Talk:IPhone SE (1st generation)

Generation

Is this 10th generation? --Jobu0101 (talk) 16:12, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

No. 115.66.29.26 (talk) 11:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC) 115.66.29.26

Using "the"

Hello, everyone

While the use of articles in English can sometimes be tricky, I expect any editor should know the basic rules of it. For the starter, you can study WP:THE and the Grammar Girl article "When to Use Articles Before Nouns". For a more thorough reading, you can consult a grammar book like Advanced Grammar in Use chapters 44 through 47 or Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide chapter 7.

But the basic rule is: Proper nouns, definite names and plural nouns do not need a definite article. So, most of the times, it is "iPhone" not "the iPhone".

There are two exceptions:

1. When "iPhone" is not the core noun, and so "the" applies to the core noun that appears after "iPhone. e.g. "the iPhone design". The core here is "the design".
2. When metonymical deletion occurs, i.e. "the iPhone" really stands for "the iPhone device". e.g. "My father bought us three iPhones. One of them stopped working that night. We couldn't make it work so we returned the iPhone for repairs." This applies only to computer hardware; computer software are totally exempt from this rule. e.g you never hear "Red Alerts"; it is always two copies of Red Alert.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 14:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa:, I invite you (and other editors who may be interested) to read these two articles which were written by an English teacher. They discuss using the definite article with the names of manufactured products and inventions. The second one specifically discusses the iPhone.

http://masteringarticles.com/inventions-product-names/ (See Rule 6.6)

http://masteringarticles.com/definite-article-iphone/

2601:5C2:100:9A1:3D84:8C90:84FC:BC34 (talk) 02:11, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi. These articles seem to come from a self-published blog with no by-line, no date and no identification means whereas my sources are books by reputable publishers (Cambridge University Press no less). They could very well be your blog posts!

You'd forgive my skepticism but I also see that your IP address resembles the IP of certain troll that only seeks to dispute me. (He once claimed he is just trying to edit like everyone else, but he has certainly not offered any assistance.)

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 08:47, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa: The Grammar Girl article doesn't address this situation since it is only discussing time. Do the others discuss product names specifically? If so, can you please narrow down the reference to specific pages or rules that apply to product names?

On the other hand, here is a Wall Street Journal article which also specifically discusses the iPhone as well as Apple's history of improper grammar use in marketing:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903895904576546910525327024

2601:5C2:100:9A1:98ED:C19:4902:B940 (talk) 11:42, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't know WSJ cares about linguistic articles. Nevertheless, it says "Place No Faith in Articles" and "They're going AWOL". It says sentences like "Kindle is succeeding" and "buy iPhone" are getting common. I will use this source the next time I removed articles. Thanks a lot. :)

The objection that I have to MasteringArticles.com is I've seen a lot of product names that never ever receive "the". e.g., "Windows", "StarCraft", "Warcraft", "Diablo", "Red Alert", "SwiftKey", "iTunes", "AIMP", "QuickTime" and "OneCare".

Advanced Grammar in Use specifically talks about hardware products but it has no guideline brand names except the general rule: No definite articles before definite nouns, proper names and plurals. It would be ideal to have a source that explains why people once used "the" before hardware brand names in violation of the general rule. But as WSJ says, they don't violate anymore.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa: Nice try, but to quote from the above article:

Branding gurus defend the "the" omission. "When you can drop an article, the brand takes on a more iconic feel," argues Allen Adamson, managing director of WPP Group PLC's branding agency, Landor Associates. But grammarians disagree. Theodore Bernstein's 1965 tome "The Careful Writer," dedicates two pages to omitting articles, which he called a "disfigurement of the language." He warns: "When the writer is tempted to lop it off, he should ask himself whether he would as readily delete the other articles in his sentence. Would we write, 'Main feature of combined first floors of new building will be spacious hospitality area'? Obviously not." The Wall Street Journal style calls for inserting articles before product names, except in quotations, even if companies omit them, says stylebook editor Paul Martin."

2601:5C2:100:9A1:98ED:C19:4902:B940 (talk) 12:32, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

That's pretty much it. What are you trying to say? —Codename Lisa (talk) 15:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Interesting find. It seems that my intuition with respect to this branding aspect was not that far-fetched after all. WP:THE is not binding here, as that convention deals specifically with lemmas, not body text. It offers no further guidance on the use of articles either and does not even mention this specific case of brand or product names. I suppose that the Manual of Style has no relevant entry either. Maybe this should be discussed at a more general level instead of here. As I mentioned before, this article is now the only one in the iPhone and iPad article series where the definite article is dropped from the lead sentence. I thus propose to undo this change to keep consistency and because of a lack of applicable conventions and conclusive grammar.–Totie (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

This article and the history of iPhone article and one other that I forgot. But inter-article consistency is not a valid ground for revert; you revert when you have a reason, not to consistently make the same mistake. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:51, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

To be honest I am not sure what is the concern here: Grammar is a set of rules. It doesn't matter if a large body of people ignore it; it is always them that are wrong. Why must product names be exempt from the general rule anyway and have "the"? I also a listed a lot of examples that never receive "the". What about them? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:00, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

The exceptions that prove the rule. I do not need to be convinced that the article can be dropped, but I think that it just makes a bit more sense in the context of the iPhone/iPad brand in general – hence iPhone, iPad and History of iPhone (although ‘History of the iPhone line’ in the lead sentence) – and less in articles about specific devices, e.g., iPhone 3G, iPad Air. The point is that the definite article is not required by English grammar, as you point out, but clearly it is not wrong to use it either. As for ‘inter-article consistency’, where is it stated that this is not a valid ground? Wikipedia favours consensus and a consistent style is supporting evidence to that end. Article series are aligned all the time.

As for your other examples, some of these are titles of works and all are intangible and uncountable software products that do not make sense with definite and indefinite articles alike. You can have a copy of Warcraft, but not a Warcraft. But you can have an iPhone and point to the iPhone on your table. Although this article is not about a specific iPhone SE, I have not seen a grammar rule that states that an article is not appropriate when talking about a specific device in a more general sense. My copy of the OED also mentions one use case: ‘used to refer to a thing in general rather than a particular example’, e.g. violin/the violin.

Personally, my gut told me that dropping the article is something that has a commercial undertone to it, as the WSJ article explains. I read a fair number of Apple’s documentation and the use of ‘iPhone’ as opposed to ‘the iPhone’ is striking. I am ultimately more concerned with this.–Totie (talk) 17:49, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

@Totie: To be fair, a lot of what you said makes sense. Okay. Do what you just said. Still, if we met again and you found that I pay no attention to guts when I have rules that I follow, don't be surprised. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 20:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Fanboy alert

This article was written by some iphone fanboy who despises that particular model for whatever reasons fanboys despise things. It is far from neutral. Every other sentence implies or even clearly states that this is some "backward" model. Such as "it will be a generation behind iphone 7". It doesn't mention the fact that "a generation behind" actually means "five months ago". It also talks about this model as "entry level" and "low cost" neither of which is true, unless of course you, like all other fanboys, compare the most expensive model of iphone 6s with the cheapest one of iphone SE. In general, this article has a pungent stink of "early adopter" attitude, as in "you idiots still use that ancient 6-months old crap". It also fails to mention the sales success of this model all over the world. Putting it very politely, it's not very encyclopedic. Le Grand Bleu (talk) 08:43, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Calm down. 115.66.29.26 (talk) 11:48, 29 August 2016 (UTC) 115.66.29.26