Talk:Alan Turing

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Is "burgle" formal written British English?

This isn't the most important issue ever, but might as well have it out. I reverted a recent new editor's BrE -> AmE changes, on WP:ENGVAR grounds, but I let the change from burgle to burglarize remain.

Is that correct? I know that burgle is more used in the UK than in the US, but it still strikes me as a bit informal for an encyclopedia. Really I always thought it was sort of a joke, a play on words.

“ When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling
(not a-burgling)
When the cutthroat isn't occupied in crime
(-pied in crime)
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling
(brook a gurgling)
And the pealing of the little village chime ” — W. S. Gilbert

On the other hand, burglarize is qualified as "chiefly North American" in Wiktionary. Is there burglarise instead? Or is there some more formal word, that doesn't have this jocular quality I hear in burgle? --Trovatore (talk) 22:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Australian here, but been reading and hearing UK English all my life. Burgle seems fine. Burgalise is horrible. Reminds me of the less nice word buggerise. (To reading and hearing above, I could add singing, having performed the above ditty on stage some 40 years ago. Maybe it still influences my judgement.) HiLo48 (talk) 23:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think it's probably influencing my judgment too, but in the opposite direction — I can't help hearing it as a G&S play on words. Wiktionary dates burgle to 1872, albeit without an attestation until 1892; Pirates of Penzance came out in 1879. So probably the word was not invented specifically for Pirates, assuming the 1872 date is reliable (not sure where it came from). But in any case they weren't far apart. --Trovatore (talk) 23:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Never heard the term burglerise(d) in the UK, but burgled is quite common. Martin451 23:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

So one thing is "common", and another is "sufficiently formal for an encyclopedia". Is there a more formal word, or can we rephrase? It still sounds jocular to me. --Trovatore (talk) 23:31, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian uses it. HiLo48 (talk) 04:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Uh huh. Not exactly the gold standard, is it? --Trovatore (talk) 04:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

(My reaction is only partly specific to The Grauniad. Even if it were The Times, I'm not sure I'd be that impressed. It's still a newspaper. Journalism is about conveying information quickly; it's not a terribly formal register of language.) --Trovatore (talk) 04:11, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, the Oxford Dictionary, a British gold standard if ever there was one, gives a straightforward definition with no hint of it being a slang word, or one used only by the lower classes. Think more about that song above, the word "burgling" is where Gilbert stretched the language beyond normal usage. It isn't mainstream, but "burgled" is. HiLo48 (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, but OED aims to be comprehensive rather than prescriptive, I think. "Not slang or lower class" isn't really the standard. Encyclopedic writing is one of the highest registers there is, second maybe only to diplomatic or society nonsense.

If you found it used (not mentioned) in Brittanica, that would satisfy me, I suppose. --Trovatore (talk) 07:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

As a Brit I can tell you that the formal British word is burgle - burglarize is American and is never used in the UK. Google burgle and you will find a number of different dictionaries that give you the definition. The OED is considered the standard for British English in the same way that Websters is the standard for American English. We don't need anything more authoritative than that. Richerman (talk) 18:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

So I respect your report. However, as a general rule, note that certainly not every word in Webster's is the best choice in encyclopedic writing, and the same holds for OED. If there is really no hint of the humorous origin that hangs on burgle, then fine, I suppose. But if there is, then we should probably find other wording. (I'm not suggesting to use "burglarize", but rather to reword the sentence entirely.) --Trovatore (talk) 18:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You've now had British people and people familiar with British usage saying it's fine. To change the wording to suit your usage in a different language variant doesn't make sense to me. HiLo48 (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

They're saying it's fine but they're citing irrelevancies like its occurrence in a dictionary. I would feel more comfortable that they understood the point if they didn't cite the dictionary, but instead asserted (ideally with citation, but I'd take their word for it even if not) that the word indeed has no further jocular sense to it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

But you haven't anyone who agrees with you. I think our consensus requirements would demand that you find at least one British person who does. HiLo48 (talk) 20:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The word "burgle" is commonly used in British English, but particularly in a court-room setting. But this article doesn't even use this word. It uses "burgled", which is even more commonly used, and has next to no "jocular" association. In contrast. the word "burglarize" is never used in British English (unless it's in quoting US usage). Martinevans123 (talk) 21:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I had no idea of the G&S connection. But nowadays burgled seems to be commonly used. Definitely not burglarise (never used in UK) but I wouldn't object to rewording of sentence - his house was broken into or something. I think there might be another problem with burgled - apparently before a 1968 law burglary was technically a night-time crime and I am not sure that the crime was carried out at night. Does anyone know what the person who did it was actually convicted of? Southdevonian (talk) 11:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

All the accounts I've read suggest that the police, Wills and Rimmer, gave up on "Harry", even though they had his fingerprints, as charging Turing with “Gross indecency contrary to Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885” looked more inviting. So I don't think the burglary was ever fully investigated, or brought to court. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Just to add my 2p worth the US word burglarize sounds rather comical to the British ear. This is perhaps ironic as our verb to burgle is actually a back derivation from burlgar. Brits would generally assume it was an unnecessary ending like saying transportation for transport (transportation in British means the historical punishment of sending criminals to Australia). No one in the UK would say burglarize rather than burgle unless they were deliberately trying to sound American. Billlion (talk) 09:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

or booglarize, of course. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:55, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason to change a word because it sounds comical to American ears any more than we would change burglarize because it sound comical to British ears. It is the correct term and it is the one used by a number of sources see [1],[2], [3], [4]. Richerman (talk) 10:17, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Intrigued to see Gerard O'Regan (2012) there say "at the criminal trial allegations of homosexuality were made against him", which I am sure is wrong. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:38, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

World-class athelete

According to this well-referenced site - http://www.turing.org.uk/scrapbook/run.html - Alan achieved very high standards in cross country and distance running and I think the inclusion of a section about this would increase the understanding of the man. He said running was very important for him to de-stress from his work and without the release and energy vigorous exercise gave him he may not have been such a successful computer scientist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.162.153 (talk) 21:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I think this aspect is being overplayed. Although it hasn't historically received much attention, it isn't a major part of his notability either. He was not a world-class athlete – he was a national-class athlete. Had he achieved times of 2 hours 46 mins forty years earlier, he would have a world record, but by 1946 he was twenty minutes behind the best runners (not an insignificant period of time). See the patchily assembled 1952 rankings for instance, in which he would not feature with his personal best. If he was truly world-class, why did he fail to gain selection at even national level by several placings? He was a top class club runner and a national level marathon runner, yes, but saying anything more than that is stretching the truth a little. SFB 21:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a fair comment SFB, but you really only addressed the title of the thread, not the rest of our OP's post. The source quotes him as saying "I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard." Non-runners may not understand, but it's a common comment from runners. It can be a powerful stress relieving activity. And was apparently important to Turing. His interest in running is mentioned in the article, but it's hidden in the section called Cryptanalysis. Maybe this should be moved to its own section, or somewhere else? And maybe we can add the above quote as an explanation for his love of running. HiLo48 (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Fully agree. An excellent suggestion. Martinevans123 (talk)

Turing as war hero

As we all know Turing is a lot of things and he is also being described by numerous publications as a "war hero" as he arguably saved millions of lives by breaking the Enigma code. I'm not confident to put it in the lead paragraph and I just want to know your stands regarding the matter first so here I am. Thoughts?AlanTuringFan (talk) 08:04, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

It already says in the lead: "Winston Churchill said that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany. Turing's pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in several crucial battles." I don't think we need any more than that. Richerman (talk) 14:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Turing was aware of Church's work

I just corrected a sentence that stated that Turing was not aware of churches work. Turing states in his paper that he is aware of Church's work. I quote the paragraph (the last one in the introduction) here:

"In a recent paper Alonzo Church has introduced an idea of "effective calculability", which is equivalent to my "computability", but is very differently defined. Church also reaches similar conclusions about the EntscheidungsproblemJ. The proof of equivalence between "computability" and "effective calculability" is outlined in an appendix to the present paper."

You mean you are the same anon ip who removed a sentence and it's supporting cite, with no edit summary and no counter-supporting source, about five hours ago? So what does Hodges (1983) actually say on page 111 about Turing's knowledge of Alonzo Church's work at that time? (Would you care to create an account, or to at least sign your edits here?) Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:21, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

References

Inconsistent dates in lead (poor style)

″At the moment, ignoring the standard birth and death dates, there is a large inconsistency with the accuracy of dates used in the lead. Historical dates are given correct to the year (1948, 1952, 1954), yet modern dates are given correct to the day (10 September 2009, 24 December 2013). This is a good example of recentism: the exact dates arose from when editors added the information to the article as the news 'broke' [5] [6], whilst it would be unusual to do the same if we were writing the article in ten years' time. Waldhorn has reinstated the inconsistency twice [7] [8]. Instead of reverting, I would like to ask for a second opinion from others. I am struggling to see any benefit with the current layout. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 18:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

In addition, Waldhorn deleted a useful link to The Queen [9]. What is the reasoning behind this? There are many queens and the current phrasing could be ambiguous, particularly to non-British readers. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 18:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Update. I have not received any kind of reply from Waldhorn. I have been bold and made the changes because they clearly represent an improvement to the article: we should not have to wait for a reply that might never come. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 16:56, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 December 2014

change "organisation" to "organization". This is located in the Cryptanalysis section, 1st sentence of the 2nd paragraph: "From September 1938, Turing had been working part-time with the GC&CS, the British code breaking organisation." 24.29.53.92 (talk) 05:09, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

 Not done. Article is in British English (see WP:ENGVAR, especially WP:TIES and WP:RETAIN), and I don't see any indication that it's in the "Oxford" version (which uses the -ize endings). --Trovatore (talk) 06:01, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Picture deleted

I give notice I have deleted the picture, that appears in the section University work, of his statue in Sackville Gardens, Manchester, on the grounds that it is repeated in the section under Tributes, which describes the erection of the Turing memorial.Cloptonson (talk) 13:45, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

What is the actual source for the Churchill on Turing 'single biggest contribution' statement?

What is the actual source for the statement in the lead "Winston Churchill said that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany.[7]" The source given is this BBC News profile. And I see the same claim repeated in various places on the web and in recent books. But what is the actual, direct source to something Churchill said and when and where he said it? None of these places that repeat the statement give the actual details behind it.

I'm asking because it doesn't seem likely that Churchill would have said something like this. I don't see it anywhere in the Hodges biography. Churchill only met Turing once, during a summer 1941 visit to Bletchley Park (Hodges p. 205), and then there is the letter that autumn that Turing and three others wrote to Churchill asking for more administrative resources (Hodges pp. 219-221). Other than that, what contact did they ever have? Now, Churchill may well have thought Ultra made the single largest contribution to winning the war. But why would he had singled out Turing's role, as distinct from the many others working on it? Would he even have remembered who Turing was? And to whom would he have made such a remark? And when was it published? It certainly wasn't published by Churchill during his lifetime, since Ultra was still fully under wraps.

I will be happy to be proven wrong, but I have the feeling that this is one of those cases where one book or news piece makes a mistake somehow and then it just gets picked up and repeated over and over. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:50, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

As I suspected, there is no documentary source for this to be found. Andrew Hodges has now put a statement on his website where he updates parts of his Turing biography. See "Part 4: The Relay Race", entry for "Page 205 (page 258 in new edition)". His conclusion is "I do not know of any documentary source for this statement, and I have never seen any date or context claimed for when Churchill is supposed to have said or written it." And The Churchill Centre has now put an entry in the 'Leading Churchill Myths' section of their website where they list and discuss such things. See "Churchill Said that Turing Made the Single Biggest Contribution to Allied Victory". They have a searchable database of Churchill documents as well as many people with considerable Churchill knowledge and their conclusion also was that there is no documentary evidence that Churchill ever made this statement and that it seems unlikely that he did. Given this, I have changed the article to remove this statement from the lead, modified the other text near it a bit regarding Turing's importance during the war, and added an explanatory note about the claim in a footnote. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:22, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

misleading wording about letter to Churchill

The article currently says:

• The effect was electric. Churchill wrote a memo to General Ismay which read: "ACTION THIS DAY. Make sure they have all they want..."

This is misleading. The team did not receive a copy of this Churchill action, and only learned indirectly of the success of their letter to him.

If the article was not locked down and I had the power, I would take out "The effect was electric." And then insert about there wording like this:

The team only learned indirectly over time how successful this plea was: "All that we did notice was that almost from that day the rough ways began miraculously to be made smooth." (P. S. Milner-Barry, ‘‘‘Action This Day’’: The Letter from Bletchley Park Cryptanalysts to the Prime Minister, 21 October 1941’ quoted in www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/turingletter.pdf) -71.174.175.150 (talk) 23:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree it was misleading and I've reworded this passage to be clearer and to include the Milner-Barry quote. I left in the 'electric effect' bit but explicitly quoted it to Andrew Hodges, since what was there was too close to his language to be a paraphrase. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2015

In the section titled "Tributes by universities," I would like to add turingscraft.com, a website created by Brooklyn College Computer Science professors to help students solve C++ problems. Kaneone (talk) 08:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Not done: -per WP:SPAMLINK. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 12:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Spies

The article says:

At the time, there was acute public anxiety about homosexual entrapment of spies by Soviet agents, because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents.

This seems anachronistic. The "exposure" of Burgess and Maclean was not until 1956, after Turing died. Until their press conference in Moscow, they were officially "missing diplomats" and it was only speculative that they had defected to the USSR. Burgess was homosexual, but Maclean wasn't. I don't know whether Burgess's homosexuality was well-known at that time.--Jack Upland (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

imitation game

If you have read the original Turing article, the essence of the game is imitation, or includes it as a major component. I think the current description adds to the moras of misunderstanding of people who have read the title of the paper but not the paper itself. I'd edit, btu the page appears locked. whoever updates this page should read the original paper, and I would then suggest that they would see the need to include imitatation, which along with Turing, it think is an essential part of intelligence. 146.186.238.35 (talk) 21:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)