Dazs purely decoration, designed to trick consumers into thinking it's a Swedish product? I'd still prefer to go with the physical album cover and Stereo Review picking up on it than MOS edits which appear to be at odds with Mötley Crüe en.wp reality. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:58, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As you know we follow what the secondary sources say above whatever appeared on the album in the 1970s. Unlike the example of Motley Crue, in this case they virtually all eschew the tilda, evidently including the Stereo Review source after the first mention where they note the error. The sources do this because this is an unpronounced, unaddressed decorative element, or else an error, neither of which warrant us including it against use in the sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, well in any case Wikiuser100 no longer supports his own proposal. Besides I'm not sure we have many secondary sources other than Stero Review (1976). Stan Zimmerman uses Ponce de León so he counts (against by omission) the mispelled Havana... but otherwise the sources don't carry Spanish even when correct. I'm not particularly bothered, as I (the Spanish orthography part of me) would like to correct it. Given he doesn't mention the song in his own books, maybe someone should email him? Anyway this has been an interesting/entertaining little time-waster. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, it doesn't matter what Buffett calls it, it matters what the sources call it. The only source we've seen that includes it is Stereo Review, which merely notes the error with a [sic] - and then calls it "Havana Daydreamin'" elsewhere in the text. Of the other sources, Allmusic.com is clearly capable of using diacritics, but avoids them with this album.[4] Whether the other sources use Spanish orthography in general is immaterial, since this isn't Spanish orthography, it's just a decorative (and erroneous) element on an English-language album. At any rate, they certainly don't use the tilda. We have specific guidelines against using these things; this case is pretty clear cut.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:01, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This book also calls it "Havana Daydreamin'", and suggests our current cite of the Stereo Review piece is incomplete.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a

requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review

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