Talk:Mustang

Template:WP1.0

Requested move

• Mustang horse → Mustang
• Mustang → Mustang (disambiguation)

– Clear primary topic for this word in English, the vast majority of the other pages are named after this animal. Check out the logos for the Ford Mustang (which is a popular article but is naturally disambiguated), Mustang Software, CalPoly Mustangs, etc. A Mustang (military officer) is being compared to the wild nature vs a thoroughbred, the Japanese album Mustang! (Dragon Ash album) has "cowboy" influenced cover art (see the hat and font). There are a couple of topics that were clearly not named after the animal, such as Mustang, Nepal and maybe MUSTANG (camera), but these pages are already disambiguated and not viewed very much. Most pages, like Mustang, Oklahoma and USS Mustang, we can't prove that the name was influenced by the animal, but it would be unreasonable to assume otherwise. It is unlikely that anything that was named "Mustang" in the US in the last 200-300 years was named after a region of Nepal and not the animal symbolic of the Old West. As far as I know nobody has ever referred to this animal as a "mustang horse", just a "mustang", and this seems to be thing readers will be most expecting to see at this title. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 19:11, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Another thing, is there any evidence that the horse is actually called mustang horse because if not the article should at the very least be moved to Mustang (horse)? I have my doubts since Mustang horse is not used anywhere in the article--174.93.163.194 (talk) 19:32, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support. The horse is the primary topic. Moreover, the IP above me is correct to doubt that the type of horse known as a "mustang" is ever referred to as a "mustang horse"; I see no evidence that it is commonly called this. 168.12.253.66 (talk) 19:37, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose though weak oppose. This ain't broke, let's not try to fix it please. Reason #1: While JohnnyMrNinja is correct that this proposal would pass WP:PRIMARY, we already have a regular problem with people adding links to the article about cars, football teams and god-knows-what-else that belong at the dab, and if we make it primary, this will only get worse. Reason #2: This name is stable and has been for years, people can make one more click to get to the horse. Reason #3, while I do agree about WP:PRIMARY, if we got into a google hits discussion, the car would probably have more hits than the horse, and we really don't need that drama, either. And please no, let'sl not move it to (horse) - the longstanding consensus of WikiProject equine is that the parenthetical disambiguation (horse) is used mostly for named horse articles such as Secretariat (horse) or assorted non-horse breed articles (like bit (horse) that need a dab for miscellaneous reasons. We just finished cleaning up the last of these parenthetical names about a year ago and DO NOT want to start that all over again! Because many horse breeds already do have "horse " in their breed name, association name or registry title, (American Quarter Horse, for example,) "horse", lower case, without the parentheses is used for the many, many breeds that need disambiguation. We also have cases such as Salerno horse- the breed, and Salerno (horse)- the individual animal. (that might be the only one, but I'm not certain). Montanabw^(talk) 20:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Weak oppose I think that the pony car Ford Mustang is enough to dispute the primacy of the horse. -- 65.94.78.70 (talk) 09:07, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Neither. Wikipedia makes do with the simplifying assumption that all widely used versions of English are English which mostly works well, given reasonable levels of mutual courtesy and reasonable understanding. In the USA a "Mustang" is a(n) horse, and if automobile enthusiasts are tempted to overlook the fact they can look at the badge on the front of a car. But for most English speakers outside of the US a "Mustang" is in the first (probably also second and third) place(s) a car, first popular in the 1960s and subjected to a series of reincarnations - some more convincing than others - subsequently. That applies in the UK. Plus: All over Europe, China, India and elsewhere there are people less monocultural than the anglo-americans who speak English perfectly well, but many of whom know the word Mustang only in the context of the car. I guess wikipedia in English is for those guys too. Or? On the other hand, "Mustang horse" looks plain silly. So how about "Mustang (horse)" Just as automobile pages for lesser known or more thoroughly forgotten brands that share their names with other things might be called "Hudson (automobile)". English is not the same even between New York and Baton Rouge, but since Baton Rouge doesn't have it's own army and navy we content ourselves with the notion that the two versions are different dialects of a single language. Well, maybe so. But the Brits do have their own army (albeit a shrinking one). And I submit that in many of those countries where they speak English as a second language, but fluently, folks are entitled not to find themselves gratuitously disconvovulated (?sp?) by locali[s/z]ed uses of English in English language wikipedia. Regards Charles01 (talk) 09:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment: reinCARnation? LOL! I addressed the (horse) situation above, it's a separate issue from this Move request, but we really don't want to do that; we prefer to avoid getting the breed articles confused with the thousands of individual horse "biographies". Montanabw^(talk) 21:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose on grounds of Americocentricism, if that is a word. Most of the English speaking world does not call wild horses mustangs. As Charles01 (no relation) says the car model is better known. Mustang (horse) seems good to me.--Charles (talk) 10:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

And Mustangs aren't wild horses anyway, they are feral horses. (wink) Montanabw^(talk) 21:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't agree that "Mustang" in English has a primary meaning of the horse variety. Yes, it's clear that almost all other meanings are derived from the name of the horse variety, but that doesn't matter. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says nothing about a word's origins, only about its present meaning and usage, both short and long-term. Certainly, "Mustang" primarily referred to the horse variety before World War Two, and this probably was true even after the war despite the success of the fighter aircraft which also bore that name; fighter planes are only of interest to a select set of people. But now that it is also the name for a very popular and well-known automobile brand, the primary meaning of "Mustang" is no longer clear. Today our culture is far more automobile-oriented than horse-oriented. If you mention "Mustang" to random ordinary people, I'd bet more of them would think of the car first than the horse variety, and I suspect that will remain true for a long time to come. In a sense, the current situation is somewhat like what has happened to place names that are now associated with food and drink, such as "cheddar" and "champagne". --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 10:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as an Americanism. For non-Americans (or at least Australians), a wild horse is a 'wild horse' and a Mustang is either the Ford Mustang or the P51 Mustang airplane. No need to fix what isn't broken.  Stepho  talk  13:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per Montanabw. The resulting confusion would increase, with common and casual links to Mustang being more wrong than before. Binksternet (talk) 15:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Easily the primary topic. And I'm not American. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Were it not for the feral horse, the fighter aircraft and the sporty coupé (and the motorcycle, and all those sports teams) would be named something else. Unless one speaks of a region of Nepal, or maybe a variety of grape, anything one calls a Mustang is named after the North American feral horse. (On a side note, it is hilarious to see people opposing the renaming as an Americanism when the two alternatives they propose as the primary topic are both American!) Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

All other places named Halifax, as in Halifax in Nova Scotia, are after Halifax in West Yorkshire but that does not make the original English town primary topic.--Charles (talk) 09:37, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• If this move isn't successful, it would definitely be a good idea to move this page to Mustang (horse) as suggested by the IP. "Mustang horse" is a very strange usage; the status quo is UNNATURAL disambiguation. --BDD (talk) 00:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

  Oh please dear god no! This will create an inconsistency that will screw up dozens of articles, possibly over a hundred, including all the articles about ponies. (Shetland pony, New Forest pony, [{Dartmoor pony]], etc....) This is NOT "strange" use -- many horse registries have the word "horse" in them (Arabian Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, Appaloosa Horse Club, etc... and that's just the As...) it took us years to get these WP articles straightened out (there was even once a naming dispute over American Quarter Horse, for example. No one calls that breed an "American Quarter" ... =:-O ) -- plus the confusion it would cause with the named horse biographies, many of which (if not most) use (horse) as a disambiguator. I'd rather see the move request go through than this fate, and I think I speak for the members of WPEQ on this, as we have wrestled with this for years! Montanabw^(talk) 05:03, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Shetland pony, etc. are normally called that, in UK anyway, so pony is part of the common name.--Charles (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

People speak of Arabian horses, people speak of quarter horses, people speak of Shetland ponies. People do *not* speak of "mustang horses". They speak of "mustangs". And as for an "Appaloosa horse" it sounds more like you, whether individually or as a special interest group, are trying to place your convention over general usage, because people don't speak of "Appaloosa horses" either.

Further to this, calling them "mustang horses" instead of "mustangs" might give the quite wrong idea that they're horses from Mustang in Nepal, just as Arabian horses are from Arabia and Shetland ponies are from the Shetland Islands. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 12:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. I've never seen one called a "mustang horse" either. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)