Talk:Nineteen Eighty-Four

OR to be addressed

I started to selectively edit a few sentences that were OR. There are several instances throughout in which we say, in wiki's voice that such and such is the inspiration for Orwell's themes, motifs, etc. without a source indicating this is so. It may very well be true, but we're about verifiability, not truth. (which, I get, is subtly ironic given the themes of the book..:)) I started to look at the "source of literary motifs" section, and didn't know where to start. There's a lot of great information here, but I get the sense a lot of it is OR. Regardless, it needs sourcing not only of the source material, but of a source indicating a link between that and Orwell's work. It's not enough to just reference a book on Stalinism and say that it was a source of Orwell's motif; we need to have a source that specifically says that. Otherwise we have just referenced a book that mentioned Stalinism. Unfortunately, what sourcing we do have in this section seems to fail that test. Instead of wholesale slaughter of the section, I would like to ask folks to get some sources in. I'll wait a while before starting the bulldozers in the hope that we can retain the good. Honestly though, this whole subsection smacks of OR. Well-written OR, but OR. 12.11.127.253 (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Revolution chronology

It being apparently the sixth quarter of the ninth Three Year Plan, is used to set the date of the first Plan at 1958 in the article. But if a Three Year Plan can have at least six quarters, the chance of it actually lasting 3 years is probably only true in Party doublethink. Five Year Plans were famous in "communist" dictatorships, as well as the government lying about them. We know The Party lies about basically everything, so it's not reliable to deduce a date from the idea of a Three Year Plan lasting 3 actual years. 188.29.165.64 (talk) 20:41, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Neologisms

There are very few novels that introduce so many neologisms that become part of the vernacular, as does 1984. For many of these words, Wikipedia has a separate entry. (Consider, in addition, that they are all grouped under the very common adjectival neologism 'Orwellian'.) I suggest a new section, 'Neologisms in 1984', be added here. BooksXYZ (talk) 13:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Sonia Orwell out of place in the lead?

Hi,
In the plot/theme summary in the lede, the first and only mention of Julia is the sentence "Orwell based the character of the heroine of the novel, Julia, on his second wife, Sonia Orwell." Would it not be better to introduce Julia first, and then present Sonia Orwell in the character list/analysis in the main body - where SO at the moment does not appear at all, so that the lead does not summarize article content on Julia? T 85.166.160.7 (talk) 11:49, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Your second addition is a little hard to follow, but I think I agree. It's not a big deal, as the Julia mention in the lede follow the introduction of Winston, but to relocate the reference to Sonia Orwell would fit just as well in the character descriptions. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:58, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Requested move Nineteen Eighty-Four → 1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four → 1984 – According to WP:Article titles, WP:Primary topic, and common sense, this article should be moved to 1984 and the article about the year 1984 should move to 1984 (year). A less than ideal alternative would be to move this page to 1984 (novel), which currently redirects here.

1984 is unambiguously the common name by WP's definition as virtually all of the reliable sources cited in this article refer to it as "1984" and not a single one spells it out. This is also very clearly the primary topic. This article is much more popular than than the article on the year 1984, with a daily average of 8,216 vs 687 pageviews. According to google trends, since 2004, hardly anyone has searched for the term "nineteen eight-four" and many people have searched for "1984". Googling "1984" alone with no other search times, will first bring up websites referencing the novel, then adaptations of the novel, before any other uses of 1984.

There are a number of past discussions on this in the archives (I'll add links to relevant threads later tonight), but I haven't read a single argument in favor of the current naming system that is supported by current policies and guidelines. A lot of the discussions were 10+ years ago, so things might have been different then. The most common reasons seem to have been that it was spelled out as Nineteen eighty-four in the first edition of the book, which is antithetical to WP:Common name, and that it would be too confusing to move the article on the year 1984 to 1984 (year) since every other year article can easily be wikilinked with double brackets, which not only contradicts the DAB guidelines for primary topics, but linking years is discouraged in the MOS anyway, so this shouldn't be happening.

TL;DR: The vast majority of reliable sources only use the number 1984 to refer to the title of Orwell's novel. There are hardly any sources that primarily refer to the book with the spelled-out title or mention that it was spelled out in the original edition. No one google searches "Nineteen eighty-four"; many people google "1984" and the majority of those searches are for the novel, followed by its adaptations. Way more people are interested in reading the WP article about the book than the year, so readers of this article should be our primary concern. —PermStrump(talk) 01:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support anything that makes year indicate they are years, since bare numbers are obviously numbers in the default case (this page not being the default case, therefore being a special case) -- 65.94.168.229 (talk) 08:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose The novel was originally published as Nineteen Eighty-Four. This title unambiguously refers to the novel; a numerical title is ambiguous. Andrei.smolnikov (talk) 08:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Comment the various year templates/parameters that expect a 1984 to be an AD year will need adjustment. Though, it would be better if all years were moved to indicate they are years AD or CE (ie. 1984 CE or A.D. 1984, etc) instead of assuming something is a year if its a number (definitively not true for numbers 1000 and less, but the way Wikipedia currently does it) -- 65.94.168.229 (talk) 08:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)