Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

En dashes vs. hyphens

Following the section here on en dashes, I moved Ural-Altaic languages to Ural–Altaic languages. However, I've gotten complaints saying that a hyphen is used in the literature, and that takes precedence over the MOS. Since punctuation varies from source to source, it doesn't seem that clear-cut to me. So I'd like your input:

1. Does the punctuation of academic literature take precedence over wikipedia's MOS? (per complaint, "they are inappropriate in established linguistic names", as in #2 below)
2. When a language family is named after two languages (Yuki–Wappo, named after the Yuki and Wappo languages) or geographic areas (Niger–Congo, spoken along the Niger and Congo rivers), and neither is a prefix, should we use the en dash? A hyphen is always used in the lit, but is this an orthographic issue, or a punctuation issue?
3. What if one of the names is shortened to its root form? "Uralic–Altaic languages" I think should be en-dashed, and "Uralo-Altaic languages" clearly should be hyphenated, but what about "Ural-Altaic/Ural–Altaic languages", which is Ural Mountains plus Altai Mountains plus the suffix -ic?

I've also gotten more general complaints:

"En-dashes are also ridiculous since they are not easy to type. Use them in mathematical formulas, but not in connected English text or in hyphenated vocabulary items." [I'm not sure what use they would have in math formulas.]

kwami (talk) 00:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This seems to me a case where a hyphen is correct. The use is for conjunction, not disjunction. There is not a from–to, versus, or opposition sense between the two terms that would indicate en-dash usage. But I'm not an expert, wait for other opinions. -- Tcncv (talk) 06:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

You could argue Niger-Congo is a from-to (spoken from the Niger to the Congo). kwami (talk)

See the "Usage guidelines" subsection under Dash#En dash. --Wulf (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is what we are discussing, but what is your interpretation? -- Tcncv (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

To me these seem very much like Bose–Einstein condensate, which the CMS would not require an en dash for, but which has an en dash in the title here on wikipedia. I've never seen that phrase with an en dash in the academic lit either, so it does seem to be a good illustration for my question.

Another objection I've heard (see my talk page) is that readers looking things up will be constantly redirected from hyphenated search strings, wasting their time and concentration wondering how what they entered was wrong. Is this a concern for anyone else? If it is, should we set up a bot to fix links to en-dashed article titles? kwami (talk) 10:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I am retracting my earlier opinion. It appears that Wikipedia MoS also prefers en-dash usage for "and" relationships, which (I believe) include both the Bose–Einstein condensate and Niger–Congo languages cases. It appears that other style guides are mixed on this issue, with some (such as Chicago) preferring dashes. Again, I am not an expert. (As a side note, is it just me, or is it confusing to have the "and" condition covered under "disjunction"?)

Other opinions are requested. -- Tcncv (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This is another case in which WP:MOS has been written to "reform" English, rather than to record what it does. This should be fixed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This is also an archaic preservation of typesetting style which is inappropriate for computer usage. Hyphens are all that are required. The distinction between an en-dash and a hyphen is strictly a holdover from the printing industry. In linguistics, we never use en-dashes in formulations like Niger-Congo and Ural-Altaic and Amto-Musan, etc. An additional objection to the silly wording of this MOS concerning en-dashes is their use in "and" constructions. That would require them in "hyphenated" names, then, as well, such as Meredith Whitney-Bowes, for example. I am looking at the January 2008 issue of International Journal of American Linguistics right now. Page 2 "Patla-Chicontla Totonac" [hyphen], page 59 "Uto-Aztecan" [hyphen], page 89 "Proto-Cholan" [hyphen]. These are constructions of language names. However, in the formulation on page 141, an en-dash is correctly used in the formulation "Cherokee—English Dictionary". "Cherokee-English" is not an accepted linguistic formulation and the dictionary is clearly "from" Cherokee "to" English. On page 142, we also see "Eastern Ojibwa—Chippewa—Ottawa Dictionary" with en-dashes. Thus, the formulation "from—to" is a correct usage of the en-dash, while the "and" construction is not. ("Niger-Congo" is not a "from—to" construction, but is an "and" construction--"the languages of the Niger and Congo Basins"). (Taivo (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

Playing devil's advocate, "proto-" and "Uto-" would always be hyphenated, because they're prefixes.

I'm not so sure "Niger-Congo" is an "and" formulation: language families are frequently named for their geographic extremes, in effect 'the languages from A to B'.

What about cases where one or both of the joined names contain more than one word? Or hyphenating an already hyphenated name, as often happens with "proto-"? kwami (talk) 23:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Linguistic usage always prevails--hyphens all the way. And we all know that the "Niger-Congo" family extends far beyond the Niger and Congo Rivers. Indeed, Atlantic-Zambezi would be a more accurate "extension" description. The argument for "geographical" extension works (in archaic typesetting terms if necessary at all) only for terms that are not accepted linguistic names. Accepted linguistic names should always be hyphenated because they are proper names. In examining linguistic usage, the only time one finds en-dashes (or, better, em-dashes) is in forms (as cited above) that are dictionary names, "From Cherokee to English". These are not geographical ranges, but "translation ranges" only. But, in the end, en-dashes are silly retentions from typesetting and have no real function in the modern, computerized world. (Taivo (talk) 23:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

Your "proper names" argument may be the way to go. That would take care of hyphenated surnames as well. (Except that dictionary titles are also proper names. "Unitary terms", perhaps?) However, em dashes are not appropriate for dictionaries. An em dash would give a bizarre reading, rather like a colon, such as the title is "Cherokee" and that it's an English dictionary. kwami (talk) 00:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

When combining hyphenated forms into larger units, older sources that were typeset sometimes used en-dashes to combine hyphenated forms. Thus, in the Handbook of Native American languages, Volume 10, Southwest (1983, typeset by linotype), on page 115 we find "Proto-" added to "Uto-Aztecan" with an en-dash. But in Mithun's The Languages of Native North America (1999, computer typeset) we find "Athapaskan-Eyak-Tlingit" with all hyphens (page 346 ff) and on page 123 "Proto-Uto-Aztecan" with all hyphens. In linguistics books, all the linotype-typeset (precomputer) books I checked have occasional (although not universal) en-dashes in places and all the computer-typeset books I checked have hyphens all the way. This WP:MOS appears to be a misguided attempt to turn back the clock to a precomputerized typesetting era. (Taivo (talk) 00:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

What we'll end up with then is differing punctuation standards depending on the topic of the article. That doesn't seem to be a tenable situation. (I don't see the point of the AET example, but pUA captures the diff.)

There's also the issue of precision. Within linguistics, the meaning of these names is obvious. However, they're not always so obvious to the non-linguist. Granted, hyphens are not wrong, but en dashes help disambiguate. This reminds me of punctuation in quotations. A final period or comma may come before or after the quotation mark, depending on the style guide we're following. However, here on WP we've decided to follow logical order, as being an encyclopedia warrants precision in such matters. kwami (talk) 00:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not being more specific--Athapaskan-Eyak-Tlingit is a combination of Athapaskan-Eyak with Tlingit. What you are implying about the precision comment is that books published by linguists are imprecise and that Wikipedia is somehow more precise. Ahem. Within linguistics, hyphens are now standard usage for all proper names of languages. That's the Manual of Style which should be followed for all language and linguistics articles. Within our field, we get to establish what is standard usage and what is not. These are proper names in the same way that Meredith Baxter-Birney is a proper name. When you start using an en-dash in her name, then you have a valid argument for using them in linguistics proper names. Otherwise, there is no valid contemporary reason for using en-dashes in linguistic names when the specialists within that field don't use en-dashes. (Taivo (talk) 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

Oh, yeah, I got that much. It's just not clear to me that AET isn't just a list of the three branches of the family, without trying to subclassify them. Yes, I agree with your surname analogy, as I've said above. kwami (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

One further point about en-dashes within linguistic proper names. If linguists are using hyphens in all proper names of languages and language groups, then who will be decided which names get en-dashes and which ones don't? Non-linguists? I hardly think that they have the authority to decide such matters. Out in the world of linguistics, there aren't any en-dashes, so adding them into Wikipedia articles is actually a falsification of the data. (Taivo (talk) 00:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

It's a punctuation standard, not decided on a case-by-case basis. So there is no "decision". Illustrations from some of the Papuan families: Trans–New Guinea, East Bird's Head–Sentani, Left May–Kwomtari, Ramu–Lower Sepik, Yele–West New Britain, Reefs–Santa Cruz, but a hyphen in Eastern Trans-Fly. (Per the MOS, most of these should actually have spaces: East Bird's Head – Sentani.) I don't know about the spaces, but even if we stick with hyphenating Niger-Congo, I think we should follow Linotype-level precision for protolanguages (which does not contradict linguistic custom), and keep the en dashes in these Papuan families, which otherwise are ambiguous. I think precision is valuable for its own sake, even if specialists don't bother with it. kwami (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

But you are applying two different things in your examples. First, "proto-" and "trans-" are prefixes and prefixes should always be attached with hyphens and not with en-dashes. "co-operate" should never have an en-dash any more than "proto-" or "trans-". Thus, your example of Trans-New Guinea is in a different category than an example such as Athapaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. None of these examples from New Guinea are complex, all are simple: A + B. The only ambiguous cases are where you have formulations such as: A+B + C+D. But again I ask, who is going to make the decision where to put en-dashes and where to put hyphens? If you put en-dashes throughout in Athapaskan-Eyak-Tlingit, then you've violated your argument about precision. I'm not willing to trust these decisions to anyone except the original linguist author, but they all have used hyphens. So using en-dashes here and there where the original authors did not is a falsification of the data. (Taivo (talk) 00:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

You're conflating different phenomena. The MOS description isn't very clear: Indo-European and Proto-Indic both take hyphens, because they involve prefixes. Proto–Indo-European, however, takes an en dash, because the prefix docks to an already hyphenated form. This is established usage in linguistics, as you yourself showed. (It being obsolete is a different argument entirely.) Besides using en dashes when conjoining already hyphenated terms, it's also standard to use them when conjoining multi-word terms, as in the Papuan examples. That has nothing to do with something like Niger-Congo, where your surname argument is convincing. kwami (talk) 01:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Just for a control, I looked all the way back at Voegelin and Voegelin's Classification and Index of the World's Languages (1977, long before computerized typesetting) and they used hyphens. As just a sample, on page 243, I found "Athapascan-Eyak", "Na-Dene", "Sino-Tibetan-Na-Dene", "Kuki-Chin", "Naga-Kuki-Chin", and "non-Indo-European". All with nothing but hyphens and some of them constructed themselves from other hyphenated forms. (Taivo (talk) 00:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

The quality of the linguistics has little to do with the quality of the printing or typesetting. For all we know, V&V wrote the book on a manual typewriter and expected the typesetters to take care of such issues, and the typesetters didn't know the difference with these unfamiliar names. And even if they chose to be imprecise, I don't think we should go with the lowest common denominator. I can go along with "Na-Dene", as that is consistent with broader English usage, but "Sino-Tibetan-Na-Dene" is just stupid. Within the linguistic community, okay, everyone knows what they mean. But for a broader audience it definitely needs an en dash: "Sino-Tibetan–Na-Dene". kwami (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• This sounds like support for Do what reliable sources in English do, leaving the present elaborate distinction as a rule of thumb when sources conflict, or taking them out altogether.
• Which, if either, should we do?
• Other comments?
  • I should think the difference between the two junctions in non-Indo-European worth marking, myself; but if sources don't....00:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, using en-dashes does violate linguistic custom. All linguists are currently using hyphens for "proto-" and most have used hyphens in the past. The problem is that any use of en-dashes violates contemporary linguistic usage and much of past usage. En-dashes are extinct in linguistic literature and were never very common even in the past. (Taivo (talk) 00:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

Yes, "Proto-Indo-European" is almost universally hyphenated. However, this is not restricted to linguistics: prefixes on already-hyphenated forms are generally hyphenated themselves, regardless of the field. Therefore I think this is an argument for amending the MOS, not for making linguistics an exception.

I don't have a problem with hyphenating "Proto-Indo-European", "Niger-Congo", and "Amto-Musan". However, I do object to hyphenating "Sino-Tibetan–Na-Dene", "East Bird's Head–Sentani", and "Yele–West New Britain", as the results are difficult to parse.

I'm finding that TNG is often not conjoined at all: "Trans New Guinea", but that when it is, it is often en-dashed: "Trans–New Guinea". It seems that the current trend is to write it as three separate words, despite the fact that one is a prefix. This is a clear indication that people find hyphenation problematic in this case. kwami (talk) 01:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking through the MoS Talk archives, it is apparent that dash usage is either the most recurring topic or is close to it. I think that points to a systemic problem either in the way Wikipedia defines its dash guidelines or in its expectations of its editors, and the repeated debates are a distraction from other MoS issues. Short of abandoning dashes (which I'm sure has no chance of happening), I think the dash guidelines should start with a clear and concise summary on which the rest of the guideline can build. The best, clearest, and most concise summary I've come across in recent discussion was by The Duke of Waltham (talk · contribs) in this earlier discussion.

“

• Hyphens for conjunction
• En dashes for disjunction
• Em dashes for interruption

Simple, isn't it?

”

Of course, hyphens have many other uses such as prefixes (Proto-Indo-European) and phrasal adjectives (hard-boiled egg), but I think there is general agreement on these uses. Unfortunately (IMHO), Wikipedia guideline does not distinguish the conjunction ("and") cases from the disjunction ("to" and "verses") cases and specifies that en-dashes be used for both. Thus the conjunction in "Michelson-Morley experiment" uses an en-dash, and as I interpret the current guideline, Ural-Altaic languages should also use an en-dash. However, for those familiar with other styles such as The Chicago Manual of Style, this seems unnecessary.

I would propose relaxing the dash guideline to recognize (and even encourage) the use of hyphens as an alternative to en-dashes for conjunctions. Disjunctions would continue to use en-dashes. There is precedent for this in the allowance of spaced en-dashes as an alternative to unspaced em-dashes for interruption. -- Tcncv (talk) 03:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Since the linguistic usages of hyphenated forms falls within the "conjunction" guideline, this follows current linguistic usage of hyphens as found in the journals. (Taivo (talk) 03:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

"Michelson-Morley experiment" sounds like an experiment by some guy named Michelson Morley, whereas "Michelson–Morley experiment" makes it clear that there were two people, Michelson and Morley. This is I believe an important distinction to maintain.

VikSol's comments from my talk page:

The requirement for n-dashes is an instance of prescriptivism, as in prescriptive grammar. I think practical utility is a much more important consideration than formulaic correctness. I doubt very many readers ever notice when an n-dash is used rather than a hyphen or are even aware of the existence of both. I think the requirement for n-dashes in certain formations is a harmless conceit as long as it doesn't interfere with the use of the encyclopedia. In this case, it does. Practically no one has an n-dash key on their keyboard and only a few know where to find one. This is proved by the fact that the editors who replace hyphens almost always use the "& n d a s h ;" command > "–", which makes text harder to read for editors, rather than a "physical" n-dash "–". Evidently, it is not widely known that the physical n-dash even exists. Because the n-dash character is a hangover from the print industry, and no one has it on their keyboards, everyone who types in a search is going to use the hyphen, e.g. "Eskimo-Aleut languages" rather than "Eskimo–Aleut languages". The result is that every single search of this kind is going to bring up the "Redirected from Eskimo-Aleut languages" message or the like. The readers feels this as a slap in the face, wondering "what did I do wrong?" S/he may then scrutinize the typed message to see if it was mistyped and lose time figuring out an n-dash was required or, more likely, giving up in frustration. By this time precious seconds have been wasted, the reader's chain of concentration is likely broken, and their reaction to Wikipedia begins to turn from positive to negative, because we are not anticipating their predictable reactions. If it was possible to devise a fix whereby searches using hyphens automatically produced the article with n-dash without the "Redirected" message, we would again have a harmless conceit, especially if this fix was automatic and did not require a further effort by the editor, but it would, IMHO, be a waste of time, which is what is scarcest on this planet. In sum, the MOS guideline, if it requires n-dashes in titles, should be changed. Most Wikipedia guidelines are not rigid, recommending that common sense be used and the particular situation considered. If this isn't so here (Kwami, could we have a link to the guideline?), one would want to know why not. Why would this particular bit of typographical traditionalism be allowed to run roughshod over common sense and practicality?

and,

Wikipedia does not generally follow typesetting principles derived from the print industry but remains close to what people type on their computer screens. For example, it puts a line between paragraphs rather than indenting the first line. The purpose of this I think is to maintain editability, i.e. to make it easy for the average user to edit Wikipedia without special knowledge. This is really one of the last holdouts in the computer world to the era of DOS and other user-editable operating systems, which has since been totally eclipsed by systems that freeze out the user and keep him dependent on a handful of corporate monopolies. It's the last glimpse of a world as it might have been. The mere fact that people don't naturally type an n-dash under any circumstances is a sufficient argument against using it, in my opinion. Why spend all this time and effort putting in n-dashes when almost nobody is ever going to notice whether an n-dash or a hyphen was used or not? As I see it, it would be better to remove the use of n-dashes altogether, thereby making the use of dashes/hyphens consistent with the general principle of Wikipedia typography, namely that it's not an imitation of print typesetting but sacrifices some of its refinements in order to maintain direct contact with the average user. All this in a totally non-dogmatic spirit, I hope it's clear. User:VikSol

Ah, here's another example which I think cries out for an en dash: Trans-Fly–Bulaka River, as opposed to Eastern Trans-Fly. kwami (talk) 07:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC) kwami (talk) 07:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to write new text, kwami, with en-dashes, ok, but don't go changing existing text or existing article titles. There are tons more useful things that you could be doing in the linguistics articles other than turning hyphens into en-dashes. That's just a waste of time, IMHO. (Taivo (talk) 02:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC))

Actually, I've reverted all the changes along the lines of Niger-Congo. kwami (talk) 02:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

These should be counter-reverted; we should not invent usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

No, Pmanderson, these should not be "counter-reverted". Wikipedia is the inventor of usage here, not linguists. Linguists nearly universally use hyphens here now and have generally abandoned en-dashes. Wikipedia should follow the field, not the other way round. And, Kwami, you have a point about readability, but at what point do we end the hyphen/en-dash madness? How about South Bird's Head-Timor-Alor-Pantar, which is composed of South Bird's Head + (Timor + (Alor-Pantar))? Should we then use an em-dash to add another layer of detailed understanding: South Bird's Head—Timor–Alor-Pantar (I don't know if I got the right symbols inserted since their appearance here on the edit page is not the same as their appearance on the article page--another argument for just using hyphens). (Taivo (talk) 19:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC))

I've reverted to just using en dashes to join multi-word terms. So "Bird's Head–Timor-Alor-Pantar". One en dash to join Bird's Head, with a space in it, to Timor-Alor-Pantar, with hyphens in it. From what I've seen in print, you generally use en dashes for the highest level in the taxonomy, and reduce everything else to hyphens.

Em dashes would never be used. If we want to be sticklers, the way to join phrases which contain spaces would be with en dashes with spaces. So theoretically we could have "Bird's Head – Timor–Alor-Pantar". However, I don't see any point in doing that, as it doesn't improve legibility, and have reverted the few families where I had spaced en dashes following the MOS. kwami (talk) 21:18, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Taivo, in the classifications I'm familiar with, TAP is not a family with two branches, Timor and Alor-Pantar, but rather one with multiple branches spread over three islands, Timor, Alor, and Pantar. Therefore simple hyphens are all that is needed: Timor-Alor-Pantar. Where the en dash would come in is in "West Timor–Alor-Pantar", as it specifies that "West" applies only to Timor, not to the whole of *Timor-Alor-Pantar. Omitting the en dash would imply that it might contrast with *East Timor-Alor-Pantar, rather than with East Timor, as it actually does. kwami (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

(Makasai-)Alor-Pantar is contrasted with ungrouped languages of Timor in Ethnologue, Ruhlen, and International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (which all follow Wurm's classification). In fact, none of my references have Alor-Pantar ungrouped--all group them together against the languages of Timor. I'd be curious as to who isn't following Wurm's lead in this particular grouping. But the point still remains--if you want to use en-dashes for clarity, then you must use an em-dash when you have A+(B+(C+D)). The journals, however, are still in favor of hyphens all the way, though. OK, I just decided to look at a journal that I don't subscribe to and found a real mess--Oceanic Linguistics. I love OL and read it on-line regularly, but it's got a real mess. In the first article of the Dec 2008 issue I found "Proto-Oceanic" (hyphen), "Central Malayo-Polynesian" (hyphen), "Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian" (hyphens), but "South Halmahera–West New Guinea" (en-dash), "Pre–Proto-Oceanic" (en-dash and hyphen), "Proto–Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian" (en-dash and hyphens), "Proto–Central Malayo-Polynesian" (en-dash and hyphen), "Proto–Western Malayo-Polynesian" (en-dash and hyphen), and, perversely, "Proto-Eastern-Malayo-Polynesian" (all hyphens-not a typo, but consistently throughout the article). So some "proto-"s have hyphens and some have en-dashes. It also has "Proto–Trans–New Guinea" (en-dashes). In the third article of that issue, I found "Proto-North–Central Vanuatu" (hyphen and en-dash, not a typo, but consistently). Contrast this with the first Squib of that issue which has "Proto–North-Central Vanuatu" (en-dash and hyphen, not a typo, but consistently). In the fourth article, there was "Timor-Alor-Pantar" (all hyphens). My point is that there is no real consistency even when editors of articles subject to typography try to distinguish between en-dashes and hyphens. Wikipedia is not a typeset article and I find it pretentious to think that it is. And when the same editor in a prestigious journal like Oceanic Linguistics mixes en-dashes and hyphens in the same form in two different articles just proves what a confusion they really are and not the enlightenment you would like them to be. And to think that we are encouraging non-linguists to use en-dashes...... (Taivo (talk) 23:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC))

Actually, Taivo, you pretty much prove my point.

• In none of your sources is Timor a genetic node apart from Alor-Pantar. Therefore Timor-Alor-Pantar is not an (A+(B+C)) cladistic description, but an (A+B+C) geographic description like Niger-Congo, and hyphens are all that is needed. Your OL citation supports this.
• Good examples from OL, which show that en dashes still are used in the linguistic lit. It's actually not bad at all. There are only a few inconsistencies. "Proto-" vs "Proto–" is a case in point: en dash when prefixed to a hyphenated term, hyphen otherwise. Perfectly consistent except for "Proto-Eastern-Malayo-Polynesian", which we'd expect to be like Proto–Central Malayo-Polynesian. Evidently an author who doesn't use en dashes, but IMO that's still a pretty good batting average. And as noted above, hyphens may be universally substituted for en dashes, so really it's just a stylistic difference, just as placing punctuation inside or outside quotation marks is a matter of style. Same consistency with the other prefixes, Pre– and Trans–.
• "Proto-North–Central Vanuatu" is clearly an error. Perhaps a typo in the custom spell checker? Are you really claiming we must abandon en dashes because you found a typo?
• No, we never use em dashes for compounds. I don't know where you get the idea that we "must" do this. Any sources to support your claim?
• As far as professionals getting it wrong, so what? I bet they misspell words too. Should we abandon standard spelling because the professionals sometimes get it wrong? But the professionals very rarely got it wrong: One abandoned en dashes for all hyphens, which is a stylistic difference, while only one name was actually incorrect, and that in only one of the articles you found it in. So no, I would not agree that this is "a mess", but rather an excellent guide to what we should be doing. kwami (talk)

Okay, another few cents' worth: (1) What the discussion above shows is the Byzantine complexity of the rules for using n-dashes, along with their variability, not only between English and French etc. usage but within English usage itself (and we haven't even really factored in here the differences between American and British usage, and various schools thereof). If people dripping with graduate degrees, specialized knowledge, and long versed in Wikipedia can't figure it out, who can? Obviously, there is no chance that the average editor coming to Wikipedia for the first time can. (2) It is impossible to devise a practically applicable standard for the use of n-dashes, because there are so many different ways to think about an expression like Proto-Uto-Aztecan and the like. (3) Linguistics provides some ways to think about these problems, and indeed it is the science best placed to do so. (a) What we have here is arguably a conflict between the two poles that govern language change, ease of expression and ease of understanding. E.g. it's easier to assimilate sounds to nearby sounds but after a certain point harder to understand the result. Languages generally arrive at a compromise. (b) The fundamental problem is not of our making and has no solution: it's that English is conflicted about the process of compounding. In German for instance there is never any doubt about whether a word should be compounded or not: Urindogermanisch is one word, unlike its English equivalent, 'Proto-Indo-European' or more literally 'Proto-Indo-Germanic', but on the other hard it's disarticulatable into its component elements, rather like the inflections of an agglutinating language, whereas in English once elements are joined in a word they stay joined, if the compounding has passed the point of hyphenation (or n-dashing). Thus English, unlike German, has all sorts of different levels of compounding, sometimes linked to accent and type of word, sometimes not: e.g. some manuals of style will tell you to write "the twentieth century" (nominal) but "twentieth-century events" (adjectival). But this principle is not consistently observed, even in principle, i.e. the language is unsettled on its principles of composition. (4) We could use hyphens only in article titles, as in "Na-Dene languages", and n-dashes inside the articles, as in "Na–Dene languages". But the result would be that using a hyphen in the search box and hitting "Go" would find the article title, but clicking on the "Search" button would fail to find the instances with n-dashes inside articles. I haven't actually checked this, and perhaps there is some fix. (5) But - and I strongly agree with Taivo on this - why go to all this effort? Every time someone edits one of these articles, an army of bots must crawl into place, we editors concerned with linguistics issues must drop what we are doing and spring into action, and the poor sap who has used a hyphen sees his edits squashed by some know-it-all (as he is likely to see it). (6) No one can ever hope to master the Byzantine complexities governing the use of hyphens versus n-dashes. To do so would require an army of lawyers, who would be just as productive as the English real estate lawyers of the 19th century who liked to keep lawsuits going for generations (a steady income, don't you know). It is as much as we can do to keep up with the two-way distinction between hyphens and m-dashes, as illustrated by the fact that some people prefer an m-dash as a mark of punctuation, others an n-dash with two spaces (potentially micro-spaces - the Byzantine complexities multiply). (7) It's true that an n-dash can help to differentiate expressions of the A-B + B-C form. But, referring to point (3a) above on the struggle between ease of expression and ease of understanding, is it worth it? (a) Most people are unaware of the distinction and don't notice it, so the benefits are reserved to an elite. We could try to educate people about this, but the fact is that spontaneous understanding is not there, and we are not writing for typesetters alone. (b) If we use n-dashes, we must define when they are to be used, and as this entire discussion shows, there is no realistic way to do so. Every attempt to do so founders on the lack of any clear standards in either American or British / Commonwealth usage, and this lack of clear standards is ultimately related to the fluctuating status of compounding in the English language and English orthography. (8) In conclusion, given the practical and real impossibility of defining any standards that are (a) consistent and (b) simple enough to be generally used, I suggest that Wikipedia should abandon the use of n-dashes altogether, even in date ranges (where, again, nobody types an n-dash spontaneously), but at a minimum and most definitively in all linguistic names of languages and language families. That is a way to end the confusion, to ensure that searches find what they are looking for, and to simplify the tasks of editors, and it will work. Regards to all, VikSol (talk) 23:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC) PS- I think that Taivo's point above that Wikipedia is not typeset deserves to be taken very seriously. For example, footnote numbers and other superscripts bump up the line separation unevenly - hardly esthetic, but tolerated. This is a much more serious defect than any wandering between n-dashes and hyphens, but so far there's no practical fix. We are a long way from the refined standards of the print industry (when it managed to apply these), but then again, democratic culture has its advantages. Why imitate something that is different by nature? VikSol (talk) 00:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

IMO, it's all quite clear. We can discuss which style guidelines are most appropriate to follow, but if we're going to throw up our hands and say "we're confused!", we might as well abandon spellings, pronunciations, calendars, technical terms, and units of measurement we find confusing. The use of the en dash as Taivo illustrated in OL serves a valuable disambiguating function, and IMO it should be preserved. kwami (talk) 00:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

But we are confused! If you are saying, "we now use hyphens, but use n-dashes only to disambiguate", as in A-B–C-D, fine, then we have a simple principle, but one that innovates. If this does not inhibit searches, then it does no great harm. It remains true that no one will notice it, except for a few ultra-professionals. So my point above about "is it worth it?" stands. If you want to try to spell out some clear principles we should follow, then fine, I'll look at them with interest. But at the moment no coherent set of principles is in view. Also, I am not advocating orthographic anarchy, but a clear and simple principle: hyphens in all compounds, n-dashes not at all (preferably) or only in date-range expressions like 1900–1910 (because the usage is relatively well established). A principle simple enough for everyone to follow. The idea is that we sacrifice a little ease in comprehension (the possibility of disambiguating A-B–C-D from A-B-C-D) for a lot of ease of expression. No doubt, there is a real advantage either way. But the relative balance of advantages seems clear to me. VikSol (talk) 01:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] En dashes when compounding words which contain spaces or already contain hyphens. En dashes when compounding two people's names, vs. hyphens for compounding the name of a single person. Both pretty standard. Comprehension on the part of the reader trumps ease of input for the editor. Of course, there are situations where we may disagree on usage, but that's no different than differences on capitalization. Just came across an example: An editor abbreviated "East Fijian-Polynesian" as "East" in a table, evidently thinking it meant East (Fijian-Polynesian), when actually it meant (East Fijian)-Polynesian. With an en dash, "East Fijian–Polynesian", the structure of the compound is clear. kwami (talk) 03:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You ignored one of my main points, Kwami. The same editor used both Proto-North–Central Vanuatu and Proto–North-Central Vanuatu. It was not a typo since each was 100% consistent within the article in which it occurred. The rules are silly and confusing to the point that the same person used two different combinations for the same term on two different days. And don't go all warm and bubbly because one of the journals I regularly read uses en-dashes. The other half-dozen or so that I regularly read do not. Indeed, an increasing amount of linguistics is being published from camera-ready copy and not being typeset at all. It should go without saying that virtually all camera-ready copy is being done with hyphens and not en-dashes. I second everything that VikSol is saying about the needlessness of en-dashes in an on-line, user-edited format such as Wikipedia. And your suggestion that this can be done with bots is absolutely ludicrous. Bots are not thinking machines, they are stupid computer programs that don't know anything beyond 1 or 0. In the 1960s, the Air Force and NASA agreed that solid rocket propulsion would be called a "motor" and liquid rocket propulsion would be called an "engine". The next proposal that came out of Thiokol included the mechanical replacement of "engine" with "motor" for consistency. Thus, the buildings were protected by an independent fire department and its "fire motors". I can't tell you how many times I've seen bots do silly things here. You think I'm going to trust a computer program to correctly place en-dashes when I don't trust anyone who doesn't have a linguistics degree? Get real. En-dashes are a relic from an age of typesetting and have no place in Wikipedia. (Taivo (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC))

Ah, I didn't catch that it was the same editor. Still, the fact that all but one term was correct, and even that term was correct in one of the articles, tells me it's not all that difficult for other people. You make it sound as if I'm the only one who understands this. And if someone makes a mistake, so what? This is a wiki, and someone else will come along and correct it, just as they do with capitalization, quotations, and other formating issues. Most people will continue to write with hyphens, and that's fine. In the infrequent cases where a hyphenated name is ambiguous, we can make it more precise. I never said bots should make the decision, but once an article is moved to a name with an en dash, bots can fix the redirects and other mentions of the name. I don't see what the problem is: precision vs. ease of data entry, and meanwhile it's okay to use the easier form of data entry.

Anyway, you've convinced me to abandon the more extreme interpretation of when to use en dashes, and there are few linguistic articles which compound multi-word terms. kwami (talk) 09:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, I am concerned that you have been replacing n-dashes with hyphens in articles and article titles such as "Proto-Chukotokto-Kamchatkan", now changed to "Proto–Chukotko-Kamchatkan". (1) I had the impression that the discussion here was moving toward a consensus, but the principles to be followed have not been spelled out comprehensively. Please have a little more patience with Taivo and me and the other persons concerned until the positions are clearly defined. If some parties then don't get their way, fine, but we should have the principles spelled out clearly as well as the grounds for decision. (2) Adding an n-dash after "Proto" raises two real concerns: (a) As we all agree, it has the drawback of complicating searches, by bringing up a "Redirected" message. (b) A further concern is that, if n-dashes are used after "Proto", this conflicts with the use of n-dashes to disambiguate expressions like Uralo-Indo-European by transforming them into Uralo–Indo-European, since we then have to sometimes speak of Proto–Uralo–Indo-European - two uses of an n-dash that use conflicting rules, indicating a contradictory and therefore confusing system. I think we should try to achieve consensus here before changing any more article titles. Regards, VikSol (talk) 02:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Concern noted, VikSol. Not very many articles are affected, so it won't be hard to undo, and I'm quite willing to compromise on the protolanguages.

An alternative to your "Uralo–Indo-European" example would be "Uralo-Indoeuropean". You're right, with only two levels of conjunction (hyphen and en dash), you can get two en dashes in terms like "Proto–Uralo–Indo-European". I've seen this in print, actually, with "Proto–Trans–New Guinea". As for other hyphenated protolanguages, I can't see that there would actually be much chance of miscomprehension, so a hyphen on proto- wouldn't be problematic. On the other, besides being typographically correct, we've seen that en dashes are still used in the linguistic literature for such protolanguages.

Given that the world's most cited protolanguage, pIE, is (nearly?) always doubly hyphenated, I don't see a problem with deciding to hyphenate prefixes (proto-, macro-, pre-, post-) on all hyphenated family names. There are so few en-dashed names that we can take them on a case-by-case basis. Where I really think that in the interest of clarity we should have en dashes is in families which join two multi-word terms. "Uralo-Indo-European" looks like a tripartite name composed of Uralic, Indic, and European. Since most of these will be extremely obscure names (otherwise someone would have come up with something shorter!), we can't expect people to understand them just through familiarity. kwami (talk) 07:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

[replying to multiple people at once, so outdent] Taivo: You said "this WP:MOS appears to be a misguided attempt to turn back the clock to a precomputerized typesetting era." However, using that argument would suggest that proportional fonts are unnecessary and we should all just use Courier (with two spaces after periods, no less). Hyphens are sometimes used on computers not because the underlying thinking has changed, but merely due to simple technical limitations. Therefore, typographically correct characters should be used whenever possible. I'm in favor of an en dash in this case. "The [computer] is not a typewriter". --Wulf (talk) 05:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a fundamental difference between proportional fonts and en-dashes. One is automatic and the other is not. We don't need to insert any special commands in order to use proportional fonts--the kerning is built into the font. It also does not require the use of any special characters. It takes the characters typed on the keyboard and mechanically spaces them proportionally. An en-dash is a fundamentally different thing--it is a character that is not found on anyone's keyboard. It is a highly specialized creature that (as I illustrated above with the same editor using en-dashes in two different places in the same word) has no real rules of usage outside the world of typography (and even then the rules are arcane and not-well-known). It is not an ASCII character, it is not a character in any phonetic font, it is just a leftover from another era. It is not "the typographically correct" character, it is just an archaic option. (And, BTW, I do use two spaces after periods.) (Taivo (talk) 06:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC))

Okay, now you're making sense. You just accidentally proposed that MediaWiki convert double hyphens to en dashes. Also, the "leftover from another era" is when we had to cram as many characters as we could into 7-8 bits. Wikipedia does not use ASCII, nor does anybody else these days. By your reasoning, we should use the asterisk as a multiplication sign because the true multiplication sign "is not an ASCII character". There was never a sea change in typography, just a comparatively very brief period of technical limitation which we have now passed... --Wulf (talk) 03:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, without your "help", kwami decided that current linguistic usage superseded Wikipedia's misplaced efforts at making editing more difficult rather than less difficult. (Taivo (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC))

Maybe I'm missing something here... Remind me why you believe Ural-Altaic should have a hyphen, yet Bose–Einstein condensate gets to keep its en dash? --Wulf (talk) 08:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

For me, it's simply a matter of disambiguating. "Ural-Altaic" means basically the same thing, whether you read it as one family spread from the Urals to the Altai, or the combined Uralic and Altaic families. Bose-Einstein, however, could be misunderstood as somebody named "Bose Einstein". (Not likely with that name, perhaps, but much more ambiguous with other names.) kwami (talk) 09:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Because Ural-Altaic (hyphen) is standard usage among linguists and has never had an en-dash in it. Linguistic usage favors hyphens over en-dashes. And, as Kwami says, there's no ambiguity, but ambiguity is not so much a factor in contemporary linguistic usage. Our field uses hyphens generally now and it isn't Wikipedia's place to try to impose its will on it. Ural-Altaic is conjunctive, not distributional in nature and most linguists will interpret it as conjunctive. (Taivo (talk) 11:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC))

Hmm, it took me a while to figure out that Gay-Lussac is one person but Boyle–Mariotte are two, when I was in high school. --80.104.235.34 (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just not sure how what most people in a particular field happen to use has to do with Wikipedia's standardized style manual and the consistent application thereof. Should we now have separate style manuals for each WikiProject? (And, speaking of WikiProjects, shouldn't WikiProject Typography be consulted on this?) --Wulf (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good example for this project page. kwami (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

en dashes vs hyphens (cont.)

(1) For years, everyone has been happily naming articles "Proto-Indo-European language" and the like and finding them in searches without any difficulty. Thus, established and settled usage on Wikipedia is to use hyphens in all names of languages. Kwami has been innovating in changing this established and settled usage. But this usage has never posed the slightest practical problem. Changing it will not increase the encyclopedia's ease of use. It will, on the contrary, decrease it by afflicting users with constant "Redirected from ..." messages, among other problems, including but not limited to increased difficulty of editing and the need to constantly update edits.

It's true the current MOS guidelines can be interpreted to require n-dashes in article titles when they are used in language names. But the more fundamental question is: is it a good idea to do so?

When an n-dash is used in a range of numbers, such as 1914-1918, it is an ideogram, read in practice as “to” in most instances. According to Tcnv above, it disjoins the numbers. When an n-dash is used to write a compound, it is used to conjoin, the opposite usage. Thus, the use of an n-dash in these cases follows a different rule in each case and the two rules are directly contradictory. This is our first warning that we are entering arcane territory here, with no safe footing for the average user of language.

(2) Kwami has flagged the complicated instance of Uralic-Altaic versus Uralo–Altaic and Ural–Altaic. I believe this illustrates the impossibility of arriving at a system simple and logical enough for the average person to utilize.

For Uralic-Altaic, there is no problem. Uralic-Altaic means “Uralic and Altaic”. It is similar to Sanskrit dvandva compounds, a well-known form in linguistics.

For Uralo-Altaic, the issue is more complicated. At first glance, Uralo- looks like a prefix, like proto-, neo-, geo-, turbo-, as well as trans-, pre-, etc. But Indo-European developed the use of -o / -ō as a combination form, followed in this by several of its daughter languages, in some cases by inheritance (e.g. Greek), in others by drift (e.g. Avestan). This is what is going on here. Uralo-Altaic means “Uralic and Altaic”, but the primay suffix -ic has been replaced by the secondary suffix -o. It appears to be a combination of prefix and nominal, but in fact it is a combination of two nominals.

Similarly, in Ural-Altaic, the -ic suffix has been elided in the first element, a procedure well known in languages, rather like gapping in syntax.

Uralic-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, and Ural-Altaic, then, are all identical in meaning, in spite of first appearances.

As these examples show, the distinction between coordinate forms (as Uralic-Altaic obviously is) and prefixed forms (as Uralo-Altaic appears to be at first glance) is not always easy to tell.

Furthermore, there is no way to tell from the form of the first element what its function is. For example, Indo-European is the language family from which many of the languages of India and Europe are derived — in this case the elements are coordinate — but Indo-Aryan is those forms of Aryan spoken in India — in this case “Indo-” is a prefix qualifying “Aryan”.

As I understand it, because of such issues Kwami has now abandoned the “complicated” version of using n-dashes in favor of a somewhat simpler system, detailed below.

(3) Let me try to sum up the evolving positions. I think there has been and will continue to be some movement in everybody’s position and this is the purpose of the discussion.

Taivo and I, along with various other people (see discussion of “curly quotes” in the section just archived), would ideally like to see n-dashes eliminated from Wikipedia and entirely replaced with hyphens both in compound words (including language names, such as Proto-Uralic) and in number ranges (such as 1914–1918). But, above all, we would like to see the existing de facto custom of hyphenating all language names continued.

I am beginning to grasp what Kwami has been trying to get across about the advantages of n-dashes in disambiguation, e.g. Uralo–Indo-European versus Uralo-Indo-European. I think these advantages are real and must be weighed in the balance.

Kwami is taking the view that:

• In names of languages that are compounds, the hyphen is the basic form – the default. Example: Indo-European.

• The hyphen is replaced with the n-dash in several different circumstances:

When an element is added to a name separated by a space. Example: Trans–New Guinea.

When an element is added to a name that is already hyphenated, in several specific circumstances:

When a simplex name is added to a name that is hyphenated. E.g.: Uralo–Indo-European.

When two hyphenated language names are conjoined. Example: Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic.

When a prefix is added to a hyphenated name. Example: Proto–Indo-European.

The most important point here is that, as I understand it, Kwami is now advocating a system in which a first compounding is indicated with a hyphen, a second with an n-dash. Thus we get Indo-European, but Uralo–Indo-European and Proto–Indo-European.

(4) There are several problems with this.

(a) A fairly serious problem is the fluctuation that results from these principles in prefixing “Proto-”. For example, we get “Proto-Uralic” (hyphen), but “Proto–Chukotko-Kamchatkan” (n-dash). Here there is no advantage whatsoever in disambiguation, since the expressions are totally unambiguous: a proto-language being a single language by definition, there is no possibility of misunderstanding Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan as “Proto-Chukotko plus Kamchatkan”.

(b) Another problem is: what do you make of expressions like Pre-Proto-Indo-European, actually fairly frequent in some works? What about Proto-Uralo-Indo-European or Pre-Proto-Uralo-Indo-European? Obviously, we have long since run out of different forms of hyphens and dashes.

There is a simple solution to these arcana and inconsistencies: eliminate — or more precisely continue to avoid — n-dashes and keep using hyphens, as everyone has been doing on Wikipedia for years.

VikSol (talk) 22:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hyphens are almost always an acceptable substitute for en dashes. As you've pointed out, en dashes are sometimes useful for disambiguation. For me, that's the relevant issue, not legalistic adherence to the guideline. So, for example, per the MOS, pIE should be en-dashed, and with several other protolanguages, en dashes are found in the literature. In the IE lit, however, it's always hyphenated, or nearly always so. Per your point in (4a), there is no ambiguity, so on the balance I'd say we should probably go with hyphens. The MOS after all is a guideline, and we need to take other considerations into account.

However, with something like Trans–New Guinea or Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic, en dashes are found in the lit, or sometimes there is no established usage, and there is potential ambiguity. Here I think the advantage of en dashes is the overriding factor. Also, there are relatively few such language families, and even fewer have dedicated articles (most are branches intermediate between better-established families which do have articles), so they're not disruptive.

As for your question in (4b), there are only two levels, hyphen and en dash. Once you reach an en dash, everything from there on out is also an en dash: Proto–Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic, Proto–Trans–New Guinea. (The latter at least attested in the ling lit.) Theoretically you might think we'd need further dab'ing. However, human language is not infinitely recursive. We quickly reach a cognitive processing limit, which IMO is why we don't see many terms where a third level would be useful. In the very few cases were we come across such terms, we could go with the en dashes, or take advantage of acronyms, which is what is generally found in the lit anyways: proto-TNG, pre-proto-TNG, etc.

I occasionally see hyphens replaced with spaces, as in "Trans New Guinea" and "Meso Philippines". I don't see any advantage to such usage, but maybe someone else here does? kwami (talk) 23:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the linguists here--kwami, vik-sol, and myself--seem to have come to a workable solution for 99% of all cases--hyphens all the way. Now, the "problems" and "ambiguous cases" that kwami cites are mostly smoke and mirrors since no one talks in the literature about Proto-Uralic-Indo-European in any realistic sense since there are virtually no contexts in which such an artificial formulation would be used. There are probably only a dozen truly ambiguous cases that are actually likely to be used in Wikipedia and they are nearly all in New Guinea. We can arm wrestle over each of them if they start to cause problems of interpretation, but since the number of people who are actually ever going to write or edit (or even read) an article on a language of the Trans-Fly-Bulaka River family can be counted on the fingers of one hand (with a few fingers left over), the problem is probably moot. I don't give a hoot about the non-linguistic uses of en-dashes versus hyphens, so the non-linguists who have been involved in this discussion can argue about the Barnes–Noble Paradigm versus the Barnes-Noble Paradigm and I don't really care. (Taivo (talk) 00:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC))

The only top-level families are Trans–New Guinea, East Bird's Head–Sentani, Ramu–Lower Sepik, and Yele–West New Britain (assuming that's valid), all in New Guinea. There are also some branches of Austronesian such as South Halmahera–West New Guinea, also mostly in NG, or at least in Melanesia. kwami (talk) 01:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

But I honestly don't think there's any real ambiguity in any of these. I find the use of an en-dash after a prefix especially inappropriate (trans-, proto-, pre-). But, in actuality, these are very minor issues since the use of any of these is so rare (except, perhaps, for Trans-New Guinea). (Taivo (talk) 01:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC))

I think it's telling that the trend for TNG seems to be writing it as three words, "Trans New Guinea", despite trans being a prefix. Maybe people object to treating "trans-new" as if were a unit? And South Halmahera–West New Guinea is difficult to parse with just a hyphen. kwami (talk) 01:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any published sources for this trend? (Taivo (talk) 03:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC))

Again, what does this have to do with linguistics/linguists? I see this as a simple typography issue... You'll notice that the punctuation, hyphen and dash articles all belong to Category:Typography -- not Category:Linguistics or anything related. --Wulf (talk) 03:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Wulf, Thanks for the links, they are most useful. I quote from the article Dash:

====Usage guidelines====

The en dash is used instead of a hyphen in compound adjectives for which neither part of the adjective modifies the other. That is, when each is modifying the noun. This is common in science, when names compose an adjective as in Bose–Einstein condensate. Compare this with "award-winning novel" in which "award" modifies "winning" and together they modify "novel". Contrast "Franco-Prussian War", "Anglo-Saxon", etc., in which the first element does not strictly modify the second, but a hyphen is still normally used. The Chicago Manual of Style recognizes but does not mandate this usage and uses a hyphen in Bose-Einstein condensate.

Thus, "Bose–Einstein", taken as a supposedly unshakable example of the use of an n-dash, is contradicted by the most prestigious manual of all, The Chicago Manual of Style. There could be no better example of the confusion that reigns in this area, which we must not inflict on Wikipedia users. VikSol (talk) 04:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me try to characterize the discussion to this point:

(1) There is consensus that the prefix “Proto-” does not need to be n-dashed, since there is no ambiguity. I will hazard that the same principle would apply to “Pre-”, as in the title of Winfrid P. Lehmann’s book ‘’Pre-Indo-European”.

(2) The next question to consider, I think, is whether this principle applies to all prefixes, or to these prefixes only? I suggest it should apply to all prefixes, on these grounds:

• The treatment of prefixes should be consistent, as much as practical.

• Prefixes, by their nature, do not give rise to ambiguities of the type “Indo-Germanic-Semitic” (which I recently had to use to translate Hermann Möller’s indogermanisch-semitisch).

• The confusion of a prefix with a language name is nonexistent or so rare as to be unimportant. As far as I know there are no languages named Pre, Trans, Macro, or any other letter combination identical to an English prefix. (I did once wonder whether Macro-Ge involved a language called Macro, but one gets beyond such things.)

In consequence, all prefixes should be hyphenated, since they do not involve ambiguity.

(3) But what of the case where the prefixed expression involves two separate words, as in Trans–New Guinea? Here there does appear to be a frequent usage of an n-dash. However, with regard to Trans–New Guinea, it seems to me that, “Trans-” being simply a prefix like “Proto-” and “Pre-”, and no more ambiguous than them, there is no reason to n-dash it simply because the following words are not hyphenated.

(4) This leaves the case of disambiguation, but let’s leave that for later.

My suggestion, then, is that we adopt the principle that a hyphen should follow all prefixes in language names. Examples: Proto-Indo-European, Pre-Indo-European, Pre-Proto-Indo-European, Macro-Ge, Trans-Eurasian, Trans-New Guinea.

VikSol (talk) 04:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Concluding remarks (?)

(1) If I am not mistaken, there is now consensus that hyphens should be used after all prefixes. (Assuming my argument above about forms like Trans-New Guinea is accepted.)

We could provide a more linguistically precise definition of “prefixes” here, but this does not seem to be of immediate relevance.

(2) The remaining issue on the table is disambiguation.

Taivo and I have signaled that we will not fight this one to the bitter end.

There is general agreement that the decision depends on balancing competing considerations. I will try to sum these up.

(3) There is a genuine advantage to the use of an n-dash to disambiguate terms. The forms concerned are primarily:

A + B-C. Example: Uralo–Indo-European.

A-B + C. Example: Indo-Germanic–Semitic.

A-B + B-C. Example: Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic.

Also theoretically possible and sometimes really occurring are such forms as:

A + B-C + D. Example: Korean–Japanese-Ryukyuan–Ainu. (Made-up term, discussed below.)

A B + C. Example: East Fijian–Polynesian.

A (B) + C D. Example: North–Central Vanuatu.

A (B-C) + D E-F. Example: Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian.

etc.

(4) Let me point out that many of the so-called ambiguous forms are not that ambiguous when closely considered. The language is pretty smart and already has built-in ways to avoid ambiguity. In particular, most of the compound junctures are disambiguated – in the spoken language itself – by the combination form -o or the use of English terms like "West" which could never (as a practical matter) constitute a language name. So actually such forms as South Halmahera-West New Guinea, North-Central Vanuatu, and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian are not ambiguous at all.

What happens in such cases in that we get again into the hair-splitting we encountered in such series as Uralic-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, and Ural-Altaic. The grounds for deciding whether a hyphen or an n-dash is needed are so obscure, subject to individual interpretation, and hypertechnical that no non-linguist can reasonably be expected to grasp them all, and no two linguists may agree on all interpretations.

In other words, a disambiguation that produces ambiguity is no progress.

(5) In other cases, solutions may be possible short of the use of an n-dash. For example, some forms can be disambiguated by combining them, a possibility Kwami has raised above. For example, we could write Indogermanic-Semitic rather than Indo-Germanic-Semitic. This is justified by usage fairly often. For example, the terms Afroasiatic and Afro-Asiatic are both in current use.

Other forms can be avoided in practice. For example, some linguists prefer Uralo-Indo-European to Indo-Uralic, but the shorter term is much more prevalent. Joseph Greenberg spoke of Japanese-Ryukyuan, but Korean-Japanese-Ainu, presumably to avoid a lengthy and ambiguous term. Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic could be abbreviated to Indo-Semitic.

This raises the reflection that the very complex names tend to be reserved for new proposals and controversial groupings. When a language family is well established it tends to get a simple name, for obvious practical reasons: it’s simpler to work with and linguists already know what languages it groups. I note in Kwami’s list of language families (Template:Language families) that none of the established upper-level families have very complex names – at most something like Yele–West New Britain.

Usually, a new or controversial proposal will not get its own article but will be explained in some other context, e.g. Korean-Japanese-Ainu is explained under “Altaic languages” and “Classification of Japanese”. The famous but controversial proposals already have short names, e.g. Nostratic and Amerind.

What I am trying to get at is that the ambiguity problem is one of very limited scope, so limited that the occasional useful n-dash is likely to puzzle people, since they will have encountered it so rarely.

(6) Other objections may be catalogued as follows.

• Most people do not know that such a character as an n-dash exists. I discussed this whole set of issues with one of the top legal draftsmen in the country, a Harvard JD, who had never heard of n-dashes. This is after twenty years of work in a field that demands extreme precision of language. A character that is not recognized by probably over 99% of readers does not disambiguate anything. It just gives the impression the typography is inconsistent (even when it’s not). And the few who recognize it, such as Kwami, already know perfectly well what the expressions mean.

• The latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style gives increased preference to hyphens over n-dashes and is also concerned to adjust typography to the computer era. I think these things are not an accident and that close scrutiny of the manual would reveal that it is because of the computer era that the n-dash is falling from favor.

• The issue of searches is of great importance. When n-dashes were adopted, there was no way to search a text electronically. It did not matter to a reader glancing across pages, flipping through a book, or reading down the columns of an index whether the typesetter had used hyphens or n-dashes. Today it does. Yes, our computers are dumb and can’t even do accents properly. But this is the way things are. I am not sure that the cognitive dissonance provoked by adding an n-dash key to the computer keyboard would be worth it. Compare Martinet’s Economie des changements phonétiques on the disadvantages of having too many phonemes that are too similar.

Obviously, we cannot have forms with hyphens in titles and forms with n-dashes in the text. It’s all or nothing.

(7) My sense is that, given the minimal advantages of disambiguation in practice, the rarity of the character that would result, the practical impossibility of defining usable criteria, and most crucially the issue of searches, on balance the n-dash should be avoided in language names. Let the physicists sort out whether they want to use “Bose–Einstein” or, per the new Chicago Manual of Style, “Bose-Einstein” (see Dash).

I too like the advantages of being able to disambiguate Indo-Germano-Semitic and similar expressions. But there are workarounds and these may be preferable to adopting a character of rare application, obscure usage, and diminishing currency.

VikSol (talk) 21:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I came late to the game. For technical language such as linguistics or physics, I would think the Wikipedia MoS should defer to the technical language, so it should be Bose–Einstein condensate but if linguists really don't care about the en-dash–hyphen distinction, then technical linguistic terms should appear as they do in the linguistics literature.

I have to agree with Wulf that CMS15 has much more to do with the dark ages of computer typography than it does about what formal published work should contain. I think it's notable that the fields that are particular about their dashes—math, physics, and computer science—are the fields that have had access to powerful typesetting software (TeX/LaTeX) the longest. I would argue that Wikipedia should do what it can to make typographically beautiful articles even if that means typography geeks like ourselves are running around putting in directional quote marks and en-dashes.

As for searches, I think that's the job of the search engine and of redirect pages. Google doesn't have any problem with a search for "Bose-Einstein condensate" (although Google does find the page with the hyphen that redirects to the page with the en-dash). —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 23:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a comment--Wikipedia is not typeset and never will be because it would never pass peer-review. As careful as we specialists are with individual articles, this is still a user-edited document, and, as such is a computer-only thing. Therefore, following Viksol's admonishment that this should be easy for computer searches is paramount. Leave out the en-dashes and directional quotation marks because they are just arrogance. (Taivo (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC))

Where do you keep getting this idea that typesetting == letterpress or something? As the relevant Wikipedia article opens, “typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form…”. As far as Wikipedia being a “user-edited… computer-only thing”, must I mention Wikipedia:Books – or the article in Nature which compared Wikipedia with the Encyclopedia Britannica? (Although what does peer review or being in print have to do with good typography anyway?) You also complained about searching, but – as Ben had already said – Google already handles it fine. There is also a bug filed with Mozilla regarding the find bar, and other browsers will assuredly follow shortly. MediaWiki already utilizes Unicode normalization, and it would be fairly straightforward to normalize searches as well (which would mean that Unicode characters and their equivalents would be properly treated as just that – equivalent).

Oh, and you’ll notice that this post is written using only proper, semantic, typographically-correct characters – all of which were entered using the buttons below every Wikipedia edit box. Proper punctuation and typography are no more arrogant than proper spelling and grammar. —Wulf (talk) 03:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The issue has been resolved for linguists. You can believe the conceit, Wulf, that Wikipedia is on a par with EB, but there's not a college professor that I know who will accept it as a legitimate source for a term paper. (Taivo (talk) 04:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

Wikipedia is not “a legitimate source for a term paper” because it’s a tertiary source, not so much because it’s unreliable (not that it is). But that’s why we have a thorough citation system. I have to ask: if you think so little of Wikipedia, why bother contributing? —Wulf (talk) 08:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Great post, and thanks for pointing out the connection between availability of powerful typesetting software and being particular about dashes and such. I’d never noticed that. —Wulf (talk) 03:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If it makes no practical difference which form we use, then it doesn't really matter. But when using a hyphen is misleading, I don't think that we should dumb down an article because we think our readers won't understand what a dash is. That's the same argument people make for abandoning the IPA: spelling pronunciations are precise enough for our purposes, my dictionary doesn't use the IPA, it's too much to ask people to learn just to use Wikipedia, etc. If linguists expect others to learn the IPA in order to figure how to pronounce the name of a moon, a literary character, or a chemical element, then I don't see why others can't expect linguists to learn basic punctuation. kwami (talk) 09:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Usage, my friend--description and not prescription. That's the key to linguistics and why using hyphens to describe our field is much more important than trying to impose an en-dash where all our colleagues use hyphens. That's been my point all along--linguistic usage is hyphens all the way. VikSol has more subtle (and just as valid) arguments, but my principal point has always been usage takes precedence over all other factors. And Wulf's point, that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, makes usage in the primary and secondary sources all the more important since a tertiary source should never impose its will upon the more important sources. So, since usage is most important, and since the vast majority of primary and secondary sources use only hyphens.... (Taivo (talk) 12:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

One thing I still don't understand is how using an n-dash in an expression like Trans–New Guinea instead of Trans-New Guinea disambiguates anything.

If the purpose of an n-dash is to express a higher level of separation, then Trans–New Guinea means a language called "Trans" plus a language called "New Guinea".

I guess the idea is that the space in New Guinea represents a higher level of separation than the hyphen in Mixe-Zoque, so the space needs to be trumped by a still higher level of separation, that of an n-dash. But an n-dash, being a conjoining symbol here, like the hyphen, logically indicates a lower level of separation than a space. The poor reader has nowhere to turn:

• If he guesses the n-dash is a disjoiner, as in "the evolution–creation debate", then he reads the expression as meaning "the Trans language plus the New Guinea language".

• If he guesses the n-dash is a conjoiner, and therefore weaker than a space, then he reads "the Trans-New language of Guinea" or "the Trans-New form of the Guinea language".

• If he is aware of the principle that prefixes receive hyphens, not n-dashes (on which Taivo, Kwami, and I have reached consensus for expressions where no space occurs), he expects Trans-New Guinea, and wonders why an n-dash was used instead of a hyphen.

I think this usage just adds a layer of confusion and should be dropped. I am not speaking here to the merits of cases where the n-dash really disambiguates. VikSol (talk) 23:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

TNG is not named for a language, but for a geographic area, like Niger-Congo. It is trans-(New Guinea). With a hyphen, it would imply (trans-new) Guinea, which is on the wrong continent. The use of an en dash when joining hyphenated or interspaced terms is a basic rule of punctuation. True, we can substitute a hyphen without much loss of comprehension. But then we could also drop capitalization without much loss of comprehension: trans-newguinea. That doesn't mean we should.

As for Taivo's point, you're proposing that we use a different system of punctuation for each field of knowledge in an attempt to remain authentic to the lit, which would be a complete mess. This is just punctuation. True, the literature should be considered, but we should come up with one standard for wikipedia. Most linguistics sources use seriffed fonts too. Should we force all linguistics articles to display with seriffed fonts in an attempt to be authentic? kwami (talk) 00:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the WP:MOS already specifies that very thing:

An overriding principle on Wikipedia is that style and formatting should be applied consistently within articles, though not necessarily throughout the encyclopedia as a whole. One way of presenting information may be as good as another is, but consistency within articles promotes clarity and cohesion.

The Arbitration Committee has ruled that the Manual of Style is not binding, that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.

Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Just quoting what the WP:MOS already says. (Taivo (talk) 03:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

…How does that quote back you up here? Nowhere does it advocate a different style for each field of knowledge. It just says we shouldn’t modify existing articles back and forth as the guide changes – nothing about it not being ideal to have consistent styling across the entire site. If we were to have different styling for each field, then there would be no central Manual of Style (its duties being performed by a myriad of WikiProject subpages). There’s a bit of flawed logic in your mere inclusion of that quote in the first place, but the circular nature of it would require a rather long explanation… Suffice it to say I think that quote has no relevance in this discussion. —Wulf (talk) 00:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Good riddance to a "central Manual of Style". Yes, each field should be allowed to practice its own habits within Wikipedia. Otherwise, it is falsification of data to change a style just because some dilettante in Wikipedia with no experience in the field desires it. The quote clearly states that the style of the original editor has priority. (Taivo (talk) 04:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC))

Bit of a problem with that… There is a manual of style, and I seriously doubt it’ll ever go away. It may give preference to original article styles, but page titles are far more important and should be uniform. Besides, it seems the quote you are using regarding consistency within articles is more about American vs. British English than mandated proper typography. For example, see the most recent reference given for the relevant section in the MoS:

Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include (but are not limited to) American vs. British spelling, date formats, and citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike. [emphasis added]

Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Special characters says “for the use of hyphens and dashes in page names, see Manual of Style (dashes)”, which says “when naming an article, a hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title…”. Furthermore, Dash says “the en dash is used instead of a hyphen in compound adjectives for which neither part of the adjective modifies the other.”. —Wulf (talk) 14:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Re "This discussion is in need of attention from an expert on the subject", please bear with an intrusion from a newcomer working in a different research community.

From the foregoing discussion it seems plain that there can be no such expert, in any universal sense, because it seems plain that different communities have different en-dash conventions.

For instance, in my own community (mainly classical physics, mathematical physics, and climate research) there is an obsolescent convention of the "Bose--Einstein" sort.

The trend represented by recent editions of the Chicago Style Manual is also exhibited by some of the recently founded online journals in my field, specifically, those of the European Geosciences Union. They all follow the suggestion that in-text en dashes should all be replaced by hyphens. Surely that's the way of the future.

The tiny minority of readers who care about the difference can easily think of some of the hyphens as "really" being en dashes.

I agree that the issue of searches is of great importance... EdgeworthMcIntyre (talk) 18:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

PS: Wikipedia could do a great service to humanity by slightly redesigning its typography such that en dashes look exactly the same as hyphens. It would be easy to make hyphens a touch longer and thinner, and en dashes a touch shorter and thicker. In the computer code they could all be hyphens, helping toward bug-free searches.

It would be wonderful if everyone's opinion as to how to arrange hyphens and en dashes were equally well served by what's on the screen. Indeed, perception psychology ("categorical perception" etc) tells us that those with the strongest opinions might well, in fact, see the particular arrangement they like. EdgeworthMcIntyre (talk) 11:33, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, another solution would be a major military conflict over the issue of dashes....... Michael Hardy (talk) 13:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A Hyphen War, perhaps? ^^ —Wulf (talk) 15:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with tweaking MOS to be more tolerant of hyphens. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 04:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• Who on earth is even going to notice the difference between a hyphen and an en-dash? This really is just such a waste of time. Much more offensive, to me, is the statement in the MOS that an EM dash should not have a space either side of it. I think it should, and then it doesn't matter whether what is written between the spaces is an em dash, an en dash, or a hyphen. Alarics (talk) 21:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, depending upon usage. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Check a style guide. Em dashes should technically have hair spaces, which is impractical on computers (more so than dashes). With proportional (i.e. not monospaced) fonts, the hair spaces are (at least in theory) taken care of by the font. However, I seem to recall one style guide recommending en dashes over em dashes just to avoid all the confusion over it, as nobody argues for a lack of spaces around en dashes. —Wulf (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Moving forward again

This discussion is getting longwinded and off on tangents. For my part I am (surprisingly?) in agreement with Septentrionalis/PMAnderson that MOS is being overly prescriptive rather than descriptive on some aspects of this issue, and also agree with many related points raised by Tcncv and Taivo. I also agree with much of what MOS says about use of en-dashes in the sense of "to" or "through", as in "1990–1998", as well as the juxtapositional use as in "Canada–UK relations", but feel as many do here that "Ural–Altaic" is taking it too far. I think such a usage is a misconstruance of the purpose of en-dashes, to the extent there is any (including off-Wikipedia) consensus on their use to begin with. So, the question before us is what should MOS say on the matter? I think we need to refocus on what what we can come to consensus on that en-dashes are actually useful for (with reference to an overall sense of what off-WP style guides say), and reformulate from there. I would suggest that deference is generally given to the hyphen, based on a preponderance of external evidence, from post-Internet communication styles, to current academic journals, and so on. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Coming late to this debate, that sounds good to me. (I am currently engaged in a discussion over Weaire-Phelan structure vs. Weaire–Phelan structure). The Chicago Manual of Style and most search engine hits are on my side, but WP:ENDASH is against me. The Dash article says that "A 'simple' compound used as an adjective is written with a hyphen; at least one authority considers name pairs, as in the Taft-Hartley Act to be 'simple',[5] while most consider an en dash appropriate there[citation needed]. That "most" seems highly suspect in the light of this discussion, and I really do wonder whether that missing citation actually exists. If it doesn't, then WP:MOS should surely be revised to follow the real world. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 2danish oi0:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 105#Guideline-by-guideline citation of sources. Wavelength (talk) 21:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

I have just checked through some maths books for conjunctive name pairs. Cambridge University Press (e.g. Cromwell's Polyhedra). use en dashes. Allen Lane (e.g. Mlodinow's Euclid's window) use hyphens. The only Dover books I have to hand are older works (e.g. Coxeter's Regular polytopes, 2nd Edn), also using hyphens. I find the same name-pair with hyphen in one book and en dash in another.

En dashes are a pain to maintain. The practical approach for Wikipedia is to use hyphens unless there is a clear, referenced usage of en dashes in any particular field - irrespective of the publisher.

I propose to amend WP:MOS accordingly. However I do not know the etiquette - should I just do so, or is there a protocol to work through first? Certainly, the discussion aspect has been done to death. Should we vote on it? -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• My vote is for. -- Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

BC/BCE

This is the currect MoS statement:

"Either CE and BCE or AD and BC can be used—spaced, undotted (without periods) and upper case. Choose either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE system, but not both in the same article."

A couple of months back I argued at length, on the talk page of Nativity of Jesus (and following), there are three reasons not to use BC/AD. It is

1. POV (for other religions and non-Christian cultures; for US citizens it constitutes a violation of constitutional right, the which precludes, for example, nativity scenes from public buildings),
2. non-scholarly (in the field of religious studies), and
3. erroneous (Christ was born before the death of Herod who died four years before Christ).

The one response, besides denial, was that BC/AD was used by most English speakers, to which I replied is something NPOV merely because it is popular? It is true that many people who use BC/AD do not think about its significance and so are unaware of the POV -- to which I replied most people who used the term "nigger" in the US were unaware of the POV. I had suggested that if people were so convinced that BCE would be difficult to understand one could link the first reference to BCE and/or CE to the Wiki article on the common era to facilitate understanding.

My principal objection here is that I am forced to use POV if an article already contains the POV. I've just discovered that although I've added by far the most dating information on a page I was working on (here), using the NPOV dating nomenclature, it has all been changed to BC/AD. I could change it all back to NPOV, but the MoS, here being POV, favors the biased nomenclature if it has already been used.

Because of the POV of the MoS on BC/AD I tried to invoke Ignore All Rules in the Nativity BCE discussion, but local consensus proved sufficient to block its application.

Wikipedia is built on five pillars, one of which is NPOV. The MoS sanctioned use of BC/AD negates that principle. What do I have to do to be allowed to be NPOV in the issue? -- spin^control 06:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there is a problem with using BC/AD rather than BCE/CE. The points that have been well summarised by Doktorspin above, though I would put them in a different order.

• BC is actually a nonsense, since Jesus was born about 6 BC. Call it 6 BCE and the difficulty disappears. Jesus was simply born 6 years before the beginning of our common era.
• In the field of religious studies, scholars prefer BCE and CE.
• In a multi-faith world, and a world where many people have no religious affiliations, the term AD (meaning 'the year of our Lord') is inappropriate for many users.

However, the overwhelming majority of people are used to the BC/AD names.

What then can be done? I believe that it is in order to point out to people that there are problems with the BC/AD usage. This should not be prescriptive, but educational, and it will quietly do its work of educating Wikipedia editors. Then we should be patient, and wait for time and education to do its work. Michael Glass (talk) 09:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, but my issue wasn't about prescribing anything for other editors. I want to be able to be left to use the NPOV forms. As I said, I used the NPOV forms in an article in which I contributed a lot of material, then someone, who has done nothing else for the article, comes along and changes it all to BC/AD. If I change it back, I get into another shitfight. I'd rather find another way forward -- for example to do away with "but not both in the same article" (and I acknowledge the potential of claiming that it could be confusing). -- spin^control 12:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

So just use CE/BCE yourself, and let others change it if they wish (they shouldn't change it if you started the article and used CE). I don't see that one system is any more "POV" than the other - they're just conventions. This has been discussed at great length and I think the solution we have is the best one for avoiding pointless fights.--Kotniski (talk) 12:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you think that "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" are acceptable to the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Chinese and any other non-Christian cultural backgrounds? This is another aspect of the reason why plaques with the ten commandments and nativity scenes have been removed from courthouses and other public buildings and grounds in America. Now in comparison how do you think "Before the Common Era" can be POV? -- spin^control 15:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Er... because it says that the Christian era is common to everyone? I can't speak for the religious sensitivities of the entire world, but if I were one who bought into any of these belief systems, I think I would have no problem with acknowledging that 100 BC is, factually, 100 years Before (someone's mistaken estimate for the birth of the person commonly called) Christ, but I might well have a problem with acknowledging that the era based on this Christ person is "common" to us all. Anyway, as has been pointed out, this issue has been discussed to death, so however strong your personal opinions on it, it's probably something you need to let go.--Kotniski (talk) 07:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The current year is 2009. It is commonly used by most countries around the world without needing to buy into the origins. However, the origin is an error based on an erroneous calculation which put the birth of Jesus Christ some years after the death of Herod the man whose death he was born before. By changing the name of the system, not the dates, we alleviate the error implied and the POV contained in the BC/AD nomenclature. It is not necessary to use BC/AD to use the common dating system. The common era is that which has this year as 2009. No POV issues. Call it the "Christian era" and we start to have POV problems because the system is used by various non-Christian cultures.

If you are American, are you willing to state that you are prepared to violate the spirit of the 1st Amendment in order to maintain the status quo on dating nomenclature which interferes with the free exercise of others' religion? -- spin^control 16:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not POV (no-one's really claiming that Jesus was born in 1 AD; it's just a convention, like we name the days after Germanic gods and planets after Roman ones, and no-one gets in a religious huff about that) and I'm guessing it doesn't breach the constitution either, or we would have heard about it by now. Anyway, this is my last response on the matter - as you see, people disagree strongly about this, and the guideline we have now is probably the best we can do to be inclusive to people on both sides. I hope people aren't discouraged from contributing to WP over silly things like this, but if it really is a problem of conscience, then there are plenty of areas of WP where you can edit without the CE/AD question ever needing to come up.--Kotniski (talk) 17:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, you're not dealing with the discussion. Does enforcing the use of a religiously loaded term on people of different religious persuasions not constitute interference with the free exercise of religion? -- spin^control 18:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like Doktorspin is talking about a dispute at an article that has used the BC / AD system for quite awhile (Nativity of Jesus), so he shouldn't change the system without consensus to do so. The discussion at Talk:Nativity of Jesus hasn't resulted in such consensus, so the article should stay with the system that was initially used. I don't think one system is more biased than the other, and I think the amount of energy put into disputes about BC / AD / CE / BCE would be much better employed fixing substantive problems with articles (of which there is no shortage). --Akhilleus (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I'm not too interested in opinions such as this, judgments about how one's time should be spent have nothing to do with this issue. Such argument is irrelevant to the POV and error implied by BC/AD. As to fixing substantive problems with articles, you should be aware that I have been working quite a lot on the Julian article and seeking comment on possible improvements, though no-one has come forward to say anything so far.

If NPOV is meaningful to you you need to consider the arguments rather than simply giving unsupported counter-opinions, as though unaware of the substantive discussion on the subject. You are correct about the lack of consensus Nativity of Jesus article. However, the issue here, you should realize, is a somewhat different one from that of the Nativity discussion. I would like to be left to use the NPOV form without hindrance. -- spin^control 15:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

NPOV is very meaningful to me. I've looked at your arguments at Talk:Nativity of Jesus, and seen similar arguments at other articles, and I have never been convinced that BCE / CE is more neutral. And anyway, the point of NPOV is that an article should represent all significant views that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each--it does not mean that we try to avoid offending people when we write articles.

So, if you're starting an article from scratch, feel free to use BCE / CE. If you're editing an existing article, use the system that the article first used. If it's important to you that the article use a different dating system than the one it's got, see if you can get consensus to change it.

You seem unaware that this issue has been discussed to death on Wikipedia--see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/(dates and numbers)/proposed revision, Wikipedia talk:Eras, Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Eras_-_Archive3, and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk for starters. This is why I say it's a waste of time to spend energy on disputes about BC / AD / CE / BCE--it's been discussed from here to the moon, further discussion is unlikely to change anything. There's a guideline already--WP:ERA--just follow that. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason why I am discussing the issue here on the talk page for the MoS is because I felt that's where the issue should be discussed. I am quite aware of the other discussions, so why should you think I was not?? You still are not dealing with my issue. And please don't keep telling me that it is a waste of time. That is extremely presumptuous.

Your difficulty with the POV of BC/AD needs to deal with the comment I've made on the subject. Otherwise it appears baseless. Do you not think that "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" discriminate against all non-Christians? If not, why not? Don't you think that forcing non-Christians to use BC/AD would be a contravention of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution? If not, why not? -- spin^control 18:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(new indent) No, I don't think it is discriminatory for the reason you have already acknowledged; most people don't know, think about, or care what the actual meaning of the terms BC and AD. It is only a construct used to define time. Should each of us be offended that other societies and cultures use a completely different fashion of reckoning time? Of course not! When using their language and talking in their language we use their accepted form of reckoning time. Without a doubt there are people that are personally offended by the use of words of others, but that is a personal issue. More importantly, what is a fact is that this has been thoroughly covered before and none of your points are new or original. If you want to bring this up for another vote on consensus I am sure it can be done; better that then an additional discussion by a few editors. BC/AD have long since passed the point in Western society that it is a religious designation; it is a cultural one. Yes, academia, in their ever evolving sense of being PC, has developed another term, but it is neither better at telling time or communicating to others what year is being discussed. The current MoS policy is best and I would vote to keep it. Let's move to a vote because this will get nowhere. --^StormRider 19:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You mightn't know the significance of the terms involved, but any non-native English speaker learning English usually learns them. Many native speakers from other cultural backgrounds know their significance. Most people who used the term "nigger" didn't consider it discriminatory. I guess it had become cultural.

As you have happily avoided the issues involved, you want to move to a vote on what exactly? -- spin^control 19:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I am sorry. I thought you had proposed to change the current MoS policy to only allow BCE/CE in articles. That has been discussed before and editors have produced the current policy. If you are now saying you are comfortable with the current policy; we're done. If I misunderstood you, please correct me. Also, do you have any references that support your position that all non English speakers interpret BC/AD as a strictly Christian format and not simply a cultural use in Western Civilization? You have made some pretty broad generalizations. Also, please never assume what other editors know or don't know. That type of presumption leads to far too many unnecessary conflicts and will genearlly make you look less than intelligent. I have not evaded your particular little soap box, but I have refused to acknowledge the position as legitimate until references are produced. So far, this is just you sharing your POV on an issue that has been settled. I am happy for the conversation to begin anew, but it really needs to focus the input of far more editors than read this page. Cheers. --^StormRider 00:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

While you react intellectually to the issue like a cat to water, it might be useful to read the discussion. -- spin^control 03:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Ye who would learn from history, please see Wikipedia:Eras, and the associated talk page. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

At least this is good for a laugh; pseudo-intelligence always parades in this manner...rejecting all who dare contradict their personal opinion. This current example leaves me rolling on the floor. Let's just review this diatribe above, and I quote, "The MoS sanctioned use of BC/AD negates that principle. What do I have to do to be allowed to be NPOV in the issue?" BTW, nice touch with the heart-felt plea for neutrality...it infers that only bigots can oppose your more enlightened position, but I digress. The deduction from your statement is to change MoS to meet your personal POV. Please stop trying to say it is something else and we just don't get your POV. When the discussion is immediately available it is impossible to continue this little charade that know one understands. There appears no reason for further attempts at discussion because what you really seem to want is the opportunity to stand on a box and tell us you are righteous. You might just want to get a blog and have a good time of it; please let me know when to vote no. --^StormRider 06:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for finally reading what my issue was about. When the significance sinks in, I look forward to some sensate comments. -- spin^control 13:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Doktorspin, have you spoken with User:Slrubenstein about this? I know he has been keenly interested in the question, and I think you and he might be on similar wavelengths. Perhaps he could share some of his experiences that you might find it helpful to know about. When we were discussing this in '05, he had already been around the block with this issue more times than I ever care to go. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein did comment on the Nativity talk page on the BC/BCE issue, but I was moving house and off the web for a while and missed the occasion to continue the discussion. I guess I should follow your recommendation. -- spin^control 08:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Doctorspin asked "If you are American, are you willing to state that you are prepared to violate the spirit of the 1st Amendment in order to maintain the status quo on dating nomenclature which interferes with the free exercise of others' religion?" To date, both the US government and the Florida government seemed to be obeying the requirement, placed on them by the 1st ammendment to the US Constitution, to allow the Wikimedia Foundation to exercise its right to freedom of the press and freedom of religion, including the right to allow editors to edit articles in accordance with policies either established by Wikimeda, or allowed to develop through benign neglect.

Also, as an American (that is, an individual citizen) it is impossible for me to violate the 1st ammendment because I am not the government, and only the government is restrained by the ammendment. --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You might have noticed that I talked about violating "the spirit of the 1st Amendment" in what you cited, not violating the amendment. The attempted pedantry wasn't necessary. The government couldn't obey the requirement by endorsing an organization forcing someone to use religiously based terminology against their religious views. You need a refresher on the constitution. -- spin^control 08:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Just my 2 cents: the original expansion of an acronym needn't have anything to do with its current meaning. LAME is an MP3 encoder but it wasn't renamed LIME, the CERN is no longer a council but an organization but it wasn't renamed OERN, 10am isn't actually two hours before noon, not ten (logically it should be post mediam noctem not ante meridiem), yadda yadda yadda. I also agree with Kotniski's comment of 07:19, 3 April 2009 above. OTOH I don't have any problem with CE: if most English speakers understand it (I'm not a native English speaker and I don't live in an English-speaking country myself, so I don't know), then I think the current MOS recommendation, i.e. "pick one and use it consistently in each article", is perfectly fine. --A. di M. (talk) 09:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see the point of the first part of your comment for there is no doubt as to the meaning of BC/AD, but it isn't hard to link to the Common Era article the first time you use BCE/CE which will explain the abbreviations for anyone who isn't aware. Wiki is attempting to educate people by supplying information. I don't see why there is the need to be so conservative about it. -- spin^control 08:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

As a near-atheist, semi-Buddhist Jew, I'm perfectly comfortable with BC/AD...just as I am with BCE/CE (though, I admit, to my proudly Semitic nose the latter does reek a tad of tortured political correctness). Mr. Spin, you misunderstand and thus misapply the notion of neutral point of view. It has to do with substantive matters, not with idiomatic conventions. Really. You really do misunderstand. Please read (or reread) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.—DCGeist (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Some things are substantive to other people, while they are not substantive to you. It happens. -- spin^control 08:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I have changed the text to make it more descriptive and less prescriptive, to refer readers to Common Era for information (the article contains a summary of the arguments both for and against the usage) and to remove a statement that a date without either notation means BC/AD when the numbers are identical in both systems and so the reference could be to either system. -- Apparently {Michael Glass}, 5 April 2009

That statement meant that "2009" without any signifier refers to the year AD 2009 a.k.a. 2009 CE a.k.a. +2009, not to the year 2009 BC a.k.a. 2009 BCE a.k.a. −2008 which is over four millennia earlier. It was obvious but true. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 14:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as "nigger" refers to "coon", a.k.a. "darkie", "black" or "African American"? We are calling a spade a spade, aren't we? Words are deeds. You might be happy with words that others aren't happy about, but I'm sure I could hit you with words that you wouldn't be happy about. -- spin^control 19:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

"Deeds, not words" is part of my signature. (Should I somehow make it clearer?) Also, I see nothing wrong with saying that "2009" without any specifier refers to the year Obama was innaugurated and not to the year the funerary temple of Mentuhotep III started to be built — precisely what the statement which was removed and re-added said. The timestamp at the end of your post is "19:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)", not "19:08, 5 April 2009 CE (UTC)" — and I can see nothing wrong with it. Also, please do not move other people's comments, or you could make it impossible to understand whatever the heck they are replying to. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 20:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the move. I was attempting to make sense of your comment. And I didn't do a good job.

Do you think I didn't understand your "Deeds, not words", caro mio? It's very 19th century boys' books.

Words are manipulators. Words are weapons. Words are controllers. Words are the world as it is constructed for us. Words are your prison and your prison guards. Deeds are words in the constructed world. If you think you can do anything without words, you would merely be using your cerebellum. Words are your knife and fork and brain food. There was an internecine bloodletting in the church for much of the fourth century over a vowel. And the whole American population turns to blubber when one defends the word "democracy". Politicians go down over the misuse of one word. In the beginning was the word. It underlies everything and suffuses everything and without it nothing exists. Without it you would be grunting for a share in the latest kill, looking forward hopefully to a full belly, a belch and a good fart, as the main joys to life.

But here you are up to your eyeballs in words, pretending they're trivial. "Deeds, not words" you assert in a perverse act of linguistic defiance, verging on delinquency. What one says impacts on the world, the linguistic world, we inhabit.

Different expressions may refer to the same notion, but they don't mean the same thing. It is your responsibility to know the weight of words. Something as apparently trivial to you as whether one uses BC/AD or BCE/CE has taken up a lot of space on talk pages of Wikipedia for a reason. If we take out those who trivialize, we are left with two different groups, one of conservatives who will hang on to things so that they can keep up the appearance of no change (in a rampantly capitalist world of continual change) and one of dealing with the underlying content of the terminology. The issue itself only has direct significance to the last group, those for whom it is transparently ideological -- the ones who defend the maintenance of ideological hegemony and those who oppose it. It is just one skirmish, but it is always worth getting things right, fighting the hegemony. If words are so important, we need to have some control of them, rather than they of us. -- spin^control 13:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The "sense of [my] comment" was that Michael had misunderstood the statement he deleted. It was since readded, and Michael himself clarified the wording so that other people won't be misled the way he was. It's all over, and All's Well That Ends Well. As for my signature, I didn't chose it because of this particular dispute, and it is intended to be a statement of hope, not of ridicule: the world would be much better if we didn't waste time, energy and blood on words, as with the "internecine bloodletting in the church for much of the fourth century over a vowel". Most of the disputes I have seen, both on Wikipedia and in the meatspace, have been between people who actually agree with each other but don't realize it because they're talking at cross-purposes. But maybe I'm a utopian... --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 16:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, that's just a word. -- spin^control 18:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Just an observation. I grew up in the U.S. and graduated from high school in the late 1980s. It wasn't until I returned to college a few years ago that I ever even heard of the terms CE/BCE. The resistance you are seeing to the term is probably less due to POV than it is to simple unfamiliarity with the term. It took me almost a year to become somewhat comfortable using it. After college, I dropped the usage again, because nobody I spoke to or wrote to understood that "jargon" I was using. Give it a generation or so, and AD/BC will seem like a "quaint" thing that only "old people" use, and everyone else will be using CE/BCE since that's what is being taught in colleges (and hopefully lower grades). The question is, should Wikipedia wait a generation? Nope. It should embrace the change and indicate a strong preference for CE/BCE, unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise (like an historical article where AD/BC is a key factor in the events discussed). As to the implied POV, I see the other side of the issue. I don't actually like taking "God" out of the vocabulary, but then again, I'm a Christian, so I'm perfectly comfortable with that meaning (not that I ever really think about it). To me, AD=CE and BCE = BC (just one annoying letter longer). But, I am very sensitive to other cultures and beliefs, and if there is a perfectly valid alternative that reduces a lot of people's discomfort without introducing an equal amount of harm for others, then go for it. --Willscrlt (→“¡¿Talk?!”) 13:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why BC/AD would be POV, and especially I can't see why BC/AD would "offend" non-christian Wikipedia users. Actually, it's the other way, because if we'd say "2000 B.C." should be "2000 B.C.E" (before Common Era), we'd subtly claim that the Islamic calendar (or other) something uncommon or whatever. I think we should use BC/AD because this is what we count. --bender235 (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to leave MoS policy as it is. Both BC/AD and CE/BCE are commonly used in respectable encyclopedic and academic writing. In certain contexts one may be more appropriate than the other. Majoreditor (talk) 03:23, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The arguments for using BC/AD appear to be it's traditional, it's more common, it doesn't trouble me so it shouldn't trouble you, other system is simply another manifestation of political correctness and it's possibly a sneaky attack on Christianity.. The arguments for using BCE/CE are that the other usage is inaccurate (Jesus was born in 6 BC), inappropriate and potentially offensive (Jesus is not lord to Jews, Muslims and others) while BCE/CE is gaining ground because it is religiously neutral. The first step in working out policy is to acknowledge that people feel strongly about this issue. The second thing is to work out ways of minimising conflicts and edit wars over the issue. The present policy says that the usage should not be changed without substantial reason. This may need to be strengthened, since every zealot believes his or her reason is substantial. Also, instead of referring readers to the article on Common Era, a better approach may be to summarise the issues that have led to the growing use of this term. I suggest that the following wording may be considered.

AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to years before and after the birth of Jesus. However, the CE and BCE is becoming more common in academic and some religious writing. The article Common Era gives information on this usage. As both usages have strong supporters and detractors, the following guidelines should be followed:

• Do not use CE or AD unless the date would be ambiguous without it. e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066." not 1066 CE or AD 1066.
• CE and BCE or AD and BC are written, in upper case, spaced, and without periods (stops).
• Use either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE notation, but not both in the same article. AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
• Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors.
• The Manual of Style accepts either system in articles, provided the usage is consistent. However, common sense should be used to avoid possible offence (e.g., In Jewish, Islamic or Buddhist articles). Refer to Common Era for information on the usage.

Michael Glass (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I have revised the wording along the lines I proposed. However, I have changed the wording to make it more even-handed. Here is the wording as posted:

• • • AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to years before and after the birth of Jesus. However, the CE and BCE is becoming more common in academic and some religious writing. The article Common Era gives information on this usage. As both usages have supporters and detractors, the following guidelines should be followed:
      • Do not use CE or AD unless the date would be ambiguous without it. e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066." not 1066 CE or AD 1066.
      • CE and BCE or AD and BC are written, in upper case, spaced, and without periods (stops).
      • Use either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE notation, but not both in the same article. AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
      • Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors.
      • The Manual of Style accepts either system in articles, provided the usage is consistent. However, common sense should be used to avoid the problems of either usage.

Michael Glass (talk) 22:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC) I think we will have to revisit this issue in the coming months. The CE and BCE usage is more common in academic circles and as Wikipedia becomes a more and more popular reference site, it should adopt the more academic terms. I will refrain from rewriting the main MoS page right now, but someone will have to sooner or later. The Bearded One (talk) 19:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Michael Glass’ revised version is quite fine (although in the first sentence, I’d swap "before" and "after" for correct structural parallelism). While Doktorspin finds offense in AD/BC, others take just as much exception to BC/BCE; sometimes there’s no way all possible views can be reconciled, which is why WP relies so strongly on consensus, particularly on a by-article basis. What often tends to be forgotten in these discussions is that our work product is not for ourselves, but for all readers. That behooves us to rely more heavily on what is most customary for the majority of those readers. Currently, CE/BCE is rather restricted to scholarly use (a rather small segment of our readership). If and when it becomes dominant among the general readership, then we should look seriously at changing to it wholesale. In the meantime, using what is consensus on a "by-application" basis seems best – including from an NPOV perspective – since it doesn’t require us to uniformly favor one fashion over the other. Askari Mark (Talk) 21:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Good point about structural parallelism. I'll swap the positions of CE and BCE to put them in chronological order in the section. Michael Glass (talk) 22:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Helpers wanted for developing MOS subpage

I am working on a manual of style for dermatology-related articles at MOS:DERM, this after discussing it at the main MOS page. The goal of MOS:DERM is a tailored MoS for dermatology-related content, addressing issues specific to this content. With that being said, I wanted to know if any of you would be interested in helping to develop it. Regardless, thank you all again for your work on wikipedia. ---kilbad (talk) 19:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Dermatology task force. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[I corrected the link by adding an undisplayed colon before "Category". -- Wavelength (talk) 20:16, 21 April 2009 (UTC)]

This is a comment addressed to all watchers of this talk page, because I might not always be watching it. If a similar request appears on this talk page in the future, about assistance in a specific subject area, it would be useful to refer to Wikipedia:WikiProject for a directory of WikiProjects according to subject area. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I wish to suggest to kilbad that the heading of this section be changed to something more specific, such as the following:

"Helpers wanted for developing MOS subpage". An improved heading can make Archive searches easier in the future.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the advice! ---kilbad (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedian physicians. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/ >> http://www.dandruffdirectory.com/. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Question on alphabetizing

When alphabetizing a list of names by surname, how are names beginning with "Mc" listed . . . at the beginning of the "M"s or after "Ma"? I have seen it both ways but cannot seem to find the Wikipedia convention. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

There apparently is not a convention for that at the present time, although I discussed the idea of developing a set of conventions with other Wikipedians a few months ago. See the following.

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 107#Alphabetization and collation
• Wikipedia talk:Lists#Alphabetization and collation

Interest just might be undergoing a re-awakening, so if you wait awhile, you just might see a convention for your question.

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Before computers, "Mc" was correctly alphabetized by placing it as if it were spelled "Mac." With the advent of computers and their ability to alphabetize, "Mc" started being alphabetized as "Mc," i.e. as if the second letter was “c” and not “a.” Yanq (talk) 07:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is the “search” function for article titles case sensitive, except for the first word? I don’t see why you would require all other words (beyond the first word) to be case sensitive in a search. If one doesn’t input the correct case, and there is no redirect, then the article won’t be found. Why would you require knowledge of the correct case in a search function? Yanq (talk) 07:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I thought this "bug" had been fixed some time ago. Can you give an example where it doesn't work?--Kotniski (talk) 08:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected. I was relying on Wikipedia's documentation, which I believe still states that titles are case sensitive except for the first word. When I have actually tried intentionally using the incorrect case letter of a word, I have been redirected to the correct page (with the page containing a note that I have been redirected there). I must falsely be assuming that someone manually put that particular redirect in place. Perhaps these redirects were created when you "fixed the bug." Yanq (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Italic titles

I originally started this discussion at the Village Pump, but was referred here. Basically I noticed the article Puijila has an italic title (caused from {{Taxobox name}}). This seems to agree with the the MoS. However, the majority of articles eligible (newspapers, films, computer games etc.) don't have an italic title. I think we need to clarify if the actual title (not the prose) should be italicised. This potentially affects thousands of articles and IMO the italicised titles look strange. However I thought I should garner more input before attempting to remove this formatting. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 18:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There have been a few other discussions at the Village Pump about this. If you haven't already seen them, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_56#Italic_titles_for_names and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_58#Italics_in_article_name. Regards. PC78 (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Letter X vs. multiplication sign ×, part II

After sparse reactions the first time, I have to bring that topic back up, because User:Yankees10 keeps reverting my edits. Is there any consensus here that we use the × symbol × for things like "three-time MVP" and "five-time All-Star"? In my mind, using letter x (like "3x MVP") is wrong typography, like separating a parenthetical thought with a hyphen instead of a em dash. --bender235 (talk) 16:15, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It says only for a multiplication sign and this is not that. So you are not interpreting it right--Yankees10 16:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

"Times" is multiplication. The symbol should be used rather than the letter ex. The symbol looks better. The article needs an audit for en dashes (I've fixed some). Tony (talk) 16:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

For decisions between using x and using ×, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Common mathematical symbols, point 2. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

And this means in this particular case … ? --bender235 (talk) 19:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If this is prose, not an infobox or caption, the word "time/s" would be better than either. dramatic (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason x is used is to save space--Yankees10 19:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

However, we are talking about infoboxes, so what would you prefer? "3x MVP" or "3× MVP"? --bender235 (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Right. And the symbol for times is "×". I could see an "x" being used if it were actually pronounced "ex" as in "3x increase in sales". The only exception I could see in this case (being pronounced "times") that would make me think "x" is sensible is if the baseball literature reliably used the letter not the symbol; otherwise I see no reason to use anything but the times symbol. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 17:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) When gauging what constitutes normal typography, one must recognize that some publications lack sophisticated typographic capability, or lacked such sophistication until recently. So when looking to see if the baseball literature uses "x" or "×" one must discount publications that lack the ability to use "×" and writers who have become accustomed to using "x" because it was all that was available until recently. Failure to take these factors into account would be like saying "UM" is a correct abbreviation for micrometer just because computer systems of the 1980's often used printers that lacked lowercase letters, and so many computer printouts from that era used "UM" for micrometer. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The symbol for micro- is the Greek letter mu (μ). -- Wavelength (talk) 14:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

RFC on the reform of ArbCom hearings

The attention of all editors is drawn to a Request for Comment on a major issue for the English Wikipedia: a package of six proposals to move the ArbCom hearings process away from the loose, expansionary model that has characterised it until now, to a tighter organisational model. The RFC started Tuesday 29 April. Your considered feedback would be appreciated. Tony (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Loft of Guitars

The term relating to a collection of many guitars, attributed to Richard "Dickman" Cripps of the rock group "Nervous", having had a "Loft" full of guitars that they had displayed and photographed for a photo shoot. As far as I am aware there is no name for such a collection of guitars. Although this may sound somewhat inane, many musicians now use this for a collection of many guitars kept in one place. Generally more than three would constitute a "Loft"
Italic text

Many guitarists have extraordinarily large collections of guitars, these would be considered to be a "Loft" of Guitars

--BrianIndian (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Brian Indian

RFC 1924 links in headers

Currently MOS:HEAD says "Section names should not normally contain links, especially ones that link only part of the heading". I couldn't figure out how to un-link the automatically-generated link in the section Ascii85#RFC 1924 version. Does MOS:HEAD apply to such RFC links? If so, how do I un-link it? If I overlooked the answer in the archives, my apologies -- please link to the relevant archive. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 05:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If you need to suppress wiki markup, use the nowiki tag. I've done this for the Ascii85 article. Mindmatrix 13:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Question about en dashes

Reading over WP:NDASH, it says when naming an article, en dashes should used when it properly belongs in the title. Does this rule apply to categories as well? — Σxplicit 05:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, or at least it ought to, though there has been argument about it in the past (since there ought to be a redirect from the hyphen form for ease of typing, and category redirects don't work as beautifully as they might). When the devs finally get round to fixing the bug in the category redirect functionality, I assume there won't be any problem with using dashes. --Kotniski (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Use of metaphor and simile

At Quantitative easing, Vexorg (talk · contribs) insists on using metaphors to describe the subject of the article rather than using literally accurate language. He claims that he is just trying to make the article easier to understand (for people with less education in economics). Is the use of metaphor or simile condoned by the Manual of Style? Is there another standard which bears on this topic? Thank you for your help. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible is relevant. "out of thin air" is standard UK English, but I don't know its status in other countries. How about "out of nothing"?

BTW I'd avoid gratuitous Latin like ex nihilo. --Philcha (talk) 15:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Italicising softwares and sites names

Is it true it is forbidden to italicise softwares and sites names in wikipedia. It seem me strange because I think it is usual in books or news papers (this question originates from a discussion I had about metamath here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CRGreathouse#Metamath) -- fl