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January 15

Pedantic correctness vs. commonsense phraseology

The following is an amended excerpt from an actual exchange on a user's talk page, about the editing of a certain article:

• It's clearly incorrect to me (who knows quite a bit about Mongolian tiddlywinks), but I can understand where you're coming from.

Now, a pedant might require that the highlighted word "knows" be instead "know", as it's a first-person reference. Hence:

• It's clearly incorrect to me (who know quite a bit about Mongolian tiddlywinks …,

but that sounds, well, jarringly wrong.

I know one could rephrase the sentence to remove this issue, but I want to know whether the sentence as it stands is one of those occasions where a judicious overlooking of the rules would be justified as being in the best interests of all concerned.

Do we have an article on the tension between pedantic correctness and commonsense phraseology?

Another case is: "Who's there?" – "It's me" (rather than "It's I").

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:12, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

You might stumble upon an appropriate term in: linguistic prescription, linguistic description, linguistic purism (24 varieties), or linguistic purism in English. Would Prestige (sociolinguistics) apply to colloquialism?—eric 00:50, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

JackofOz -- in a Latin relative clause of this type, a 1st person singular verb would be used, but the tendency in English in recent centuries is to default to third person verbs, except sometimes when the verb is "to be". (But this doesn't have much to do with "It's I"/"it's me"...) AnonMoos (talk) 02:03, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Jack, my intuition is different from yours, so I can't really relate to the question. To me, "know" sounds much more natural. Any pedantry is just a side benefit, and wouldn't have occurred to me if you hadn't reported your own intuition. --Trovatore (talk) 02:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Surely it’s “I who know” and “me who knows.” If someone said “me who know” I would be waiting for them to remove their human costume. Temerarius (talk) 11:08, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe their Tonto costume. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

How do you figure that, Temerarius? When a speaker refers to himself, regardless whether in nominative or objective case, it's the first person. No? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the idiom "methinks"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:25, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Methinks ("it seems to me", not "I think") is not related to the current discussion. There, the me is not a subject; it's a relic of the dative case. Deor (talk) 21:50, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Me thinks, therefore me is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:24, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

On "the rules" (mentioned and seemingly assumed in the opening question): The speaker of English who has at least some metalinguistic knowledge will say that verbs (other than modals) in the simple present tense necessarily take an "(e)s" inflection to agree with a subject that's both 3rd-person and singular, and otherwise may not do so. End of story. Except that it isn't. One exception comes with what The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language terms "3rd person override in cleft relatives" (p507): "It is I who am at fault", yes; but "It is me who is at fault". And sure enough, the iWeb corpus has plenty of tokens of "it's me who's" (NB searches for this require added spaces, "it 's me who 's"). Back to the question: "I want to know whether the sentence as it stands is one of those occasions where a judicious overlooking of the rules would be justified as being in the best interests of all concerned." If "the rules" fit neither L1 speaker intuitions nor evidence from corpora, then there's something inadequate about (or plain wrong in) the rules or their application. And when you're mystified by this kind of thing, don't fall back on what you remember from some grade-school or similar grammar: consult a good grammar or a relevant corpus or both. -- Hoary (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

In Otto Jespersen's A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles: Part VII: Syntax section 4.5₅, he points out that the KJV of Psalm 77:14 is "Thou art the God that doest wonders" (second-person verb inflection), while the Anglican Prayer Book translation (not exactly the same) has "Thou art the God that doeth wonders" (third-person verb inflection), so apparently vacillation about this goes way back. In A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles: Part III: Syntax. Second Volume section 4.6₃, he gives some more recent third-person verb examples, such as: George Bernard Shaw "Is it you thats going to be married or is it Edith?" (apostrophe omission intentional), or J.M. Barrie "It is myself who is writing at last" etc. I'm not sure that this was ever a big prescriptivist bugaboo (if it was, Jespersen doesn't mention it)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Why would it be "know"? The verb there has to agree with the pronoun "who", not the pronoun "me". --Khajidha (talk) 12:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that the counter example given above ("It is I who know") is a continuous phrase, not a parenthetical as in the original sentence. --Khajidha (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're referring to "...incorrect to me (who know quite a bit ...". What is the number of the pronoun "who"? It depends on the subject, and the subject here is "me", the objective case of "I". We say "I know", not "I knows". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

This is admittedly not a rigorous argument, but I see the problem as stemming from the objective case "me", which casts the relative clause in the objective case. Therefore, the clause is effectively in the third person and the verb is properly "knows". The sentence can be read as "to me ([someone] who knows....)". This was alluded to above by Hoary. Jmar67 (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"Therefore, the clause is effectively in the third person" - can you explain why you think that? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:20, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Because it is also in the objective case and therefore refers to the speaker objectively, in the third person. Jmar67 (talk) 00:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Not convinced. "He attacked me". "He" is 3rd person. But what is "me"? On reflection, I think that person applies to the grammatical subject, and not to any object. This is backed up by the table in Grammatical person, which lists nominative-case personal pronouns, but there's no mention of any objective-case forms such as "me", "him" or "them". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:31, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The "I" is irrelevant. At no point does the dentence say anything like "I know" or "I knows", it says "who knows". Who is 3rd person. Knows is 3rd person. --Khajidha (talk) 23:54, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Jack of Oz -- in the non-English languages likely to be familiar to English-speakers, verb person agreement applies only to subjects, but non-subject personal pronouns are also considered to have person. In a language such as Latin, a sentence like Amica me repudiavit, qui misellus sum (maybe not stylistically the greatest, but basically grammatical) "My girlfriend broke up with me, who am a miserable wretch", would have the verb in its second clause inflected as 1st person singular (following from the non-subject pronoun in the first clause), and anything else would be a strange error. In modern English, verb person inflections are somewhat rudimentary (since the loss of "thou" around 1700, most verbs distinguish inflectionally only the present-tense 3rd person singular, while modal verbs don't even do that), and because in most relative clauses the person or thing relativized is third-person, there has been a certain "attraction" of relative clauses with subjects of other persons to the third-person... AnonMoos (talk) 20:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense. But this is English we're talking about, so what's the relevance of whatever goes on in other languages? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Similarly, German repeats the nominative pronoun "ich" ("I") or "du"/"Sie" ("you") to preserve the grammatical first or second person in the relative clause. Jmar67 (talk) 01:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

January 16

French translation

Can someone help translate Je vous laisse d’ailleurs le soin, si vous le jugez convenable, de prévenir Tuarii que si elle nous crée la moindre difficulté sa pension lui est retirée, car elle ne la doit qu’à notre extrême bienveillance en sa faveur from French? KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

leave you besides the care, if you judge it suitable, to warn Tuarii that if she creates us the least difficulty her pension is withdrawn to her, because she owes it only to our extreme benevolence in her favor. Anton. 81.131.40.58 (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I think Kavebear is hoping for something better then a google translate cut and paste.

"I leave it to you, if you find it appropriate, to warn Tuarii that if she creates any sort of difficulty, her pension will be withdrawn, given that she is only allowed it thanks to our extreme benevolence towards her. " --Lgriot (talk) 18:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks!KAVEBEAR (talk) 18:59, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

d’ailleurs = beside that/on the other side/anyway ... si elle nous crée la moindre difficulté = if she creates/makes/causes us the least difficulty 2003:F5:6F05:EC00:6006:E826:6CDF:2581 (talk) 12:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC) MPB

Anton's version may be overly literal but it is accurate, unlike some Google translations. —Tamfang (talk) 01:55, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Did the word "amendment" historically mean "any change for the better" or did it have a more limited meaning?

I've noticed that some proponents of the unconstitutional constitutional amendment theory--such as Yaniv Roznai and Walter F. Murphy--have argued that the word "amendment" means something along the lines of "a minor change for the better" or "a change for the better that is compatible with the bulk of the document that one is trying to change". Basically, they use this definition to argue that there are implicit (as opposed to explicit) limits on the constitutional amendment power. However, I've also noticed that Noah Webster's 1828 English dictionary defines the word "amendment" along the lines of "a change for the better" without actually putting any limits on the scope of this change:

http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/amendment

"1. An alteration or change for the better; correction of a fault or faults; reformation of life, by quitting vices."

So, my question here is this--did the word "amendment" historically mean something along the lines of "any change for the better"? Or did it have a more limited meaning--as in "a minor change for the better" or "a change for the better that is compatible with the bulk of the document that one is trying to change"? Any thoughts on this? Futurist110 (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

wikt:amend provides some etymology. Jmar67 (talk) 23:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

A quote from 1817 (Francis Augustus Cox, Female Scripture Biographies, Volume I; via COHA):

" We live without God in the world, " an omniscient Deity has no existence in our minds, and we inquire " Who will show us any good? " as if God were not the chief good, or could not supply our happiness. Alas! how often have we boasted of to-morrow by neglecting, in a religious sense, the most important business of to-day. It is not easy to imagine a more dangerous state of mind, than that of a person, whose resolutions of repentance and amendment all respect futurity, because he makes these very resolutions an excuse for his negligences, and even considers them as an expiation of the guilt of his procrastinating temper.

(My emphasis, of course.) I can't claim to understand this well; but so far as I do, I take "amendment" to mean a radical change. (I'm very open to being told that I've misunderstood.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "amendment" here appears to mean "change" -- without any reference to the scope of this change, as per the 1828 Webster's Dictionary definition of "amendment" above. Futurist110 (talk) 05:03, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps mistakenly, I inferred from the context (or anyway from my hazy understanding of it), that "a person" (i) would want to be go(o)dly (passport to the more desirable kind of afterlife, etc) rather than just different; and (b) thanks to his or her "negligences" (plural!), "procrastinating temper", and resolutions of repentance, would need to make a thoroughgoing change. ¶ If you're unimpressed by the example (and I wouldn't blame you), then see COHA, which has other examples from the 1810s, 1820s, 1830s.... -- Hoary (talk) 05:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

In the OED Online, which is possibly the best source for this sort of question, the first definition is always the oldest sense. And their entry for the word begins with:

The action of amending, whether in process, or as completed.

1. Removal of faults, correction, reformation.

a. of human conduct. absol. = self-reformation.

Where the abbreviation "absol." means absolute or absolutely. So they say there is no implication as to the size of the change. The first cite for this sense is dated 1297, by the way. Sub-senses b through d refer to the correction of errors in books, laws, etc. and are 300 years more recent. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 05:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"Absol." does indeed mean "absolute", but it's a note on the syntax, not the semantics. It means that this use is without an object, as in the example "Men commonly think..that amendment is an expiation." But this is a quite separate meaning, so even if the word supported your argument, it would not necessarily transfer to other meanings. --ColinFine (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I have always understood "amendment" to mean any change to a document. The question of "for the better" is one of intent, not of fact. I would assume that the proposer of an amendment would consider it an improvement, but the result of the amendment may be demonstrably negative. --Khajidha (talk) 12:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Exactly so for me too. By the way, is it possible to change direktly the text of the USA Constitution, or any change can only take place in the form of an amendment? Thnks 2003:F5:6F05:EC00:6006:E826:6CDF:2581 (talk) 12:45, 19 January 2020 (UTC) MPB

The word "amendment" originally meant "improvement".[1] That theory doesn't always work out, e.g. Prohibition. And, no, there's no mechanism for directly changing the text of the US Constitution. However, a number of clauses have been replaced via the amendment process, one example being the way the president and vice president are elected. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

January 17

Promiscuous and loose women

My question revolves around the Edit summary used today re a change an editor made to an article - "Promiscuous woman" instead of judgmental-sounding "loose woman." I'm not looking for a fight over it, but I was a bit surprised. In my parochial, little, Australian English speaking world, "promiscuous" would not normally be seen as a compliment. I can't imagine myself ever using it to describe a lady unless I was being quite rude about them. Things are clearly different for that editor who, based on their contributions, seems likely to be British. In what parts of the world is "promiscuous" not judgemental? HiLo48 (talk) 00:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that describing a woman as promiscuous is judgemental, and may even be injurious in some circumstances. If applied to a woman who is a stranger or at least not known socially to the speaker it is judgemental; if the speaker is rebuked for applying the word to a stranger, the speaker cannot defend (himself) by saying “I was only joking”. However, there is also a secondary meaning, particularly, I suspect, among young people where the word is applied to the speaker or to close friends, where it is not judgemental - “I like all kinds of music. I’m promiscuous!” In this way it is being used ironically eg “All my best friends are promiscuous.” In summary, if it isn’t being used ironically among friends, it is judgemental and likely used to cause personal hurt. Dolphin (t) 01:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Our article Promiscuity provides much more information about the word and the underlying concept. I agree that the term is problematic in many or perhaps most contexts. "Loose woman" is slang and a sexist pejorative, and I cannot imagine any circumstance when it would be appropriate to write that way in Wikipedia's voice, as opposed to a direct, cited quotation. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Someone who has an educational background in biology might describe someone else as promiscuous without meaning to imply any moral judgement, but even that would be rare. --Khajidha (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the question may be: is it necessary? Is that subjectively descriptive term of great importance in the particular instance? As we are discussing this in the abstract it may be near impossible to determine a resolution to the implied question concerning the sexual practices of a person. By the way, "promiscuous" is also used in computer technology. Bus stop (talk) 18:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary describes "loose" as derogatory (and dated); it doesn't say the same about promiscuous. https://www.lexico.com/definition/loose https://www.lexico.com/definition/promiscuous . That said, it still sounds judgemental to my mind (although that may depend on context). What is the context of the article? Iapetus (talk) 11:05, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• As is so often the case, when there is a specific event that one is trying to work through, it is ever and only helpful to actually show everyone you ask for help the specific event itself. I would in general say that the term "promiscuous" is better than "loose" because the former is more formal English and the latter is definitely a slang or colloquial term; however unless we can see the actual diff in question, so we can see the entire situation, we don't know whether either or neither term is actually appropriate to use here. For example, if this was a direct quote, we should leave the original term, even if it was "loose women". We just don't know enough about the situation to give advice that would be useful. This is a classic example of the XY problem, where someone posts a request for help on a general concept, where really what they need is advice on a specific event. --Jayron32 18:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• I agree 100%, Jayron32. This is also analogous to asking the abstract question: should victim names be included in articles with fatalities? The knee-jerk reaction is "no", those names are meaningless—they are only names. But it would be virtually impossible for consensus to change at the many articles that already contain victim names. When considered in the concrete as opposed to in the abstract, the article is seen to be enriched by the presence of the actual names of decedents. This is almost a rule. It is only at time of article-inception that support can be found for omitting victim names. Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• Other than kind of agreeing with you, I don't follow how your comment is relevant here. This discussion is about a specific use of the word "promiscuous", and has nothing to do with whatever you're going on about. It seems as though you comment is about an unrelated discussion, which would be better served if it was left on a discussion about that topic rather than this one. --Jayron32 18:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• We need not discuss the "victim topic" I interjected. I've said all I have to say.

  HiLo48—I don't know if there are any sensibilities involved that would make it less-than-ideal to discuss the actual situation here so I will ask you to exercise your own discretion—but would linking to it be an acceptable thing to do? Bus stop (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Whenever

Does anyone know the reason the word whenever is not spelled whennever?? (The -ever suffix is being added to the word when, and normally this would mean we double the n to get whennever; with a single n it would look as if it had come from a word with a long e sound that is spelled whene. This is consistent with many other words that have suffixes that being with a vowel added to them.) Georgia guy (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

It's when + ever,[2] and since most everyone pronounces "ever" with a leading short e, "whenever" likewise has a short e. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The second e has nothing to do with whether the n should be doubled. It is the first e; that is, whenever, which whether the n should be doubled relates to the pronunciation of. Georgia guy (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think you're trying to claim confusion where there is none. "When" and "ever" have all short e's. Most everyone knows that. Otherwise those words would have to spelled "whenn" and "evver", and hence their combination would have to be spelled "whennevver". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Your comments are invalid because (1) the letter v is never doubled except in recent coinages, and (2) at the end of a word a consonant after a short vowel is doubled usually only if it is f, l, or s; otherwise it is single but doubles if a suffix beginning with a vowel is added. Georgia guy (talk) 02:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

In fact, it appears that the ancestors of "when" did have two n's.[3] But not now. Trying to impose rigid rules on English is an exercise in futility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:29, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. If I really wanted to know, I'd look in a book about English orthography. Meanwhile: open, opened; pen, penned. -- Hoary (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

To me, the spelling "whennever" would suggest a stress on the first syllable. --rossb (talk) 09:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Georgia guy: because the "rule" about Silent e is not an arbitrary invented rule, but something that happened accidentally in the historical development of English and its writing. Not "there is a rule that if there is an e after a single consonant, the previous vowel must be tense" but "for historical reasons words with a tense vowel tend to be written with a single consonant and e following". In that context you can see that if a word with a different shape, such as the compound "whenever", happened to have a sequence vowel-consonant-e, there was no reason to change its (transparent) spelling to match some supposed rule. --ColinFine (talk) 14:03, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think it's that affixation does cause doubling of the consonant while compounding does not. One writes "logging" but "login". --Theurgist (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree -- For example, the "n" isn't doubled in "maneater". If he thinks it should be, then he should take it up with Hall and Oates... -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that when compounds are first formed, different people often use different spellings, either as one word or two words or hyphenated. If the spelling "man-eater" or "man eater" has been in common use, the natural simplification to "maneater" would provide additional pressure against doubling the N. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 04:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

pronounce "higham"

It would be so helpful if someone would insert pronunciation in Wikipedia's entries for names of people and places that contain "Higham." Is it pronounced "hig-ham" (like "pig-ham")? Or "hy-am"? I have heard people pronounce it both ways but I don't know which is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElsaObuchowski (talk • contribs) 02:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that a placename is pronounced in a single way. Attempting to add pronunciations all over the place might lead incautious editors to add pronunciations they thought they'd heard, some years ago, maybe ... and was it from the BBC, or perhaps from a mate who was a bit drunk at the time? Plus alternatives to IPA are generally ambiguous, misleading, awkward or some combination thereof; while most WP editors and readers don't understand IPA. If forced to utter the name, I'd pronounce it /ˈhaɪjəm/; but this comment is worth no more than the price you've paid for it. -- Hoary (talk) 05:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There are several places called Higham so it is quite possible there are several pronunciations. However the name probably derives from High Ham, and I would instinctively pronounce it as Hoary suggests. See also counterintuitive pronunciation.-Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Two of the Higham articles do have IPA pronunciation guides (Higham, Kent and Higham, South Yorkshire). They're different, supporting Hoary's assertion above. Bazza (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

ElsaObuchowski -- In place names ending in "ham", it was usually originally a reduced version of the word "home", with the [h] sound tending to become silent in an unstressed syllable. The letter H in the spelling can then sometimes wreak havoc by being interpreted as a digraph with a preceding consonant letter (see Topsham,_Devon#Name_and_pronunciation). However, that's not exactly the problem with "Higham". According to "A Dictionary of English Place Names" by A.D. Mills (2nd edition, 1998), "Higham" comes from earlier forms of the words "high" and "home", and there are at least 9 Highams in England. He doesn't give pronunciations, but it's interesting that for several of the Highams the spelling "Hecham" is found in late Old English or Early Middle English (with sporadic variants Echam and Heccham)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:31, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"Sono" in Italian.

In Italian, the word "sono" can mean either "I am" or "they are". Does this cause difficulties in practice, and how would such ambiguity be overcome? --rossb (talk) 09:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Italian adjectives inflect for number, so for example "I am English" is sono inglese, while "they are English" is sono inglesi. Ambiguity can also be avoided by using the pronouns io and loro: io sono, "I am"; loro sono, "they are". Lfh (talk) 12:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Ross_Burgess -- I don't know about the Italian-speaker's perspective, but it happens from time to time that 1st singular and 3rd plural inflected verbs come to have the same form in Indo-European languages. For example, in ancient Greek, Indo-European word final -m and word-final -nt fell together, so that in the imperfect tense active verb conjugation, the first singular and third plural both ended in -on. I think that in some archaic/dialectal Greek perfect optatives the original endings (1st singular word-final syllabic "m" and 3rd plural syllabic "n" followed by word-final "t") both became an -a ending (though you won't find these forms in standard grammars). There are also some Romanian conjugations in which 1st singular and 3rd plural fall together (see present-tense "fac" etc. in the Romanian verbs article). AnonMoos (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

We don't have any problems because are can be 2s or plural; or give can be anything except 3s; or gave can be any person and number. Admittedly, English does not usually allow you to drop the pronoun as Italian does (but how about "Going home?" - typically 2nd person, but there could be other possibilities). Languages generally have many potential ambiguities, and either tolerate them, or develop ways to eliminate them. --ColinFine (talk) 18:12, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Need help citing a reference

I wanted to cite this reference in Vancouver style:

More than 100 years ago, Graves' disease was shown to increase the frequency and intensity of glycosuria, and occasionally true diabetes was found in association with this hyperthyroid condition.¹

I really have no clue how to cite this properly.173.191.100.198 (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Do the examples in Vancouver style help? Your link is not available to nonsubscribers. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

January 18

Old useful geography encyclopedia?

Not sure if I should ask this here or in the Humanities section. I have been researching and recording exonyms for various major cities and towns across Europe in multiple European languages, most particularly the ones that are not used anymore and have sufficient differences from their respective endonyms in term of spelling and/or pronunciation. Of course, I believe I have already went through all the exonym lists and relevant articles for cities in all the Wikipedias for languages I am concerned with (as of now: Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish). While they give me a lot of great ones I am looking for, I am sure that they are still very much incomplete. One lucky find I came across while browsing the Italian Wikipedia is this early modern Italian geography encyclopedia. Link: https://books.google.it/books?id=fsHY3KDbcmEC

Needless to say, it is very comprehensive containing ton of Italian names for cities and regions across Europe that have not been in use for centuries and so it is a goldmine for my research. Is there any similar books like this that is easily accessible for the languages I have listed above? 70.95.44.93 (talk) 09:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

am on mobile so can't do proper search, but fyi quickly found some old french atlases by searching google books for the french term for "atlas". Here's one from 1762. interesting project! 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

List_of_Latin_names_of_cities might be interesting to you. There's a similar page on the Latin-language Wikipedia that I couldn't find. Temerarius (talk) 01:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)