Talk:Thandiwe Newton

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Re: Mother is a Shona princess

Hello.

I was wondering if anybody would object to me restoring this claim. When last I saw it in the article, it was duly cited, and I see from the archive that the person that objected to it didn't attack the cited source on its merits - or lack thereof.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: Do you have a diff where it was removed? Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 18:21, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Sundayclose:...

The person that objected didn't have anything to say about the source, which I'm going to have to go find again... Their argument was that there were "500,000 chiefs in Zimbabwe", and so therefore calling her mother a princess was unfounded. Beyond the fact that I question that large a number, my position is that there is an old tradition - going back to Pocahantas - of calling the daughters of chiefs of monarchical rank princesses. What this person could say is that we need to distinguish between a chief of monarchical rank (like Osei Tutu II) and a chief of noble or otherwise honorary rank (like, say, Jay-Z). I wouldn't argue with that... All that I'd want is for them to go and find a link to a source that makes it clear what kind of chieftaincy her grandfather held, with the status quo ante maintained until such a time as it's all sorted out here on the talk page. That certainly didn't happen in this case... It was simply deleted.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: I asked for a diff so I could look at the citation. Or you could link the source here. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 19:07, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sundayclose:, necessity is the mother of genius... I found an even better source than the last one. Here it is:

[[1]]

Also, may I ask what the Wikipedia policy is on IMDB? I ask because her mother is called a princess there, as well.

Thanks for your time.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: I'm not familiar with the source so I really don't know if it's considered reliable. IMDb is definitely not considered reliable because there is little editorial control over most of it except for cast lists. See WP:CITEIMDB. If you put the information in the article, I think it should be brief and should state "according to Newton" or something similar since that is the original source of the information. Sundayclose (talk)

@Sundayclose:, that is more than fair. I'll see if I can get a second source to bolster it, then I'll add it to the article.

Thanks again.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: The "diff" that the other user asked about is an entry from the article's edit history that shows the "difference" between the article before and after a specific edit. (Or a series of consecutive edits.) That is, show how the article looked the last time "princess" was mentioned and how it looked immediately after "princess" was removed.

I searched through the edit history and I found the change was made in "Revision as of 08:56, 2020 December 20".

The edit summary given by user "User:Macnos" gave the justification, "The Shona do not have royalty. I am Shona so I should know.", which is highly doubtful. We don't know whether the user really is Shona. Even if they are, they could be wrong, either mistakenly or intentionally. Wikipedia has several articles which mention Shona royalty.

On the bright side, the deleted passage includes three references. However, the references aren't more than Thandiwe saying her mother is a princess, which is not exactly authoritative. You could say your mother is a princess, too, but that doesn't make it true. If sources that prove she was princess could be found, those could be used as references. Otherwise, based on Thandiwe's statements alone, the claim could be reinstated as long as it is clearly marked to be a claim. That is, "a Zimbabwean princess of the Shona people, as claimed by Thandiwe", followed by the various references.

Good luck! --Mr. Lance E Sloan (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thandiwe

Should this page be moved to Thandiwe Newton, as this is her preferred name? [2] Owen (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit of a tricky situation, as since she kept Thandie as her name for so long it's now her common name. There'll be a point in the future when Thandiwe becomes that, but it's not now. Rusted AutoParts 04:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As noted below, NAMECHANGES takes precedent. Rusted AutoParts 17:46, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Her new name has been declared in Deadline, People, Vogue, W, Entertainment Weekly, Sky News, News.com.au, the Telegraph, Entertainment Tonight and the Guardian. I didn't even bother to check if there was a discussion here before I moved the page. Feel free to change it back if you think it's justified. State your reasons here first please. Kire1975 (talk) 10:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we should refer to people by their preferred name, and I believe that is Wikipedia standard as well. Canterbury Tail talk 13:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NAMECHANGES is the relevant policy. Reliable sources written after the announcement indeed refer to her with w, so I find the move justified. Nardog (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that's what I was looking for. Canterbury Tail talk 17:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that old movie/TV articles with her are being fix as well. I don’t think we should change old credits, only new ones or current ones. But past projects need to be kept as they were with the incorrect credit. Sokuya (talk) 22:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty normal to go back and update them all for these kind of situations with movies etc. It's pretty common to get an actor who was billed as one name at one time and then as another name at a later date, and then go back and update all the older articles to the same name. If there is a really good reason to do so, you can also used "(billed as XXX)" beside them once the name is updated. In this case the billing name is changing so minorly, I don't see any issues with just straight updating it. Canterbury Tail talk 23:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

The article as it stands makes no claim about the source of the word, just that The name Thandiwe means "beloved" in Shona, cited to the Vogue article. We may add that it is of Nguni origin if someone can provide a source that says so, but even if it wasn't a native word, it wouldn't make sense to modify the statement (unless the word doesn't exist in Shona even as a loanword). Nardog (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source added for the name's Nguni origin. Also found in The Guardian: "This article was amended on 5 April 2021 to remove an incorrect phrase saying 'Thandiwe means "beloved" in the Shona language'." Now a caption says "Thandiwe means ‘beloved’ in the Zulu, Ndebele and Xhosa languages."

It still remains the case that it was widely reported that it was a Shona name, including Variety, New York, and the original Vogue article. I wonder if it was a slip-up on the part of the writer or editors for Vogue, or it being a Shona name was directly asserted by Newton or someone working for her. (The BBC and Deadline report a respelling of the name that doesn't appear in the Vogue piece, which suggests Newton's agents sent out a press release.) If the latter, it still means Newton perceives it as a Shona name, which may be noteworthy from a biographical point of view. And just because a word was borrowed doesn't mean it can't be considered a word in the given language, or very few of these words would be English words. Nardog (talk) 21:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OBE Title

Just wondering if there's a reason we don't refer to this person as 'Dame' given she received an OBE? Just comparing to Judi Dench's page. Genuinely curious as to the rules on this Irandill (talk) 10:11, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OBE and damehood are different honours. Rusted AutoParts 10:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Judi Dench has both an OBE (not a dame) and then later received a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, which is a subsequent and incrementally different award to a regular OBE with a higher precedence. Canterbury Tail talk 14:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Thandie"

The article lead states this originated in a misspelling of her name, Thandiwe, in the credits of her first film, but in the Early life section it's stated that she chose to be known as "Thandie", the implication- following the statement about being aware of not fitting in- being that the intention was to simplify or modify her name due to being brought up in England.