Talk:Goodbye, Mr. Chips

This article

I'm sorry to say this, but the writing in this entry really needs a lot of improvement. The amateurish tone I've seen in many other Wikipedia articles is very marked here. I'm not surprised that some experts don't take Wikipedia very seriously. CBaudelaire 14:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've heard "Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei" is a parody of the title? needs to be confirmed though. should be added in pop culture heading or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.47.245.101 (talk) 03:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The lead section of the article discusses only the publication history of the book, but not the importance of it or its literary values. 81.182.236.194 (talk) 17:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

What is "ethnocentric" about Chips ruminating on his faith in "English blood". And how can his getting into trouble for making a joke about the name and ancestry of a "boy named Isaacstein" be a sign of ethnocentricity?124.197.15.138 (talk) 06:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Franco.boggi (talk) 08:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

A little quote from "Breaking Bad": the author Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface. So he took a "classical" teacher, "backbone" of the Nation, as the raw material, starting point for his "poetic" work.

"Perhaps the best known"

This is in most cases not a very encyclopedic statement. In a few cases it may scrape past because it is so "grass is green" obvious (the Disney version of Aladdin is "perhaps the best known version of Aladdin", Richthofen is "possibly the best known fighter pilot". Here, where there are two famous films - the one we called "the best known" and the possibly even better known musical. But here is a clear case when deletion of the offending phrase is called for rather than a crazy "Citation needed" tag. Think about it for a moment - what would constitute a good citation, from a reliable source, for something like that? --Soundofmusicals (talk) 10:12, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

So why did you delete the tag in the first place, leaving an unsupported statement? If you want the statement there (presumably, as you left it in place), then it needs a citation. I'd also argue with your two other "best known" opinions above. Neither of them carry any water as they are opinions only, but if anyone wants to make that claim, it needs to be done with an appropriately sourced reference. - SchroCat (talk) 14:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

So I changed my mind? Unlike some people, I constantly reexamine my work, especially when I am making many changes with not much time to do it so that the odd blooper is not unlikely - and am ready to admit when I am wrong. In this case I had forgotten for the moment about the other very well known (musical) film, which you reminded me of. I should have mentioned this, perhaps, but I was assuming you'd have picked up what was going on. No, we don't have to cite EVERY statement in Wiki, even if it is an opinion very obviously held by many people - the "perhaps" gives us an out for marginal disagreement, should it genuinely exist. For anyone who does object - the question is "can you name an even better known one, or even one nearly as well known? Bit of a gray area at times, perhaps. Please re-read the relevant policies and consider what they actually say. (I won't insult you by including links here). Anyway, I take it that we are agreed about this article now, which is what matters HERE. Just to skid in a little afterword, a CN tag is meaningless unless it would be possible to insert a citation to a reliable source. But again, please think, a "citation" to someone else also sharing the writer's opinion can never have the same clout as a citation to a fact. For that very reason we normally avoid opinions altogether - unless it is worth giving a quote from the writer whose opinion we are relying on (which will of course be cited).Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

"I had forgotten for the moment about the other very well known (musical) film": the problem is that the text read "best known screen version": there are four screen versions listed there, and there will be some people who have never heard of the 1939 version, just one of the more recent television ones. My edit summary of "Best to find a citation for a big claim" was an apt one;

"No, we don't have to cite EVERY statement in Wiki": pretty much every one, outside "the sky is blue";

"the "perhaps" gives us an out for marginal disagreement": nope: it's unencyclopaedic in this context and shouldn't have been used in the first place;

"For anyone who does object - the question is "can you name an even better known one, or even one nearly as well known?: that's so far from the question as to be mind-mubing. The wording "This is perhaps the best known screen version" was in Wikipedia's voice. It was being reported as fact. That's such a shoddy piece of phrasing that I wonder about what standards you work to. If there is a big claim (like "the best known", "the favourite", etc), then it HAS to be a. given at least one very good citation (preferably more) and b. linked to that citation (i.e. "Both the British Film Institute and the American Film institute consider...")

"we normally avoid opinions altogether": that's just nonsense. Every half-written film or book article contains the opinions of critics, reviewers, industry bodies, connections to things like the Library of Congress's National Film Registry etc. Personal opinions of readers or editors have no place here: those of industry experts are essential. You seem to have missed the point of that (and many other things) with a rather slap-dash removal of a tag. If you are "making many changes with not much time to do it", then perhaps you should make less changes but actually think about the ones you are making. To remove that tag without addressing the obvious issue was lazy and slapdash: if you had taken just a few extra seconds to actually look at what you were doing, this could have been avoided. This isn't the first time I've had to revert your removal of tags which have left problematic text in place: please don't let this become a habit - you are an experienced enough editor not to make such basic newbie mistakes. - SchroCat (talk) 12:38, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The actual point is that the tag should never have been inserted (definitely not RE-inserted), when what was actually required was the excision of a very doubtful statement. As one of the policy statements I (erroneously?) assumed you would look up yourself remarks - "Do not tag nonsense (delete it). --Soundofmusicals (talk) 05:07, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

After the unknown hand inserted it, the main point is that it shouldn't have been removed without the problem being sorted. "Delete it" refers to the nonsense as the tag. Again, we know this isn't the first time you've just stripped out tags you don't like, but next time, try and work on the rubbish they are highlighting before the tag is removed. – SchroCat (talk) 06:10, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Confusing Dates

In the introduction is:

... first published by Hodder & Stoughton in October 1934.

Even if publication in a magazine is not "published" as intended here, the second sentence of History contains:

... the US publisher Little, Brown and Company, who published the story in book form for the first time in June 1934.

This needs either correction or, at least, clarification. ☺ Dick Kimball (talk) 13:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Chapel End School

According to the Wikipedia entry List of schools in Waltham Forest (borough of London) there are two state-funded primary schools with the name Chapel End: Chapel End Infants' School and Chapel End Junior Academy. If anyone has information as to the one (or possibly both) of which James Hilton's father was headmaster, clarification would be appreciated. ☺ Dick Kimball (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

"She dies in childbirth..."

The article says:

She dies in childbirth and he never remarries or has another romantic interest.

That surprised me. I had recalled that she died in an automobile accident, along with their young twin children, but that memory was apparently from one of the movie versions. Does anyone know which of the movies it was? --NCdave (talk) 16:42, 14 January 2019 (UTC)