Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Proposed demotion MOS:NOTUSA 23 May 2017

Please note that this thread follows on immediately to the OP's prior thread on the same subject, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 191#MOS:NOTUSA. EEng 00:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

The exact reason for this policy remains unclear.LakeKayak (talk) 22:16, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a matter of style. I think most style guides (at least the ones I see) advise 'US' or occasionally 'U.S.'. -Sb2001 (talk) 22:27, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The reason for having a manual style is to create greater consistency and coherence in our work than would happen if we allowed editors to write in whatever style they chose. What is difficult to understand about this? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:32, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Over which abbreviation to use is like which spelling to use. And WP:ENGVAR says that no spelling is preferred over another. That's what's hard to understand. You are going to be open-minded when it comes to spelling but not an abbreviation?LakeKayak (talk) 22:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

That's a grotesque oversimplification of ENGVAR, which actually says that we *should* use a specific national variety of English spelling on articles associated with that nation, and should stick to a consistent (but unspecified) spelling preference otherwise. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• LakeKayak, we're not going to excise something just because you, personally, don't see its justification within 6 hours of posting your query. In fact, MOSUSA is one of the more self-explanatory bits of the guideline. From your edit history it appears you just don't understand what a manual of style is. Please, don't make a Federal case out of this. Every publication has manual of style, and this is Wikipedia's. While exceptions are possible, I've reviewed the conflict you're having and that's not one of them. EEng 23:29, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: No ad hominem attacks are allowed.LakeKayak (talk) 23:33, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Correction: You don't know what a manual of style is, and you don't know what an ad hominem attack is. It looks like you have valuable expertise in a special topic area, and Wikipedia could really use your contributions. Please, be guided by the advice of the several experienced editors who have commented (here or on your talk page) and are unanimous: you're tilting at windmills. Don't waste your time (and -- if that doesn't convince you -- others' time) on something so, so trivial like this.

And since we're on the question, by the OP's logic we shouldn't write UK but rather UKGBNI all the time (or, at least, leave that up to editors on each article). Absurd. EEng 23:45, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose The reason for the policy is crystal clear. One person's WP:NOTGETTINGIT is hardly a reason to demote it. I also don't like to think of the edit warring that would ensue if it was demoted. MarnetteD|Talk 23:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

For one, could we avoid straw man arguments? I only want someone to explicitly state why this policy is in effect. Not why we have a manual of style. And also the difference between whether UKGBNI and whether or not USA should be allowed is that USA is in common use. I have never seen UKGBNI in use at all.LakeKayak (talk) 00:12, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

There's something very unpleasant about your demand that everyone else drop everything to satisfy your curiosity. You go search the 200 pages of WPT:MOS archives, analyze the discussions there, and then, if you have something new to offer, come back here. Or you could just go back to improving articles. EEng 00:31, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

This page has seen plenty of silly arguments but fortunately this one can be ignored. As has been explained, one person not understanding something does not mean that everyone else has to fall in line. The current MOS:NOTUSA is fine. Johnuniq (talk) 03:46, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Then can you explain why that specific policy is in effect? I am still waiting for an answer.LakeKayak (talk) 16:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

What part of There's something very unpleasant about your demand that everyone else drop everything to satisfy your curiosity. You go search the 200 pages of WPT:MOS archives did you not understand? EEng 18:46, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose IDONTLIKEIT is no argument. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:02, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I too have never seen a crystal clear argument for US rather than USA: however consistency of style is important, even if the choice were arbitrary.
  • It has been noted that "USA" is the United States Army.
  • It has been said that US is more popular in the um.. US, than USA.
  • US is shorter.
  • A search of the archives will reveal many additional arguments on both sides, but the guideline hasn't been overturned on over a decade.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Thank you. That was the argument I was looking for.LakeKayak (talk) 19:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, that's not the "the reason" the guideline is what it is -- it's just Rich's guesses as to the reasons. What we're trying to get you to understand is that the reasons for many of these arbitrary decisions are lost to history. Only searching the archives will tell (and often not even then). EEng 21:36, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

The short version is that "USA" is disused in high-quality publications, and the style guides MoS is largely based on recommend against it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - There is no country "United States of America"; its name is "United States" and there's no sense in putting an extra letter on the acronym. I also feel there are tone issues: for Wikipedia's voice, US is more formal and professional than USA. Reidgreg (talk) 16:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment That is factually incorrect. The full name of the country is "the United States of America". It's is stated as such in the constitution. And on every piece of currency produced in the country. The short form "United States" is widely used, especially in international contexts, but the full name remains "United States of America". oknazevad (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Retracted. I guess I never got past the first line of the constitution, though after checking a transcript at archives.gov I notice that it has United States of America 3 times and United States alone 51 times. Then again, how often does one hear United States of Mexico/United Mexican States/Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Reidgreg (talk) 10:47, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose demotion and Support US over yoo dot es dot. d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 02:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

If we were to change any advice relating to this at all, it would be to deprecate "U.S." in favor of "US". Several years ago here I presented evidence of a declining use of the dots, and this decline has increased since then. That style is also used very inconsistently when used at all: Some publishers use it only in headlines, not in regular prose; some never; some always; and many leave it up to individual writers/editors and are not consistent about it across their publication. The only real rationale for it is that "US" and "us" are hard to distinguish in all-caps headlines. WP does not use all-caps, so we have no reason to use "U.S.", when we avoid the periods/stops in all other acronyms and initialisms. Use of the dots version frequently produces inconsistent results in our prose, e.g. "a summit attended by representatives of France, the U.S., and the UK".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support US over U.S. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support: I certainly agree. Although 'we avoid the periods/stops in all other acronyms and initialisms' is not true - some editors demand the full stops in eg, ie and etc. In fact, you said specifically WP should 'definitely keep the periods/dots/stops, whatever you like to call them', describing the practice as 'lazy and sloppy'. -Sb2001 (talk) 00:23, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I've addressed your side complaint in a separate sub-thread below; you're talking about a different class of objects in the language (and etc. is a contraction).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose all changes No reason to drop the current guideline, nor to depreciate the dotted form, as the latter remains common enough in outside writing. oknazevad (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • All kinds of inconsistent stuff remains "common" and we don't use it here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Note This wasn't meant to be a !voting proposal. Rather, I'm suggesting that the matter should be re-examined again with 2017 research, and be an RfC. Given some of the emotionality attached to U.S., I would suggest RfCing this at WP:VPPOL, where we have successfully resolved other contentious style matters with a more site-wide audience. A weak apparent consensus to use US emerging from a subthread of a thread about USA on the MoS talk page is unlikely to be accepted as a legit consensus by fans of U.S., so we'd just have to RfC it anyway. Since I'm seen as "partisan" on the matter, someone else should write the RfC (I have a broken wrist, anyway; typing more than 10 minutes is painful). I'm happy to contribute style guide and other source research. As in my last round of it, I would include material in favor of U.S. as well – also as with the similar research I did for the MOS:JR debate about "Xerxes Y. Zounds Jr." versus "Xerxes Y. Zounds, Jr.," style.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support changing "U.S." to simply "US". Having both permissible doesn't seem useful to me. If all it requires is that a given article maintain consistency within it; any editor could just change all the US's to "U.S." in a given article or vice versa, simply based on one's individual attachment to either. A potential WP:EDITWAR or quarrel all over nothing really. Its those small "pet peeves" that tend to get people to make changes; which is why I appreciate that wikipedia has set outlines for the British vs American English spelling debate, instead of allowing a "free for fall" with the disclaimer that there be "consistency" within the article. Well, who decides which article gets to maintain all "US" and which ones "U.S."? DA1 (talk) 06:38, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

"British vs English"! Perhaps you mean "British English vs US English". :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:46, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

@Martin of Sheffield: Yes! I mean't to say "British vs American English spelling", must have been a typo. DA1 (talk) 19:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support US over U.S. – The dots are archaic, vestigial leftovers from generations ago when acronyms and initialisms were uncommon in print and conversation. The inconsistent use between articles, and often within a single article, is inconsistent and unencyclopedic. Also, as others have pointed out: we don't afford the same treatment to the UK, NZ and SA. — GS ⋙ ☎ 07:51, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

"generations ago" - stop and think before going off in hyperbole please. I'm not yet of pensionable age and was certainly taught to use full stops in abbreviations. You assertion about other countries is also questionable. Call then "us", "uck", "nuz" and "sar" if you want, that is consistent, but historically they were "U.K.", "N.Z." and "S.A.". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Martin of Sheffield: the important word there is 'historically'. In education more recently (ie the last 10-15 years at least), you have been taught to omit the points from initialisms (and - for that matter - other abbreviations (although somewhat more leniently)). Please stop with this way of thinking that we should stick to what people did however many years ago. It is 2017. I change my language to get with this fact (accepting '4:30pm' instead of '4.30pm', and writing 'v' instead of 'vs' are just two examples). I think everyone on WP should. -Sb2001 (talk) 16:30, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Sb2001, I think you are mixing up a number of issues here. GrapefruitSculpin was being downright offensive by implying anyone over 50 was archaic from generations ago. Probably thoughtless ignorance, but offensive nevertheless. I didn't actually state whether dots should or should not be used, only that the usage is consistent. As you observed I did use the word "historically". I suggest you read Orwell's 1984. Telling people to stop thinking in ways you don't like and seeking to change the language to cover it up is not a new idea. Anyhow, before you or I say something we (or the admins) regret I suggest this subthread is closed. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Martin of Sheffield: I don't like to make a habit of saying regrettable things. Anyway, I have read Nineteen Eighty-Four - an excellent novel. Comparing me to BB is perhaps a little extreme. My previous comment actually stated that I was the one changing my views. The example I gave re time notation is an example of my open-mindedness (although I would never employ the colon myself), and the versus example shows where I have changed my opinion completely. Unfortunately the MoS is effectively an opinionated instruction book. Unless something is actually wrong, what it says should be effected, and reflect one view of language. There will always be people who disagree. Believe me, there is plenty about it I do not like. And I must note, I cannot see what is offensive about Grapefruit's comments. The hyperbole 'archaic' is just used for effect. I interpret 'generations ago' to mean around thirty of forty years. -Sb2001 (talk) 18:27, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Martin of Sheffield:: So, this is my first time participating in a community discussion here, and I didn't think it'd be possible to deeply offend someone by sharing an opinion on punctuation. No need for the snark, telling me to "stop and think" before I join the conversation, even if you figure my contribution is "thoughtless ignorance." That's awfully WP:UNCIVIL. If you feel I'm "implying anyone over 50 was archaic from generations ago," well that's on you. You're reading way too deep and have extracted an interpretation so far out of left field, I had to double-check and see if you were actually replying to me. I'm not slighting an age group, I'm simply saying dropping periods between capital letters is a holdover from the past and has become increasingly aberrant in modern writing. And while we're offering anecdotes, I'll add that I received all of my formal education in the US, and dot-free is my normal. @Sb2001: Didn't have an issue understanding. I appreciate you filling in the gaps for me. — GS ⋙ ☎ 08:32, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose all changes: The USA is either the United States Army or the Union of South Africa. As for the dots, just use them in US-Eng articles and omit them in UK-Eng ones. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 02:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose all (with fire) – "USA" is just clumsy, and "U.S." is properly abbreviated "U.S." Both MOS:NOTUSA and MOS:U.S. should be left as is. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:19, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose removing the guideline. The current guideline is useful and correct. It should be kept. However, I support deprecating the use of U.S., and changing it to US in all articles. LK (talk) 19:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Example: United Kingdom–United States relations is a good case study in why to get rid of "U.S." on Wikipedia. Otherwise-sensible editors will freely mix "U.S." and "UK" in the same article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

USA in sports results

While this is up for discussion, I've been having concerns regarding sports results. There's an exception in the guideline for FIFA codes, and I understand that if the article is actually discussing the FIFA codes themselves. However, I see USA being frequently used in tables giving results of international athletic competitions, where it seems to me that US should be used. (Results are given by country, not team name, so it isn't referring to Team USA. Wikipedia prefers US, so it shouldn't matter if results are reported in sources as USA.) It's possible this might be the result of local consensus among sports editors, but I haven't found any record of discussion on talk page archives. I've also been wondering about the validity of USA being output from some of the {{flag}} templates. I'd appreciate any clarification, especially if anyone is aware of past discussion on this. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The IOC and it's sport-specific member associations also use "USA", as, again, the full name of the country is "the United States of America". oknazevad (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Right. We should use "USA" as a code used by a sports federation (or other entity with a three-letter country code system with "USA" for that country), when a table or list is using those codes, but not use "USA" otherwise.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

As already mentioned more than once, the official name of the country is "the United States of America". That's in the Constitution, which is sufficient, but also in ISO 3166-1, which has 2-letter country code US and 3-letter country code USA. Therefore, USA is a valid code or initialism in any context. — Stanning (talk) 21:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Consensus for years and years here disagrees with this interpretation. The official name of Rhode Island is actually the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and the official name of the UK is actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but WGaF? WP has no policy that we use ISO country codes, so WGaF? All we do with them in any reader-facing manner is provide them as details in the infobox on the country. The ISO rationale is bogus for other reasons; many of the ISO codes are based on French not English names, and several are just made-up character strings that don't correspond to anything. We do not use them as abbreviations in encyclopedic text.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So USA should be used as a code when using those codes? I get what you're saying, but it sounds a bit circular, and the MOS:USA wording could be improved from "in certain technical/formal uses". Is there another section of the MOS which discusses use of those codes, to which the reader could be directed? It still seems problematic to me, that use of USA in tables could easily leak into the prose. FIFA World Cup uses USA throughout the prose (and, somewhat ironically in terms of this discussion, uses "United States" and other common country names rather than FIFA codes in the numerous tables). – Reidgreg (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

• I much prefer "US"—no dots, no olde-worlde "USA". So does usage outside the US; and increasinly Americans prefer it, although it's baked into so many organisational titles, sadly. But IMO neither version should be banned: just article consistency (with exceptions for titles, refs, and quotes, of course). Tony (talk) 13:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

US, UK, NATO acronyms versus etc., i.e., e.g. abbreviations

See also: previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 191#'e.g.', 'i.e.' and 'etc.' vs 'eg', 'ie' and 'etc'.

This is lengthy, and may not be of interest to everyone. Recycled discussion about "eg" has been directed here from WT:MOSABBR.

Sb2001 above raised a side point about abbreviations of Latin expressions not being treated consistently with acronyms like UK. They're not treated consistently with such acronyms by any style guides, because they are fundamentally dissimilar, with a history predating the more general abbreviation and acronym-formation trend by centuries. The Latin group (which includes dozens more such abbreviations) are symbols (as we'll see below), not acronyms or initialisms in the sense under discussion, which are capitalized. Many of these Latinisms – etc., c. or ca., fl., id. and ibid., op. cit., cf. and so on – are contractions or truncations, not acronyms/initialisms of any kind at all. Acronyms and initialisms (a distinction some sources do not draw, or may draw inconsistently) usually refer to proper nouns – US, UK, NASA, etc. There are many exceptions, especially in jargon – AIDS, DNA, TRO, APB, NAT, OS – which are capitalized but actually refer to common-noun phrases, as it's become the norm to apply the ABC not A.B.C. or a.b.c. or abc style to new ones, whether common or proper. There are also proper-name exceptions to the fully-capped rule – Amway, Amtrak, Nabisco – by convention, i.e. by the attestation of the majority of source usage. Most of those include partial words not just initials, are usually trademarks, and often involve camel case rather than sentence case (ECMAScript, ConAgra). Acronyms which have been re-assimilated as words, like laser, take all-lowercase. No one writes ETC and EG for etc. and e.g. (even if they would write AMTRAK!); this category of abbreviated Latinisms are a different class of convention, though the truncation and contraction means of their derivation may be similar, and some of them technically are initialisms (q.v., i.e., e.g.). They've also not been assimilated as words; no one pronounces i.e. as something like "ee" or "ay", nor e.g. as if it were the word egg, nor etc. as "ehtk". [Aside: Same goes for the non-Latinism a.k.a. or AKA, as you prefer, which should never be written as aka on Wikipedia; it has not been assimilated as a word pronounced "ahkah" or "acka".] Some more evidence these Latinisms are a different class – a more symbolic one – of convention is that those that take pluralization usually do so by a special letter-doubling practice (which dates back to Latin manuscripts and isn't an English imposition); it doesn't actually correspond to doubling of the abbreviated word, or to the spelling of an abbreviated word: q.v. = quod vide, plural qq.v. (sometimes written q.q.v.) = quae vide not "quod-quod vide"). This is also used in pp. which is actually a symbol for Latin paginis (singular pagina, symbol: p.) not English pages, much less "page-page"; pp. is used in other languages than English. See also mss. for "manuscripts"; again, it is used outside English, and is actually a symbol for the Latin plural manuscripta, singular manuscriptum (symbol: ms.). The doubling convention evolved by analogy from the Roman numeral system (X = 10, XX = 20). Clearly, this entire class of primarily literary Latinisms are symbols which (like various mathematical, chemical element, unit, and other symbols) sometimes incidentally look exactly like English abbreviations and sometimes do not; they are not just normal abbreviations. This is even clearer when one remembers that etc. was formerly commonly given in the more symbolic form &c., and that & itself is a symbolicized Latin et formed by fusing and bending the Latin letters. Similarly, what we represent in ASCII as No. for numero does not correspond (having an extraneous capitalization) to the word spelling; more to the point, in offline typography it's conventionally given with a raised, underlined o – № – not with a normal lower-case "o" and period/point. So, it's clearly not a regular abbreviation. See also the prescription symbol, which in ASCII is often miscalled the "Rx" symbol, from Latin recipe, 'you take': ℞ (it has no x in it, and is actually a crosshatch added to the R, which again does not correspond case-wise to the r in the word). There are others, including the paragraph symbol or pilcrow: ¶; it derives from adding vertical marks to the c of the Latin abbreviation for capitulum and has nothing in origin to do with anything starting with p. Next, see the section sign, §, which derives from Latin signum sectionis (and which is also doubled, §§, to pluralize for 'sections'). Once in a while, such a Latinism is conventionally given in all-caps, as is QED in mathematical and logical proofs, though outside that context it's often given as q.e.d, and appears as Q.E.D. in older maths works. It's essentially just accidental that some of the symbolic compressions of stock Latinisms have remained essentially plain-text abbreviations and subject to some-but-not-all rules for abbreviations in our language (mostly having instead become fixed in style since the 19th century when orthography was first normalized to any real extent), while others have become less-alphabetically symbolic, to the point of obscuring their origins. The same is true of various unit and mathematical symbols. Current English orthography rules about modern acronyms and initialisms of the usual sort don't really apply. It doesn't matter that if i.e. were a brand new acronym we'd spell it IE; it doesn't matter, for the same reason that we don't re-spell the unit symbol dB as DB, or rewrite the mathematical sum sign, ∑ (majuscule sigma, the Greek capital S) as a big English-alphabet s to match the word sum: Convention simply has not evolved in that "super-conformity" direction, and likely never will. We intuitively understand that these are symbols, not expediency abbreviations like Prof. for Professor or Dr[.] for Doctor before someone's name, or shortening Tuesday to Tues. If anyone is looking for perfect consistency and logic in the use and form of a natural language, they will be disappointed everywhere they look. The simple fact is that most English-language style guides call for UK and NATO, for scuba and radar, and for i.e., e.g., and etc., and for cm and ft, so MoS does too, absent a WP-specific reason not to. Clarity, along with reader expectations of formal prose, are WP-specific reasons to do so, and to avoid clarity-reducing and inconsistently applied fads, like willy-nilly dropping of punctuation marks without a convention or standard requiring their absence. "Follow the sources" and "go with the flow" are sufficient reasoning for us to keep going in this direction instead of trying to act as language change advocates in favor of the hyper-simplification proffered by some British news publishers (or the "keep writing like it's 1920" hyper-traditionalism of some American publishers, like the New York Times on certain style points, such as prepending "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Ms" before any parties mentioned by surname). We have a strong disincentive (even aside from WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:SOAPBOX policies) to pursue such change activism when it would actually negatively impact WP's own output for its readers. The desire to drop the dots from i.e. and etc. is a habit picked up from British journalism, which drops a lot of punctuation (including commas) for expediency reasons at the expense of clarity, and does so in ways that violate the norms of mainstream British punctuation. For abbreviations, those well-sourced norms are to drop the point (period) from, and only from, acronyms like UK and NATO and abbreviations which begin and end with the same letters as the full word, thus St for Saint or Street, but Prof. for Professor. You'll find these conventions in Hart's Rules and its successors, and Fowler's [Dictionary of] Modern English Usage in successive editions, and other British style guides that are not the house stylebooks of specific newspapers, which are all wildly inconsistent with each other on innumerable points, and have little to do with an encyclopedic register of writing. A supposed trend toward rewriting pronounceable "word acronyms" (just "acronyms" in the nomenclature system that distinguishes acronyms from initialisms) like NATO and AIDS as if they were words, Nato and Aids (which is already an unrelated word), is not well-evidenced outside of British journalism either, and by no means are all British news publishers in favor of it. It's the lowest-common-denominator publications like The Guardian doing it; the style books of higher-end publications like The Economist [1] call for NATO and AIDS, as do the more academic style guides like Fowler's and New Hart's in the Commonwealth English sphere, along with virtually all North American style guides. The down-casing is, honestly, a patently stupid practice – an intentional reduction of communication effectiveness by people trying to communicate – since it results in obvious understandability problems; when The Guardian writes about ISIS (more properly IS or ISIL) as "Isis", it appears they're referring to an Egyptian mythological figure, or perhaps a modern band or actress by this monicker; no one unfamiliar with the topic (or familiar with it as ISIL or IS, as many non-native English speakers will be) will understand that an acronym is meant. (The practice originated in broadcast journalism, as a cue for pronunciation on teleprompters, and spread by reuse of material for broadcast and print release without bothering to reformat for the latter.) A trend toward expediency over precision has long existed in news writing, due to deadline pressure both for writers and for actual typesetting in the pre-digital era, and has become exacerbated by the Internet for an unrelated reason: people used to peruse the paper over coffee and on the bus at a fairly leisurely pace, and had few TV channels to choose from; but now a news organization has only seconds to grab a reader's attention on their mobile device, and less likelihood of retaining it very long on such devices or when we have hundreds of TV channels to change to. None of these expediency pressures apply to encyclopedia writing or reading. We are a long-term reference work, not an ephemeral, click-bait infotainment source. We have a duty to write clearly and precisely (including for children, ESL learners, screen readers, and easy machine translation), and there is a reader expectation that we will do so. We fail to do so when we drop conventional punctuation and/or capitalization that helps distinguish between regular words and abbreviations (of whatever kind, other than unit symbols that have been formally standardized without them). Finally, as a matter of policy, WP is not written in news style, so we really just DGaF what British (or American, or whatever) news publishers are doing with words and names anyway. Digression, to forestall any "what about...?" objections: An exception to that DGaF is for uncommonly fast-moving matters (like pronouns and the transgendered) that have been evolving slightly too quickly for the slow publication cycles of academic style guides, but are addressed consistently in more frequently updated journalism ones, if they actually reflect common practice outside newspapers as well. It's difficult to remember any example other than the TG one, where sources like the AP Stylebook were in fact useful in the MOS:IDENTITY debates. A conceivable additional example would be terminology should some country split and generate new nationality-indicating adjectives; news stylebooks would be updated within the year to account for it. Another exception, outside the MoS sphere, is that newspapers are often key sources for WP:COMMONNAME determination (which is not a style question), though academic book sources are preferred, when available, as higher-quality sources. For example, we can rely entirely on news coverage to determine that most reliable sources refer to The Oatmeal cartoonist Matthew Inman by that name, even though he actually signs the cartoons as "The Oatmeal". While his real name presently redirects to the article on the cartoon, if a proper WP:BLP article were split from it (and this could arguably be done, since he's also published several books and is notable for some other things, like saving the Nikola Tesla Museum project) it would be at Matthew Inman not The Oatmeal (cartoonist) or Oatmeal (cartoonist), on the strength of journalistic sources alone, since he's too recent a public figure to be mentioned in many if any books.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC) I will say thank you for your response. You raise some good points. I am slightly disturbed by the inclusion of the phrase 'It's the lowest-common-denominator publications like The Guardian': The Guardian is a very well respected publication. I myself purchase it several times a week on my way to studying English Language and English Literature at an educational establishment. I will note that here you are advised to drop much of the punctuation for abbreviations, acronyms, etc (including page references 'p' and 'pp'). This leads me onto the issue of 'We have a duty to write clearly and precisely ... for children': today's youth are exposed to all sorts of styles. I can say with complete confidence, what they are taught at school/college/university is what is followed in the vast majority of cases. The Classics Department at the establishment I attend generally avoids using full stops to show initials/abbreviations. I am not always keen on pronounceable acronyms' capitals being dropped, unless they either do not need to be recognised as a series of contracted words, or are such common knowledge that it is not necessary to keep the caps. I am somewhat pleased to see British media is having such an influence on the way people write rather than American. It worries me to see people writing a colon to separate hours and minutes in 12-hour time, but that is another matter. Whilst you may not see British media influence as a positive, I most certainly do. Going back to the 'lowest-common-denominator' point you raised earlier, I carry with me a copy of the Guardian style guide and the University of Oxford style guide. I do not think the latter can be described so dismissively. Its English Department is fantastic. Change is important in language, as it is in everything else. When it becomes clear that general language is swinging against the well-established versions we see in use at any one moment, we should be the ones to change. Whether that be me accepting that some people will write a colon instead of a full stop to separate hours and minutes, or you accepting that some people prefer non-dotted abbreviations. Those versions that we prefer do not have to become obsolete and unseen, but should not stay as law and the only correct version of something. -Sb2001 (talk) 23:48, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Fine, then "a low-common-denominator publication", like any other mainstream newspaper when it comes to style matters, if you want to consider tabloid trash to be the lowest (I wasn't including them in the analysis because they fail WP:RS and we don't use them as sources at all.) I'm not criticizing the The Guardian's reporting, but the entire manner in which the news industry presents text, which is sharply at odds with how more academic prose is written, in almost innumerable ways. I mentioned that newspaper as high-profile, that's all, like mentioning The New York Times in the context of American newswriting. Youth are, yes, exposed to all sorts of styles. Most of them are poor in clarity, consistency, lack of ambiguity, and other virtues of encyclopedic style. (They may have features that are virtues in other forms of writing, such as dynamism and "color", avoidance of passive voice, etc.) Your classics department, and various other academic circles, are increasingly importing conventions from citation styles (a particularly encoded form of text that is not normal prose) into their normal prose; this is another example of expediency over clarity. I don't see British media per se as a positive influence, but rather British, and American, and Canadian, and etc., increasingly commingling, with a kind of de facto "International English" slowly evolving over the Internet. The only thing that distresses me about it is a tendency (due to the influence of bloggers, texting/IM, and comments sections and webboards – and much earlier unmediated channels like Usenet, mailing lists, and BBSes) toward the sloppier side of expediency and informalism. Fortunately this is not having much of an effect on professional writing that is subject to any editorial control. Anyway, MoS is not here to say what "the only correct version of something" is, but it is here to establish a consistent set of on-WP practices to the extent practical, so that a) the output is reasonably consistent and doesn't look like it was written by 10-year-old Reddit users, and b) the frequency and heat of inter-editor dispute over style trivia is curtailed. MoS is necessarily a bit prescriptivist in action (prefer this, avoid that), though much less so than most style guides, while not being even faintly prescriptivist with regard to rationales (i.e., it doesn't assert anything about what is more correct, proper, better, true, high-class, etc., only what is likely to be clearer for readers and what is the norm in style guides for a fairly formal register of writing. Clarity sometimes comes at the expense of features that some readers consider not strictly necessary; natural languages are chock full of redundancy of many kinds, and the reason is increased likelihood of the message being parsed correctly. That's a Linguistics 101 point, but an important one that many people don't consciously think about. WP's goal never has been and never will be to aim for the shortest possible way of expressing something, but rather the most easily understood to the largest number of readers (short of Simple English dumbing down, of course; that's a separate project).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:15, 29 June 2017 (UTC) Here's an abbreviation: TLDR. Seriously, Wikipedia talk pages aren't your personal blog, SMc, and not the place for your personal analysis and judgement. Even so, some of your analysis is based on misunderstanding of the reason behind usage (for example, dB would never be written with a capital d because it's a metric prefix for "deci", and an international standard regardless of language). oknazevad (talk) 02:14, 7 June 2017 (UTC) Actually review WP:TLDR, please. You'll note that it's about article text not talk page discussions, and has multiple warnings that calling "TL;DR" is apt to be considered rude, unhelpful, even intentionally stifling of views one disagrees with but can't mount an argument against. No one is forcing you to read what I posted. If you cannot handle a few paragraphs of well-reasoned prose, why are you at an encyclopedia project, which consists, aside from a few pictures and tables, entirely of paragraphs of well-reasoned prose? I write detailed style analysis stuff like this because it often forestalls re-re-re-debating the same crap endlessly, something that is an order of magnitude more time-consuming, for many more people, than reading one long post. All one has to do is refer back to the analysis, and challenge anyone to refute any of it. This strategy has served me well personally, and served MoS and the entire WP project well. It has directly settled many recurrent and temper-raising "style fights" – from whether a name like Robert Downey Jr. "must" have a comma in it (and whether a second should follow), to whether it's okay to give a song title as "Do It Like A Dude" to mimic the marketing stylization on the cover, and many many more. The research work I put into things like this (often much more detailed, with fully formatted source citations) also doubles as research for article improvement. PS: Talk pages absolutely are the place for our personal analyses and judgement; it sure doesn't belong in articles. My views, yours, and those of everyone else here, based on sources and reasoning, all of them intermixing and percolating in editor discussion, is the very process by which consensus forms. Anyway, if you have a refutation for any argument I've presented, please put it up. If you won't read and respond to something, only vent about it not being convenient for you, why should anyone read that?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:15, 29 June 2017 (UTC) To editors Oknazevad and SMcCandlish: I found the post very valuable and reasonably long and detailed, given its subject matter. I was about to go click the link in the history to thank SMcCandlish for it. This will do instead. Also, SMcC was discussing the function of such terms (and how that in turn affected their current form), not their entire etymology. The only wish I'd have is that SMcC would in the future break up long paragraphs for better readability for those of us with pain-related limitations, but that's certainly not mandatory on talk pages. I also would never intentionally scold anyone for not doing so, in the hope of encouraging editor retention. Well, such crankiness also would discourage people from agreeing with me. Heh. —Geekdiva (talk) 10:34, 4 July 2017 (UTC) @Geekdiva: Will keep that more in mind. The paragraphs look smaller to me because I have a huge monitor.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC) This is more just a request that SMc be more succinct, which is easily possible. It's hardly the first time he's been so asked. The biggest problem with the long-windedness is it makes it less likely for other users to bother reading, which is itself rather rude, especially considering his style of writing tends towards a tone of "authoritative pronouncement", leading some to inherently expect it to be factually correct. This combination has a strong potential to create misconceptions in others' understanding when there are errors of fact, such as the aforementioned dB symbol or that "Amtrak" is not an abbreviation of anything (the actual legal name of the carrier is the National Rail Passenger Corporation; the common name is a portmanteau word coined to be used purely as branding). This is particularly frustrating when there is good material in the posts, such as explaining the origin of British journalistic practice of capitalizing only the first letter of abbreviations pronounced as one word, such as NASA (though I would like to verify it, it is a plausible explanation). Again, it comes down to this being a Wikipedia talk page, not a university lecture hall, nor a personal blog. Brief, effective writing is far more appropriate here. oknazevad (talk) 14:27, 4 July 2017 (UTC) Nothing I said was incorrect about dB. Nothing you said about its nature is incorrect either, but your assumption that it would "never" be miswritten as db or DB is demonstrably false with a few seconds on Google. The existence of standards doesn't mean people will follow them, otherwise we wouldn't need MOS:NUM to contain any details, and we wouldn't ever need to correct editors writing "CM" for centimetres in our articles, but of course we do. The fact that there are good reasons to continue writing the decibel symbol as dB is a sound argument – as is mine that there are good reasons to continue writing conventionalized Latinisms like e.g. in the conventional format. The entire point of comparing them is "good reasons over here, good reasons over there, and the reasons are similar: these are conventionalized symbols, not typical abbreviations"; so your pointing out that the good reasons over here are valid is in no way harming my argument. Next, Amtrak most certainly and obviously is an abbreviation, of "American" (by truncation) and "track" (by contraction). You seem to have imagined that I said it's an abbreviation of a pre-existing trademark, but of course I did not. That the name was formed by a portmanteau process rather than by pure truncation or pure contraction is orthogonal; there is no contradiction in play here. Many abbreviations and acronyms are formed this way, e.g. NORAD (which some might prefer as NorAD), and radar. The supposition that something must be either an abbreviation or a portmanteau and never the twain shall meet is a false dichotomy; the portmanteaux process necessarily involves abbreviation (otherwise you get a compound, like teacup). Some would disagree that Amtrak is actually a portmanteau, because it involves no blending; the elements could be hyphenated or camelcased as Am-trak or AmTrak (the latter has actually been used in Amtrak logos) without confusion, while this cannot be done with "classic" portmanteaux like smog, Brexit, Jeepster, and spork. In a different view, extreme in the other direction, every "word acronym" like NASA and AIDS is also a portmanteau. I consider such arguments (language mailing lists are full of them) a form of omphaloskepsis; words mean what we use them to mean successfully in communicating, and definitional hair-splitting is largely a waste of time. Your criticism of my tone seems hypocritical, since yours is the same but combined with an ad hominem streak; the latter aspect of it is off-topic here – user talk exists for a reason. (But "shut up this one particular person" positioning is anti-collaborative anyway.) Note that concision did not serve you here; you could perhaps have made longer, more nuanced arguments; brief does not always equate to effective. I don't feel very refuted. Verification of changes in news style is "easy" but expensive and tedious. Start collecting style guides from every English-speaking nation and institution, via eBay, Amazon, and every other outlet, and actually study them. Broadcast journalism has been using "spell it the way you want it read aloud" teleprompter tricks for decades before anyone in print journalism starting printing abominations like "Aids" for AIDS, a trend that began after a sharp uptick in media company conglomeration and the increased repurposing of news for multiple media as a cost-saving measure. Is this original synthesis on my part? Sure, and you won't find me trying to insert it in an article here, because a secondary source on language change or mass-media history hasn't written about it yet (that I know of). But it's more sound than most as an observation in a free-form discussion, especially on a talk page usually dominated by irrational pronouncements of the One True Way to write English.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

That vs. which for restrictive clauses

I am writing in support of Primergrey's recent edit to Wikipedia:Manual of Style. I also agree with the accompanying edit summary. I can understand Jon C.'s position, but I take issue with this edit summary:

It's only US English that has a problem with the "thing which…" construction.

US English is spoken by over 250 million people, many of whom read, and contribute to, Wikipedia. For most of those readers, the use of "which" for a restrictive clause is ungrammatical. How would you feel if in nearly every article on Wikipedia you might read, you come across a grammatical error that is repeated throughout the article? Since in British English and at least some of the variants such as Canadian, Australian, and Indian English both "which" and "that" are acceptable for restrictive clauses, why not use the word (at least in the Manual of Style if not elsewhere) that would make reading for speakers of US English easier and more pleasant? Speakers of US English who read and edit articles on Wikipedia already have had to adjust to the many articles written in British English, with the spelling differences and words such as "whilst" and "learnt", and some constructions, that are not even used at all in US English.  – Corinne (talk) 23:15, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• How about a big no to instruction creep? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:26, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Given that we're instructed to strive for commonality, "that" seems like the obvious choice. Primergrey (talk) 23:34, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

So encourage it—don't regulate it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:39, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• I also support the edit. Observing the that/which distinction is often recommended in Canadian English guides.--Trystan (talk) 23:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• A big N-O, no. Before anything else let me say that Corinne and Primergrey are two of my favorite talk page stalkers. Nonetheless, if we apply Corinne's logic here on this page, then why not in articles too? MOS has long been an ecumenical zone where ENGVARs coexist. People just have to get used to that. (And see WP:MISSSNODGRASS#whichthat.) EEng 23:53, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• I also support Primergrey's's edits. @Curly Turkey: there is no instruction creep here, in that the edits did not add any new instructions to editors to the MOS. All they did was to reword the existing instructions to avoid the problem that they were ungrammatical for US English. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

  You mean, prescribed against in formal American writing—average Americans have no problem with it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:01, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

  I question whether it's any longer an issue in any American writing. EEng 00:05, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

  I have honestly never met anyone in America who doesn't follow it in speech. -- Noneofyourbusiness (talk) 09:42, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• I also support Primergrey's edit. I'm British, now live in Australia, and have worked for many UK, US and Australian book publishers. In my experience, "that" is far more commonly used than "which". JG66 (talk) 04:44, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

As little as buzzwords like "instruction creep" help at the best of times, it is of no relevance to this discussion. Reading the edit in question will reveal that it is not an addition of anything but is merely clarifying existing language. I actually had no idea this was an ENGVAR thing. I thought it was a "people that read closely deserve to not encounter the ambiguity that impresice writing can convey" thing. Primergrey (talk) 03:01, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

In other words, you buy into baseless prescriptions. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:31, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

My position is based on clarifying meaning, as I've already said, so I don't know what you're on about. Further, no one is suggesting anything be prescribed. The change is to the language of the MOS itself. In other words, your assessment of what I do or do not buy into is light-speed wrong. Primergrey (talk) 05:44, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster also have something to say on the matter. --Boson (talk) 05:07, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. We Brits, and I believe many Commonwealth English speakers, are rather relaxed about relative pronouns, and we wish to be allowed to stay that way. We use "which" differently from Americans, certainly. Much of the time they feel like close synonyms, and it is an effort to distinguish them. They do indeed have different applications, but we do not wish to be forced to write in a stilted way because American is different, or worse because American says so. A phenomenon up with which we will not put, even. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Support for a relaxed approach, i.e., rejecting Primergrey's edits, also comes from Australian English: Pam Peters (1995), The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide says that "that" is often used to lend an informal flavor to prose. Also, "The choice between that and the wh- relatives is sometimes said to depend on whether it prefaces a restrictive or nonrestrictive relative, with that for the restrictive type and which for the other ... This is an oversimplification of Fowler's original suggestion that they could be used that way, though even he admitted: It would be idle to pretend it was the practice either of most or of the best writers. Later style commentators note that while which is indeed preferred for nonrestrictive relative clauses, both that and which can be found with the restrictive type." Sminthopsis84 (talk) 02:24, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

My point above being that American is not (here) different—American prescriptivism is. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:05, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• There's a good case for commonality in pages, whether in mainspace or WP space, not marked as being in one ENGVAR or the other. However, it's not quite as simple as Corinne's statement that "both 'which' and 'that' are acceptable for restrictive clauses" in British English, so you don't get full commonality by sticking to American prescriptivism. As Chiswick Chap wrote, sometimes the American prescriptivist usage seems stilted to a British reader. In relation to the two changes under discussion, I find "an acronym is considered to be an initialism that is pronounced as a word" fine – I think because it can also be written as "an acronym is considered to be an initialism pronounced as a word" – "that" works well in British English when it can effectively be omitted. However, I would naturally write "do not mimic the style of local newspapers which refer to their municipality as 'the City'" – "that" here seems slightly odd to me. "Which" here corresponds to "who" in the equivalent sentence "do not mimic the style of local newspaper editors who refer to their municipality as 'the City'". Would US editors write "that" in this last example? Or perhaps insist on a comma if "who" is used? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:59, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

There's no support in the MoS or elsewhere for insisting on just one variety of English, nor should there ever be. That would be outrageous. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

That's a different issue, though. Some pages are marked as being in one ENGVAR rather than the other, and no-one is going to argue (I assume) that differences in the usage of "that" vs. "which" shouldn't be upheld on these pages. The issue here is pages like the MoS that aren't marked as being in one particular ENGVAR. On these pages, there's a strong argument for communality where possible (e.g. using "-ize" spellings as in the Oxford variant of British English rather than "-ise" spellings). My point is that Corinne assumed that American prescriptivism over "that" and "which" equals commonality, and it doesn't. Hence I support the points made by Jon C and Pbsouthwood below: there's no good reason to make the change to the American prescriptivist style. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My view is that there's absolutely no good reason different varieties of English can't coexist on the MoS. They coexist elsewhere on WP, so why not here? Also, are you seriously suggesting the average American wouldn't understand a restrictive cause containing "which"? If you're not, there's no reason to make the change. — Jon C.ॐ 06:59, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone seriously think the average American gets confused reading favour? Or the average Brit scratches their head when reading aluminum? If you read about the Grand Canyan wouldn't you know immediately what was meant? Based on your sole criteria, none of these would need addressing, ever.Primergrey (talk) 16:51, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• Ain't broke, don't fix. (leave it as it was) Agree with Chiswick Chap, Jon C. etc. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:25, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I've just checked in Thompson & Martinet where this issue is discussed. Summarising (§75, ¶¶A-C): as a subject, use either – which is more formal, as the object of a verb either (but which is proscribed in some circumstances), as the object of a preposition use which or separate the two. Clearly this is an English view (it is published by OUP) and may be criticised by inveterate modernisers as "archaic". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:56, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

The issue of formality is very relevant, I think. I definitely would use "which" more in writing in Wikipedia than in, say, an e-mail, because "which" does often feel more formal in British English, and it's one reason why "that" sometimes seems inappropriate to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Primergrey, Trystan, David Eppstein, JG66 and Corinne. The Spell Check tool on my Microsoft Word underlines in green any use of "which" in such clauses instead of "that" and explains that there is a rule that either it must be "that" or, for it to be "which", it must follow a comma. Anyone using the same program would also be tripped up by the presence of "which". Whereas "that" doesn't make anyone go "hey!". I would also consider the fact that JG66 has UK, US and Australian publishing experience and supports "that" relevant. -- Noneofyourbusiness (talk) 09:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Word also automatically superscripts the "nd" in "2nd", "th" in "4th", etc., which no one has done since Victorian times. Quite aside from the fact it's an American program, Word's not a reliable source.

Re publishing experience, I'm a journalist, FWIW. — Jon C.^ॐ 10:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Re superscripting – I thought that was due to typewriters and the need to move the platen roller down. Certainly I was taught to superscript at school and I can assure you the monarch then was our present Queen, not Victoria! I'd certainly superscript when handwriting, it avoids confusion between 1st and lst for instance. Agreed with your other points about Word though. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:48, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. But this discussion kills me. EEng 11:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC) From comments elsewhere, it's apparently necessary for me to say explicitly that this post is something of a pun: that which – get it?

A few points:

1) I have read many articles on WP where it seems "which" is used exclusively for all relative clauses. The word "that" hardly appears in the article at all. Is that an indication that the word "that" is disappearing from British English? I think an article that uses "which" almost exclusively, leaving the article heavily sprinkled with the word, or any one word for that matter, is not elegantly written. Besides that, I agree with Primergrey that the distinction that is made by the use of "that" for restrictive clauses is an important one. Precision of meaning is lost when "which" is used nearly exclusively for both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. Speakers of American English who come across "which" used for a restrictive clause have to pause and quickly figure out whether it is a restrictive clause, or a nonrestrictive clause with the comma inadvertently left out – not necessarily using those terms, but conceptually. The nice thing about "that" for restrictive clauses is that it can often be left out, so it is used only when needed for clarity.

2) Thank you, EEng for your comments. Regarding your statement, above,

Nonetheless, if we apply Corinne's logic here on this page, then why not in articles too?

I would say, why not in articles, too? I repeat my main point: since both "which" and "that" are acceptable (which does not mean that it is necessarily one's preferred word) for restrictive clauses, why not use the one that is considered correct for most speakers of US English? I assume you would not support someone going through articles and changing "that" to "which" just because it sounds better to them. See this edit and the one just previous to it.

3) In reply to the question posed by Peter coxhead, above,

Would US editors write "that" in this last example? Or perhaps insist on a comma if "who" is used?

in reference to this sentence:

do not mimic the style of local newspapers which refer to their municipality as 'the City'.

Americans would use "that" after "newspapers", but because "refer" is more naturally applied to a person, it would probably read better as:

do not mimic the style of local journalists who refer to their municipality as 'the City'

with no comma after "journalists" because "who" begins a restrictive clause.

or: Do not mimic the style of newspapers that refer to the local municipality as 'the City'.

or: Do not mimic the newspaper style in which the local municipality is referred to as 'the City'.

4) In response to editors who object to the consistent use of "that" for restrictive clauses on the basis that it often sounds too formal, or "stilted", what about speakers of US English who find "whilst" and "learnt" not just stilted, but archaic, even foreign? If an American editor happened to change "whilst" to "while", a speaker of British English would vociferously object.  – Corinne (talk) 15:34, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

@Corinne: let me say first of all that I'm a great admirer of the work you do copy-editing and clarifying articles. Some points:

• Actually in British English in those cases where "which" and "that" are interchangeable, it's "which" which is felt to be more formal not "that" (as is said in one style guide referred to above by Martin of Sheffield). This is, I suspect, why you find what seems to you to be too many uses of "which" in some articles, since they are written in a formal style.
• I'd be extremely happy if you changed "whilst" to "while"; it seems somewhat archaic to me, which given my age suggests it really is!
• "Learnt" is a different issue. It's consistent with other words, like "meant", "sent", "bent", all of which can be derived from reduction of an "ed" ending after "n" or "nd". I see no reason to suppose that it's an archaism; it's just a different choice in the two dialects. It also clarifies "learned" as in "a learned scholar".

All of this is entertaining to those of us interested in discussing language (and annoying to those like EEng who clearly don't), but actually a bit off the point, which was how should we write in pages like the MoS which aren't specifically in one ENGVAR?. We all agree, I take it, that where commonality is possible, it should be adopted, but sometimes it isn't. What then? Must we all bow to US English? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I am slightly disturbed by this thread centring on the idea that English should be written to make sense for those in the US. I do believe 'which' is more common in UK English, although I would use either. 'That' can often sound a bit odd. It does not seem necessary for an engvar to be applied. Americans need to learn to accommodate the original language which they are trying to take over, ie English ... the language of England. This will never go through to the MoS. Push for an engvar if you wish, just do not try to enforce your ridiculous Americanisms on those of us residing in the UK. -Sb2001 (talk) 18:05, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Having now properly read the page, 'an acronym is considered to be an initialism pronounced as a word' sounds wrong. Totally incomprehensible. And, 'that is' is like 'ie', which means something different. Using 'which is' would avoid this problem. -Sb2001 (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Please take your jingoism elsewhere. Primergrey (talk) 05:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Primergrey: I very much hope that was not directed towards me...-Sb2001 (talk) 12:19, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• This is one of the most confused MOS discussions I've seen, and that's saying a lot. Half the discussants are mixed up about which usage is British and which American. EEng 07:17, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Is this actually an ENGVAR issue? from the discussion, I get the idea that the two words are somewhat interchangeable in both U.K. and US English. It seems to be more a question of formality than one of national variety. Blueboar (talk) 11:30, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• It seems that neither which or that should be the default option: just allow editors to use whichever they like. They both make sense, and I am sure people will have no problem understanding them.-Sb2001 (talk) 12:39, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
• I support the edit Primergrey made to MOS's own usage; there's nothing ungrammatical about it, in any dialect or register, and it's helpful in preventing any ambiguity or confusion. Oppose any new rulemaking or changes to existing rulemaking on the matter, at least at this time. The ground truth of the matter is that some people draw a distinction, and few people can define it, so the results end up being inconsistent, even within the same dialect. If we made a change, it should be to avoid "which" when not explicitly restrictive (i.e., use "that" more).

  The rule-of-thumb, common-sense approach: "which" is best reserved for cases that are definitely restrictive, and usually also include a comma, dash, or other "parentheticalizing" clause separator in the construction. "The train that stops in Fremont" is a general, unrestrictive reference. It is equivalent to "Of all the trains in this transit system, the one (or possibly ones) that stop in Fremont ...". By contrast, "the train, which stops in Fremont," is highly restrictive; we are already referring to a particular train in a particular context. It is equivalent to "this [or that] train we've been talking about – and it happens to stop in Fremont – ...". Usage of "The train which stops in Fremont" is ambiguous and should be avoided, more so every day as comma habits become more and more sloppy, though the influences of various forces as diverse as SMS laziness to explicit anti-punctuation efforts by certain circles (especially UK newspaper publishers). We can no longer depend upon readers being able to automatically distinguish that "the train which stops in Freeont" means "the train that stops in Fremont" rather than "the train, which stops in Fremont," because a non-trivial number of writers drop the commas in the latter. It's stupid, but it's demonstrably happening.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:31, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

User:SMcCandlish: Interestingly enough, I never would have thought that I had anything against use of 'that'. This discussion has prompted be to think differently: 'the train which' reads much more freely than 'the train that'. I suppose it is just what I am used to. I think that readers in the UK will be more familiar with 'which', and 'that' may seem somewhat clunky. On the other hand, those in the US (and wherever else it is a rule) may think that 'which' is wrong and confusing. I think it is probably best left as is. I do not think it is new in the UK to use 'which' for non-restrictive clauses. It is pretty much all you hear: my surprise at seeing 'that' in one of your sentences - I cannot remember which - is a clear example of this. -Sb2001 (talk) 22:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

This is another WP:IKNOWIT argument, though. No one is asking "who is more familiar with what?"; the question is "what are the ambiguity or other comprehensibility problems, and how are they best avoided?" Avoiding them often involves doing things that aren't the most familiar option (which will usually be an informal one) for some people. The fact that variation exists probably means it will necessarily be the case that any solution will be not-the-most-familiar option to some people. Given the ubiquity of trans-Atlantic communication today, it isn't credible that either approach is unfamiliar to anyone; one is simply less likely to be ambiguous or confusing. But, as I said, I don't support changing MoS about this, only changing it in this direction should a change be deemed necessary by consensus, against my view that we need no change. PS: I habitually use "the train which stops in Fremont" myself; I just concede that it's not the clearest option.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS:TIME

I do not know whether other editors have found this to be an issue, but MOS:TIME states that 'colons separate hours, minutes and seconds'. The problem here is that UK standard is to use a full stop for 12-hour time. I have yet to find a UK style guide which advises otherwise, including New Hart's Rule, of which I am not a massive fan (please do tell me if there is one). Editors seem to come to UK articles and change the tie notation, quoting MOS:TIME as the reason. My query is whether it would be too much of a problem to just drop this line. Editors in the US may continue to write time using a colon, and those in the UK may use either (: is often used for 24-hr). -Sb2001 (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Occasionally time is expressed as hours and a decimal fraction of an hour, such as 10.5, 10.25, or 10:255 (10:30, 10:15, and 10:15:30 respectively). So there is a potential for ambiguity. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:27, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

University of Oxford[2] and BBC[3] use a colon. Use a colon. DrKay (talk) 19:29, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Oxford says, 'The 12-hour clock uses a full stop between the hours and minutes; the 24-hour clock uses a colon and omits am/pm' and the BBC says, 'We use the 24-hour clock (with a colon) in all circumstances', so does not address 12-hour time. In response to the decimal point, it never seems to confuse people. I do understand what you are saying, though. We should - therefore - limit full stop usage to 12-hour time and require an am/pm suffix, eg 4.30pm. -Sb2001 (talk) 19:35, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

OK, try UK government (go to T for times) or University College London. DrKay (talk) 19:53, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I feel using a colon for 24 hour times but a full stop for 12 hour times would be confusing. Very few readers would ever guess that this comes from the advice of a handful of UK style guides. I fear readers will suspect a hidden meaning that doesn't actually exist. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:07, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

People in the UK use this format, so the idea that it would not be understood is not appropriate. -Sb2001 (talk) 20:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

It isn't good enough that people in the UK wouldn't be confused; as far as possible, no one who is proficient in English should be confused. If the full stop confuses quite a few people and the colon confuses hardly anyone, we should stick with the colon. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:25, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

You are taught in UK education (every establishment I have attended/know people who have attended) teaches that use of the colon is incorrect for 12-hour. Yes, they actually teach you how to write the time in the later stages of education! I am sitting here, in front of the television. The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have ALL displayed television listings with 12-hour time using the full stop. It is standard. The colon is not widely used, and I know some people who are confused by it: people who have little experience of the slowly globalised UK in which we seem to be living do not understand what the colon shows. The Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph, the Mirror, the Sun, the Mail ... all use the full stop. As does the bus timetable I have in my house. I received an email today advertising a meeting at '6.30pm'. I saw a poster telling me of a class at '4.10'. I have looked through the paperwork I have here, and NONE of it has a colon to show time. There should be no requirement to follow an American standard. The MoS should allow freedom, ie not specify a punctuation mark to use. Please do not say 'the colon confuses hardly anyone': this is simply untrue. -Sb2001 (talk) 21:53, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm writing this logged out deliberately, so that you can locate my IP and prove that I'm in England. Not once, ever, has any teacher told me to use a dot instead of a colon. I've worked as a copy editor and published professionally. No-one in Britain is confused by a colon between hours and minutes. 109.158.111.186 (talk) 06:19, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this is a better of personal experiences. I am sure you will accept that the very vast majority of people do use a full stop, though. -Sb2001 (talk) 12:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• Fine, some do say colon. This is only two. Common usage is for a full stop, and the overwhelming majority of style sides in the UK use that. Let us now debate/discuss the issue properly, rather than quoting style guides. I do appreciate the contribution: it is good to know from where advice comes. Also, barely anyone uses a colon for 12-hour in the UK and there are never any problems. I would show you some examples from my experiences - letters, posters, timetables etc - if possible. -Sb2001 (talk) 20:12, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Please go through the archives of this page, and of WP:MOSDATES, review the many discussions on this subject, and then, if you feel you have some new argument no one's thought of bring it back here. We just can't keep relitigating everything over and over from scratch. EEng 20:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I have looked at many pages of archives. There are not many specifically relevant discussions. I think we should wait for some UK editors to contribute to this. I am sure there will then be some reassurance that there is no confusion in full stop usage. -Sb2001 (talk) 20:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

[4] EEng 21:08, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, User:EEng: I have reviewed this link. There are some good points raised by both sides. I do not see why it would be unreasonable to allow the use of the full stop, instead of effectively discouraging its usage when it is often said to be incorrect for 12-hour time. I am sure everyone will understand that 4.30pm is a time. -Sb2001 (talk) 12:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

It's not unreasonable, it's just that so far it appears to be a change you'd like because you'd like it. In general I'm against MOS overprescribing – editors on any given article should work out little choices like this for themselves. But I'm also in favor of not fixing that which isn't broken. What problem are you solving here? Huge amounts of time have been spent tinkering with the rules on units of measure (choice of units, which is primary/secondary, how to present conversions) because they've been a chronic source of trouble and there's real benefit to putting an end to such conflict. In contrast, in ten years I can't think of a single dispute, ever, over colon-or-dot for time of day. I can only vaguely remember one or two times I've ever run into an article that used dot, and there was no trouble over regularizing those to colon.

I have no doubt that, as you say, there were good arguments on both sides in past discussions. But in the end the consensus was for colon only, and so far everyone seems perfectly happy with that – except you. EEng 14:46, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

"4.30pm" is not fine outside of UK. I'm in US, and that looks like some unknown mistake to me -- info loss. Per MOS:COMMONALITY, we should use common spelling/styles where available -- that's ":". --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• My concern is that using the dot will cause actual confusion for US readers... if a US reader sees "4.25" he may think it is a decimal reference, meaning 4 and 25/100 (or four and a quarter) - which would be "4:15". However, UK readers will not be confused if they see "4:25"... she may think the colon stylistically archaic, but at least she knows what it actually means. The potential for confusion (and even harm) outweighs any ENVAR arguments here. Blueboar (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
• Maybe it is a good idea to avoid 12-hour time then, and use your beloved colon for 24-hour instead. I have spoken with some people I know in the US (British), and they have informed me that whilst people do generally use the colon, you will occasionally encounter the full stop being used. They write it, and NOBODY has had any problem understanding it. -Sb2001 (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

It may be useful to note that hotels in the UK provide information for breakfasts etc with a full stop being used. I am staying in one at the moment. It employs that style. Surely they would not do something which confuses some people. After all, the majority (?) of their guests are not from the UK.-Sb2001 (talk) 23:43, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Interpersonal venting, collapsed.

I'll be blunt. We already went through this on your fuss about eg vs. e.g. You have 325 article-space edits total, most of them to enforce the personal formatting preoccupations you list on your user page [5]. As I'm exemplifying right now, the project takes unkindly to editors who suck away others' time jawboning such minutiae while giving no evidence they intend to contribute anything substantive. Get some editing experience and get some perspective. EEng 00:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC) I'm staying here next week. Click on "Feeling hungry?". It says "Breakfast served - 6:30AM - 10:30AM. Restaurant open - 6:00PM - 10:00PM". Give it a rest. This is clearly not an ENGVAR issue. 86.160.123.155 (talk) 07:56, 2 July 2017 (UTC) I am positively shocked by the level of rudeness exhibited by certain editors on this page. 'Give it a rest' is beyond unnecessary. If anyone said that to me in real life, they would be shouted down immediately. If it had been said in a meeting, they would be asked to leave and refrain from returning. I am a person. You may all be robotic, but I have these things called feelings. User:EEng: I also edit on an IP address on a different device. I edit all sorts of things, including syntactical inaccuracies, removing dead links, improving article consistency, adding to the article's main body and checking for errors/impurities in formatting. Things I have brought to this talk page have been actual issues. They have inconvenienced me and OTHER EDITORS. I have brought two things here. Do not try to make out that I am 'suck[ing] away others' time'. My listed edit count may not be as high as yours because - shock, horror - I have a life outside of this network. I am a full-time student. (Please do not suggest I have an inaccurate perspective of the education system User:109.158.111.186. I witness it EVERY DAY.) What I have learnt from using Wikipedia more often than formerly recently is that people believe they can hide behind an internet persona. Whether it be accusing others of jingoism (!), or congregating en masse to force certain editors to drop their PERFECTLY INNOCENTLY SUGGESTED ideas. I do not bring things here for personal benefit, believe it or not. I do it for the benefit of others. I find it totally outrageous that you are unable to see this. Look through all of my contributions to this talk page. Tell me I am selfish. I will continue to contribute to Wikipedia. This ridiculous behaviour designed to push other away will not work on me. I will edit in the same way, contributing useful information, improving consistency etc whenever I have time, and wherever I see that I could make a positive difference. Finally, I stand by EVERYTHING I have written on this thread. I will continue to write properly. If you want to undo everything, good for you. I wish you luck. EEng, thank you. You have made it clear I need to carry out more edits. That is exactly what I will do. Do not think of telling me not to write this sort of thing here. It is relevant. -Sb2001 (talk) 13:49, 2 July 2017 (UTC) I hope you do continue to edit... however, I also hope that you will learn to accept that you won't win every debate you engage in. We operate by consensus. Continuing to push for a change when it is clear that consensus is against you is considered disruptive, and can result in being blocked from further editing. I think you want to avoid that... so I hope you will learn to accept defeat gracefully. Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2017 (UTC) When you call other editors robotic and ridiculous, any complaint you have over "Give it a rest" kind of falls flat. If you were in a meeting and you were the only person pushing a particular point despite everyone else at the meeting opposing it and providing evidence that contradicted your view, I don't think you could blame them for saying it's time to move on. 86.160.123.155 (talk) 14:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC) User:86.160.123.155: I am talking about the manner in which you express your unwillingness to listen to my points. Very few people commented on this thread. I was effectively being told to go away after just several hours. The way you all were firing comments at me was rather unpleasant. And I described the general BEHAVIOUR of several editors as ridiculous. Which it was. Please actually read my initial statement. It was a gentle query to ask whether a certain line could be dropped. How it escalated to what I was subjected to is totally beyond me. I posted this comment at 4.15pm UK time. Just to confuse.-Sb2001 (talk) 15:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC) We did read your initial statement. It said The problem here is that UK standard is to use a full stop for 12-hour time. I have yet to find a UK style guide which advises otherwise... That turns out to be completely wrong, yet you keep pressing the matter. If this were a substantive content issue e.g. whether a certain minor scandal should or shouldn't be included in a bio, that would be one thing. But you're arguing about a colon. I don't blame you for raising the question, but I do blame you for pressing it long after it's clear you're getting no traction. Like Blueboar I hope you continue to edit, but you need to take a less aggressive attitude until you've been socialized to how things are done around here. You should not be alternating between logged-in editing and IP editing. That will get you into deep trouble sooner or later, and could lead to a block. EEng 16:03, 2 July 2017 (UTC) OK, standard in the UK in the sense that it is the norm. I am taken aback that you are accusing me of being aggressive. I use an IP address as I cannot log in on certain network computers. And please do not tell me I was arguing. I was responding to the points raised. Wikipedia clearly does not welcome the views of all, only long-established editors. That is such a shame. Once again, I stand by everything I said. I shared personal experiences, which were said to be untrue. I made many valid points, which were dismissed. This did not require change. There ar so many instances of the full stop already. How things are done is surely not 'shout the smaller person down until they give up'. That is - I am afraid - what I have seen. -Sb2001 (talk) 16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC) All are welcome, if they're clueful. Five named editors and two IPs have told you they see this as a nonissue, yet you continue to press. That's not clueful. What you're doing is reminiscent of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers/Archive_150#Superscript_Ordinals, and the regulars here, who put lots of time into resolving real problems, have little tolerance for it. EEng 17:36, 2 July 2017 (UTC) P.S. Could you please learn to indent your posts properly? (better?)As I have said, I was responding to the points raised. Point-counterpoint: you are taught to do it when you are about 10. Please do not try to pass my query off as not a real problem. Quite unnecessary. I brought it here to find out A/ more about it, B/ whether it was 'set in stone' and C/ whether it had affected anyone else. I know that several of my edits have been changed because of the MoS and have been unsure why. I was informed of MOS:TIME and had a look. Nearly every British article I come across (possibly due to the sorts of things for which I look) uses a full stop. Do not tell me this is not a fact. It is. I have given up on the idea that the offending sentence will be dropped, however I do still think there is need to consider the sorts of responses a civilised and well-considered request prompts. You may have noticed that - since the e.g./eg discussion - I have made several contributions to help others. Yes, sometimes I sympathise with you - non-issues can be pushed (which v that, for a start...). I do not like the fact that the MoS seems to be written largely for the benefit of those in the US (and if it is not already, people try to change it). I do not see why articles for certain countries cannot use the national style. Otherwise there is a tendency for little consistency, ie the MoS' style starts it, and the national norm finishes because it has been added after the 'warden' has come to check it. -Sb2001 (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• Concur this is not an ENGVAR matter. It's a style variant we do not need to entertain. It adds nothing useful but has an enormous potential for confusion. The claim that it's a norm and that UK style guides agree on it has been refuted. The "4:01 p.m." (or "4:01 pm") format MOS and MOSNUM already recommend is universally recognizable. Finally, ENGVAR only applies to situations in which which MOS and WP have no reason to prefer one version over the other, e.g. neighbor versus neighbour, and one better fits the subject matter due to strong national ties. In a case like this, there is a very clear reason (the ambiguity of "4.01") for us to prefer one over the other, so ENGVAR cannot apply, even if the "it's a British norm" argument were not bogus. (As with several other things under discussion lately, like "eg" for "e.g.", and lowercasing acronyms to things like "plc", it's something observable and common primarily in British news and government writing (styles WP does not use) but it is not consistently used, in any dialect, so who cares?

  PS: Both the UCL and gov.uk links are to house style guides for use internally (and specifically for web pages) only by those entities; they are not guidance for the public, but for employees of specific entities, and are specific to that particular insider context. If you've ever worked on an in-house style book, you know how disconnected from external concerns such things are, and that they are products not of expertise but of political and personal wrangling in committees full of people who don't know what they're talking about, and principally motivated by marketing concerns.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

• I favour the colon for 12- and 24-hour times. It's readily apprehendable by everyone; it's not an engvar issue; and it avoids potential confusion with a decimal point. Tony (talk) 13:28, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
• Update: Date and time notation in the United Kingdom now has a bunch of additional sourcing. Styles vary, and the MoS-prescribed "1:45 p.m." and "13:45" are well-attested in British usage, though "1.45 p.m.", "1.45 pm", "1.45pm" and "13.45" are as well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:47, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
  PS: Decimal time systems do exist, and some of them use the "." in this manner. Not sure that really equates to a confusion potential (how many readers use decimal time, and how many of those expect to see it used on a website like ours?). But still, it is "a thing".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Well I for one regularly use it. If I've worked from 09:30 to 11:15 on a particular project that is 01:45 which is booked on my time sheet as 1.75hrs. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Using parenthetical disambiguation

Which article title format is correct according to the Manual of Style?: Party government XXXX–XX or Party government (XXXX–XXXX). Below are several of the articles I am thinking of moving:

• Whig government 1714–17
  • Whig government (1714–1717)
• Tory government 1783–1801
  • Tory government (1783–1801)
• Canningite government 1827–28
  • Canningite government (1827–1828)
• Liberal government 1859–66
  • Liberal government (1859–1866)
• Conservative government 1866–68
  • Conservative government (1866–1868)
• Unionist government 1895–1905
  • Unionist government (1895–1905)

One user has put it to me that the "Party government XXXX–XX" format is a natural disambiguation, but I'm not so sure.--Nevé–selbert 18:45, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about parens vs. no parens, but for a long time MOS expressed a general preference (not specifically in article titles) for ranges of the form XXXX–XX. This was changed a year or two ago to a preference for XXXX–XXXX. I think this may be part of the issue. EEng 19:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

One reason for that change is that 2004-05 is ambiguous: does it mean the two year range 2004–2005, or does it mean May 2004? The hyphen vs en-dash can disambiguate it (hyphen for YYYY-MM, en-dash for YYYY–YY) but that can be hard to see and is not always used consistently. But I'm not convinced the parens are needed here. We use titles of the form "Title (disambiguator)" only when there is a good reason not to choose a different title that would be unambiguous without the disambiguator. And here the year range is an important part of the title. It's not like the real title should be "Tory government" and you're only adding the 1783–1801 to disambiguate it from all those other topics whose title is also "Tory government": the actual title of the article and not just the disambiguator should have the year range. So I would prefer the current title, "Tory government 1783–1801". But the two-digit years should be changed to four-digit years. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:16, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I can understand both. My preference is for XXXX-XX, but I am unsure of whether it is a good idea to ignore a style which goes against the MoS. This creates inconsistency: if you see it, change it. -Sb2001 (talk) 19:33, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

It would be permissible to use commas in these constructions, e.g. Whig government, 1714–1717. An argument could be made that moving many pages to this format away from parenthetic will better comply with both WP:NATURAL and WP:CONCISE. This would apply to any case in which what is presently in parentheses is not a clarifying classifier (as in "Robert Smith (biologist)") but a scope-narrower indicating a WP:SUMMARY/WP:SPLIT situation of a single topic being broken up over many articles. But this is all really a discussion for WT:AT; this isn't MoS material. PS: Yes, the primary reason for moving from "1714–17" to "1714–1717" was date amibiguity is some ranges, but it's also just a readability matter. It is much easier to parse "1714–1717" than "1714–17" as a date range without even having to stop and think about it. We made the same move much earlier for page number ranges in citations, for the same reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Note... regarding the question of whether to have parens or not... according to our WP:Article titles policy, both parenthetical and non-parenthetical disambiguations are allowed. The policy lists several disambiguation methods, and leaves the determination of which method is best up to editorial opinion (to be determined by project consensus - or even local article level consensus). This is one of those areas where we intentionally chose NOT to set firm wiki wide "rules", but have allowed editors latitude to do what they would prefer. I would agree with SMC as to the date presentation. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

whether to have parens: Parens should be treasured. When you're older you'll appreciate all they've done for you. EEng 12:22, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Overcapitalization of "vol." and "no."

Presently we have text in WP:MOS that says "write volume two, number seven or Vol. 2, No. 7." This appears to conflict with common practice, and with MOS:CAPS. Under no other circumstance would we permit capitalization of a common noun simply because it's abbreviated (and "no." is an abbreviation, of Latin numero, which is not written Numero; see also "etc.", "cf.", "e.g.", and a zillion other Latinisms in English, which are uniformly lowercased). I would suggest that this be changed to "vol. 2, no. 7".

Regardless, this section should probably also be moved to MOS:NUM, and only summarized here in compressed form. MOS:NUM doesn't have anything on this, but it is the obvious place to look, and we're trying to move nit-picks out of the main MOS to the, well, nit-pick pages.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:06, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Is it true to say that most academic reference styles don't use Vol and No at all any more, but just use the order of the two numbers, typically separated by a colon or comma, to denote those? Just sayin'. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Sure, and our citation templates also do this, but this has nothing to do with usage in prose. We should not be advocating overcapitalization of abbreviations of non-proper nouns. It's just baseless and without any apparent precedent. What I think has happened here is that someone was thinking of how something like this is presented in subtitle style on a book cover or frontispiece ("My Adventures with in Elbonia, Vol. II") and has overgeneralized.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I would always favour 'No' and 'Vol'. Caps seems to be well-established, and recommended by most style guides I see. I am not sure of the reasoning, though. Maybe it has something to do with their origins in titles. There is possibly an argument for dropping them (as well as the full stops!).-Sb2001 (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. If we have to use those abbreviations, I think they should be capitalised. Would also be happy to lose the full stops. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Fullstops are grammatically correct for abbreviations, and are especially useful when as in this case the abbreviations could easily be mistaken for words.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:42, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne: Americans seem to dot everything in sight, though there's a glacial move toward easing up on that count. Outside North America, it is usual to dot an abbreviation that doesn't end with the last letter of the expanded version, but not otherwise ("St", "Dr"). Acronyms and initialisms are now not normally dotted. I think "No." and "Vol." should be dotted in references; but conventional "22(3)" is fine if consistently used in a reference list. Tony (talk) 06:04, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Unproductive circular debate about whether evidence is needed

"I would always favour..." – on what basis? "I am not sure of the reasoning, though." Okay, so just WP:ILIKEIT. "I would tend to agree" – Okay, you also just like it and don't have a rationale? "I think they should be capitalised" – on what basis? This is not a discussion about ".", either. We all already know that some indeterminate percentage of British and Commonwealth editors prefer dropping a bunch of punctuation, and other editors from the same places disagree, while editors everywhere else disagree, so that discussion is not going to reopen or go anywhere if it did.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC) User:SMcCandlish: Please do not try to patronise me. I think we should avoid this discussion. It is turning aggressive, and not on my part. I will not partake in a discussion when the other editor's words and dismissive attitude affect my work in real life. Yes, they act as a distraction - they are harsh and somewhat personal. I have been thinking about what you - and other editors - have said in response to my innocent and somewhat friendly contributions all day. I cannot deal with that. I contributed here to be helpful, and add my opinion. I will refrain from partaking in your discussions in future. I will not let WP have an effect on my real emotional state. Well done. -Sb2001 (talk) 16:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC) No idea what "aggressive" stuff you're referring to. I'm not patronizing anyone, I'm simply expecting an actual rationale to be provided, not just more WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IKNOWIT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC) Stanton, in your opening statement you say "This appears to conflict with common practice". I wonder could you elucidate what you mean by "common practice" here? Or perhaps there are prescriptive guidelines for usage, in such publications as The Chicago Manual of Style? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC) I mean that it is not typically done; "[not] common practice" seems pretty clear to me. :-) This is not an article and we need not provide source citations to come to consensus. But to look at a few anyway: Chicago Manual of Style has "vol." (which means Turabian and Scientific Style and Format should as well, since they follow it on such matters closely, but someone can go look if they want.) MLA Handbook has "vol." AMA Manual of Style (the medical AMA) has "vol" (its citation style eschews "." after an abbreviation in cites), except after a period (full stop), where it is necessarily "Vol". The Red Book (legal), AP Stylebook, New Century Handbook, AMA Handbook of Business Writing (the marketing AMA), and Bedford Handbook do not address this directly, but certainly do not advise capitalizing abbreviations of common nouns, and provide examples of them in lower case. ACS Style Guide uses "Vol." but only in formatted reference citations; that cite style seems to capitalize all cite elements. Publication Manual of the APA doesn't use "vol." or "Vol.", just a bold number (in formatted citations; they don't address use in running prose, but I see no evidence of support for upper-casing abbreviations of common nouns). The APA pattern is common in other academic/scientific fields' guides; the issue doesn't arise in them because they just use numbers. However, if you examine them closely, they also use "vols." to indicate multi-volume works, and this is lower-case in the instances I've found so far (e.g., in APA and in MHRA Style Guide, as well as in CMoS). All I've got time for right now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC) Ah yes, those style guides again. What I meant was - what's that corpus of English usage on which you base your conclusion about "common practice"? Or is it just your own personal subjective view of common practice. You know, along the lines of WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IKNOWIT? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:37, 6 July 2017 (UTC) My assessment is based on style guides; I have the rules of many of them on many points memorized, and am willing to cite from them directly when others request it, as above. There's no ILIKEIT or IKNOWIT in this, and it's pretty silly for you to make that claim right after I dumped a bunch of reliable sources in your lap. Your turn: provide sources in favor of "Vol.", not inside a title or subtitle, not after a stop/period, and not just in formatted citations, but in mid-sentence in running text. Good luck.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC) I'm not sure that any number of prescriptive style guides, many of which may have parts simply copied from other earlier style guides, always translate into "common practice". Much in the same way that the content of the MoS guide for Wikipedia doesn't always translate into "common practice" here. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC) p.s. please don't dump things in my lap. Thanks. @Martinevans123: An "I'm dismissive of style guides" argument equates to "I don't have an argument" here, since what MoS says is largely based on what other style guides are doing (with priority generally in decreasing order from academic through general-audience to journalism and marketing guides). @Sb2001: You wrote: "Caps seems to be ... recommended by most style guides I see". Really? I've cited plenty that don't. I ask the same of both of you, again: Please provide sources in favor of "Vol[.]" and "No[.], not inside a title or subtitle, not after a full stop (period), and not just in formatted citations, but in mid-sentence in running text. Let's count them and compare both their number and their reputability to what I've cited already and continue to cite below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC) An assertion that "style guides don't dictate real usage" equates to a "style guides don't dictate real usage" assertion. Nothing more, nothing less. By all means demonstrate the corpus of written English on which your assertion of "common practice" rests. Not what "common style guides" dictate, but what common usage demonstrates. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) My sources trump your lack of sources and your handwaving at the sources provided. Cf. the fallacy of moving the goalposts (a.k.a. raising the bar): an argument in which the evidence presented, in response or upon demand, is dismissed and some other sort of, or greater volume of, evidence is demanded; it's a variation on shifting the burden of proof.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:58, 12 July 2017 (UTC) PS: I'm collapse-boxing this sub-thread since its continuance isn't going to be of interest to anyone but you and me, if that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:37, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

• LowercaseWhat David Eppstein and Trappist said (below). And I'm all for moving as much detail from main MOS into subsidiary pages; the main MOS is grossly bloated for what ought to be its function, which is to give the high points for a newcomer who cares, but doesn't care that much. EEng 23:49, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Lowercase: As the first sentence of MOS:CAPS says, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." Let's stick with that philosophy. It might be good to put the advice into MOS:CAPS or WP:CITE rather than (or in addition to) MOS:NUM. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Mixed. Capitalized when it is in the middle of a title-case title: "The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. III: Sorting and Searching", or when it's after a full stop (as used to separate things in Citation Style 1, except that CS1 doesn't use the Vol. abbreviation). Lowercase in other situations, including in the example sentence at the start of this discussion section. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:13, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

  cs1: {{cite magazine |title=Title |magazine=Magazine |volume=75 |issue=11}}

  "Title". Magazine. Vol. 75, no. 11.

  lower case numero because there isn't a terminal stop after volume number.

  cs2: {{citation |title=Title |magazine=Magazine |volume=75 |issue=11}}

  "Title", Magazine, vol. 75, no. 11

  —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:35, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed it can be capitalized when used in a subtitle like "Vol. III: Sorting and Searching"; that's already covered by MOS:TITLES at least in theory if not in specifics. No objection to explicitly clarifying that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

If the idea is to follow a full stop with an uppercase letter, doesn't that cs1 example break down a bit when "{{cite magazine |title=Title |magazine=Magazine |volume=75 |issue=11 |page=93}}" becomes ""Title". Magazine. Vol. 75, no. 11. p. 93."? —BarrelProof (talk) 02:30, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS and MOSNUM cover the body of the article, infoboxes, etc. If you want to discuss citations, please discuss at WT:Citing sources. If you don't want to discuss citations in general, only the ones produced by Citation Style, please discuss at Help talk:Citation style 1. Jc3s5h (talk) 04:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

How does the example break down? We would expect "... blah blah blah. Vol. 1, blah blah blah ..." to have "Vol." because it follows "." as terminal punctuation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

• Grammar point The phrases "Volume 3" or "Page 74" are proper noun phrases in English – for example, they cannot be preceded by a determiner (you say Look at Volume 3 not Look at the volume 3). The equivalent common noun phrase uses the ordinal (Look at the third volume). Traditionally, proper noun phrases are capitalized, although the modern trend seems to be to de-capitalize almost everything except proper nouns and noun phrases used purely as labels rather than for any descriptive element. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Does that point apply if we have abbreviations? And to my eye Page 74 looks stranger than Volume 3. But that's just my unsourced subjective UK opinion, of course. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: it may be an age thing (I'm British too). I was only making a grammar point. There's never been a 1:1 relationship between being grammatically a proper noun or noun phrase and being capitalized. Once there was much more capitalization (see e.g. the 1662 Prayer Book); then there was a trend to capitalize only proper nouns and noun phrases (I was taught to write "in Chapter 3" or "on Page 4" as opposed to "in this chapter" or "on the following page", and I taught the postgraduate students I supervised to do the same in their theses); now there's a trend to decapitalize further. Who am I to stand against such trends? :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 14:36, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy to admit that the 1662 Prayer Book was a little before my time. :-) Martinevans123 (talk) 15:33, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

That's just one philosophical approach to the meaning of "proper name" and it's highly dependent on language (some languages would use a definite article there, but it doesn't change the underlying nature of the term "vol."/"volume" or its meaning in any way). For purposes of style discussions. "proper name" and "proper noun" are essentially interchangeable. The "Mixed" argument presented by Eppstein and others is cognizant of this; the "Vol." in The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. III: Sorting and Searching should be capitalized because it's part of the title (or subtitle, more specifically), and thus part of a proper name (proper noun phrase). Lots of things do not take a definite article in English by convention, and are not capitalized, even if some philosophers want to classify them as proper names. E.g., "entry 2349499393 in my database", "See example [number] 32 in the list below", "I cracked thoracic vertebra 4" (or "I cracked vertebra T-4"), "at 6 o'clock", etc., etc. Most of these can be replaced by ordinals, at least when given numeric designations; that breaks when they aren't ("See example F in the list below"). No doubt some would write "Example F", but few would do this upper-casing to all the examples here. It's no longer conventional.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Digression that is mostly miscommunication

Some languages, eh? I suggest we stick to English for now. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC) Missed the point. If different languages treat the same construction with or without a definite article, then the presence or absence of the definite article cannot logically determine whether something is or is not a proper name, since that concept isn't language-dependent (Pacific Ocean and Stephen Hawking do not magically become common nouns in some languages, and milk and eggs don't transmogrify into proper names in any, either). You'll find article variance across many languages (e.g., "death", "life", "war", and the like as concepts, states, or processes are without an article in English, but require a definite one in many languages: der Tod, la vida, le guerre. Same goes for presence or absence of capitalization; e.g., all nouns are capitalized in German, but Katze ('cat') is not a proper name (or proper noun) in German any more than "cat" is in English. PS: Your renewed habit of stalking the MoS talk pages to pop in with sarcastic, non sequitur one-liners, to show us how clever and above it all you feel, is not helpful.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC) I'm sorry if you think commenting on a topic of interest to me for a page that is on my Watchlist is "stalking". I'm sorry if you think "one-liners" are in some way worthless. I'm very sorry is you feel any of my genuine observations here are "sarcastic". I certainly don't feel "clever and above it all"; perhaps you know better than me how I feel? I have avoided making any personal attacks against you and I'd respectfully request that you do the same for me. But I'm not sorry to reiterate my point that I think your observations about other languages here have rather limited value. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2017 (UTC) p.s. your reply was not helpful. Re: "I think your observations about other languages here have rather limited value" – Then you still didn't understand the point; I suppose I must have explained it poorly, but the discussion has moved past this and I don't think a re-re-explanation is needed. (As for the side matter: I'm not raising any issue with your normal engagement in these discussions, just your periodic habit of dotting them with one-liner snarky commentary that appears to be done for your own amusement and which doesn't further the discussion. These tend to come in bunches, e.g. this other recent "gadfly" comment.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:55, 9 July 2017 (UTC) You say If different languages treat the same construction with or without a definite article, then the presence or absence of the definite article cannot logically determine whether something is or is not a proper name, since that concept isn't language-dependent.. But I think your argument is fallacious, as it denies the possibility that the logic that can be applied to rules of grammatical construction can be language dependent. Just because different rules apply in other languages, these don't invalidate general rules that may apply to written English. We wouldn't expect the grammatical rules that apply to written Jaopanese, or Hindi, or Telugu, to apply to English, would we? And please don't characterise my contributions as those that one might expect from an insect in the order Diptera. Please do not feel obliged to reply. Just look for a chowrie. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:30, 10 July 2017 (UTC) Very very definitely not getting it. The very fact that grammar (broadly defined) is language-dependent is central to the problem of trying to pin a broad philosophical concept on an accident of English orthography in particular. I'm not saying anything at all about the grammatical nature of proper nouns and adjectives in English, much less applying it to other languages; we already know that this varies by language; español in Spanish itself is lower-case. Which again comes right back to the central point: if things like capitalization and use or absence of a definite article are not cross-linguistic constants, then they cannot be used to determine a cross-cultural philosophical absolute like "what really is a proper name?"  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:10, 11 July 2017 (UTC) Whether or not there is a valid notion of "proper noun" that transcends individual languages is an interesting question. But I don't see how the answer to this question informs our knowledge of how words should be capitalised in English. The way in which some specific languages use capital letters might throw light on capitalisation in English, I guess, at least from a historical perspective. But this doesn't seem to be your point. If another editor can explain your argument to me in a way I could understand I'd be more than happy to hear from them. As no-one else has taken issue with you over this point, I can only assume they don't see it as important, assuming they do understand what you mean. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:41, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

• Mixed as with David Eppstein's comments. I think the proper nouns can be used for the citation section and for the title if it is part of the title as with the Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching, but that when referring to "vol. 3, no. 15" in the text body, "volume 3, issue number 15", "part 2", or "chapter 5", it can be lower-case. This is comparable to cite episode template where they use "Season 1. Episode 15". in the citation but refer to season 1, episode 15 in the text body. With Episode, however, it's in capitals because the cite episode can be done without specifying a season number for television series that has a single season. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 16:24, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

• Mixed: Citations, including parenthetical references, should continue to follow WP:CITESTYLE/WP:CITEVAR. I do not believe there is a compelling reason to have a policy for citations that would force capitalization in citations to go against the citation style being used (unlike WP:IBID). For example, the Bluebook citation style used by the US legal profession doesn't use a full stop until the end of a citation, but uses capitalized "No." in certain cases where the docket number of a case needs to be included, eg. "Matal v. Tam, No. 15-1293, slip op. at 5 (June 19, 2017)." As for prose, they should be capitalized as part of a title or at the start of a sentence. If used as a proper noun, except as a title or in a quote, then the word should be written, eg. "Smith's writing in volume 3 was regarded by his contemporary Johnson as 'abysmal.'" In other cases, they should be lowercase. AHeneen (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

• Update: Additional sources (UK, Australian, Canadian):

Most are in favor of "vol." and "no.", but there are a few exceptions:

.uk New Hart's Rules (2nd ed.) gives "no.", "nos.", "vol.", "vols.", with that punctuation, though it advises avoiding them entirely in reference citations. The original edition (under various titles) is consistent with this on "vol.", but eschews "no." or "No." entirely (except as part of a proper name such as a work title). It recommends the № symbol only for French. Its sections "Lower case abbreviations" and "e.g., i.e., etc." (which covers similar constructions like "viz." and "et al.") both consistently give Latin and bibliographic abbreviations in lower-case form, with points; there is no basis on which to suppose this would not apply to "no.", which is just one of numerous such cases. Fowler's (4th ed.) has no entry for either; it inconsistently uses both "vols." and "vols" on the same bibliography page (and exhibits other editing problems throughout). This edition cites New Hart's (2nd) in hundreds of entries, so a resonable presumption is that it would follow that work on these matters. Its advice on the full point is that it should be retained when ambiguity would result from dropping it (clearly the case with "no."/"No."), and that a consistent approach should be used (thus, if using "no.", then also use "nos.", "vol.", "vols."). The previous edition likewise lacks entries, but consistently uses "vols." in its own bibliography. Its advice on full points and consistency matches that of the current edition. The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors gives both "No." and "no.", plus "vols." (not "Vols.), without addressing "vol." Does not advise use of the № symbol except in French material. .au The Australian government's Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers uses "no.", except when the string appears in a proper name such as the title of a work (an exception all style guides would make if they bothered commenting on it). .ca Editing Canadian English by the Editors' Association of Canada uses "no." and "vol." (except where capitalization would normally occur, e.g. at the beginning of a sentence). The government publication The Canadian Style uses "vol." and "vols." but "No." and "Nos." The rationale offered for this is that "No." is a symbol. However, that applies to №, the actual numero sign. The "no." form is a normal abbreviated Latinism, of the same character as "etc." and "q.v." We similarly distinguish et ... Latin abbreviations like "etc." and "et al." from the et symbol, & (ampersand). A Canadian Writer's Reference cites the government guide as a source and follows it on most matters, including this one. Other The UPI Stylebook uses "No." No rationale is offered, and its section on abbreviations and acronyms is internally inconsistent.<ref>Cook, Bruce; Marting, Harold; Editors of the UPI (2004). The UPI Stylebook and Guide to Newswriting (4th ed.). United Press International/Capital Books. pp. 4, 117. {{cite book}}: |author3= has generic name (help) References

The combined two blocks of sourcing I've provided here (plus that done yesterday in the footnotes at Exempli gratia) indicate an overwhelming preference for "vol." and "no." (lower-case and punctuated) in professionally published material today, regardless of English variety. MoS should follow this practice; it is not just better supported in the real world, it's also more consistent with our treatment of other abbreviations and other Latinisms, and is less ambiguous (at least in the case of "no"/"No"). Style guides in favor of "No." and "Vol." are mostly one of: only addressing a particular citation format, not recent, of low to middling reputability, or some particular entity's house style. Those in favor of "No", "no", "vol", etc., are primarily the house stylesheets of particular news publishers. The main guides for writing fairly formal English – Chicago Manual and New Hart's, on which MoS is largely built – both use "no.", "nos.", "vol.", "vols."

Again, this would not lowercase either abbreviation in a) the title of a work or b) a citation in a format that capitalizes either or both. These are the concerns the Mixed comments above have in mind.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Related matters: dropping the dot, and MOSABBR

Some side issues: Despite MOS and WP:MOSABBR discouraging dropping of dots (points, periods, stops) from abbreviations except where utterly conventional and non-ambiguous (e.g., "Dr Smith" and "St Stephen" in British ENGVAR), I keep running into "No 1" in various articles (e.g. here). This is intolerably ambiguous, especially for users of screen readers, though it produces confusing gibberish for everyone, like "No of discs" in infoboxes [6]. Worst of all (so far): table header labeled "No" [7]. Also saw a "No total" in one of these. We need to explicitly state that No. (whether we keep that capitalized or not) must retain the dot and is not an ENGVAR matter (sourcing above demonstrates this; both New Hart's and Fowler's retain the dots).

Second, neither vol. nor no. appear at MOS:ABBR but of course should be listed, since we use them frequently. I'll wait until the discussion above concludes before adding them, so that what gets added doesn't have to be changed later.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:55, 11 July 2017 (UTC) PS: Ha ha, I rickrolled Wikipedia.

If you keep running into No 1 in various articles, why don't you try frequenting articles where there are people around? Then you wouldn't be so lonely. At Christmastime, try the No L articles. EEng 03:09, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

LOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:36, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I do the best I can with the material available. EEng 03:40, 11 July 2017 (UTC)`

As a screen reader user, it doesn't really bother me that much that the full stop is omitted. "no." is read as no with a pause after it, rather than "number", and all educated blind people should know what "no." stands for. (IIRC the local talking book catalogue says things like "Book no. 12345".) Even without the full stop I can figure out what's meant. Yes it's less ambiguous and more correct with the full stop, but I've never thought about it before as an accessibility issue. Graham87 07:38, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Using plc (not PLC) after British company names

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Widely used abbreviation for public limited company

Someone recently changed MOS:ABBR to permit "plc", in imitation of the preference of particular companies. This appears to conflict with: a) WP:MOS on treatment of acronyms, b) the rest of MOS:ABBR on treatment of acronyms, c) MOS:TM on not emulating trademark stylization, and d) MOS:CAPS on treatment of acronyms.

Cleanup work

Resolved

Moved to user talk and resolved there already.

The change mentioned above was made by Reidgreg whose editing pattern I'm unaware of. The only other support for it appears to be from Sb2001 who has been making a number of anti-MoS edits across a lot of Wikipedia articles (like changing "4:01 p.m." or "4:01 pm" to "4.01pm", against MOS:NUM, and changing "e.g." to "eg" which is against MOS:ABBR and after a proposal to permit "eg" failed recently). This unproductive editing is based on a little style manifesto at User:Sb2001#Frequently changed. This user has fewer than 400 mainspace edits, most of it style futzing (though some in the MoS-correct direction, plus some actual content work). This "I'm new here and my mission is to impose my idea of British style on Wikipedia" raises WP:NOTHERE and WP:NOT#ADVOCACY or WP:GREATWRONGS concerns, which I've raised in user talk [8], with a {{uw-mos1}}. It will take a long time to track down and revert the MoS-noncompliant style twiddling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Totally irrelevant to this discussion. Regardless, eg was implemented BEFORE the discussion and BEFORE I was aware of the MoS guidelines. Please avoid personal attacks aimed at one editor. Do not waste my time when you don't even respond to INNOCENT questions in your talk page. I will change my user page to avoid this issue. I will respond to your personal comments on the relevant discussion on my talk page.user:SMcCandlish-Sb2001 (talk) 11:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC) I'll respond to this and your later post below in one reply.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:26, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Stanton, why do you characterize this as a "British style" problem? I must admit that, until I consulted wiktionary, I had quite forgotten about Philip Roth's use of that work in Portnoy's Complaint. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:01, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Sb2001 has been [mis]characterizing it as British style; this is detailed at the MOS:ABBR thread (including my counter-evidence of numerous British businesses using PLC in the top two pages of Google search results constrained to the UK). My own characterization of plc is as a style variance that is largely used as a branding technique to maximize the brand name and minimize other elements. Reidgreg's own position appears to concur with this, using a "some companies use 'plc', some use 'PLC'" argument. The conflict with other guidelines has arisen because Reidgreg made a change that amounts to "mimic the logo" when we have a long history of "do not mimic logos". The discussion should be centralized, which is why I posted a pointer to ongoing longer discussion about it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:26, 5 July 2017 (UTC) User:SMcCandlish: I have addressed your concerns at my talk page. I am disappointed in your somewhat hurtful tone here, though. It seems you want to create a bad image of me for some reason. I will not get into that, though. -Sb2001 (talk) 15:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Your posts to my talk page and yours post-date my posts to these guideline talk pages; I will get to them in short order. Above, I'm identifying a pattern of "change articles away from MoS to how I think they should be" editing, and a user page laying out a plan for continuing to do so. I don't have any control over image (and don't worry about it; "someone didn't comply with MoS for a few days" is not going to stick in anyone's mind). This has simply been an ongoing issue other MoS editors should be aware of, since it's not likely that one editor alone will have the time to bring the material back into compliance with the guidelines. I spent over two hours on it yesterday, and only got through a small fraction of it; the edits have to be reviewed one at a time, line by line, to track down all the eg and 4.01pm stuff (and there may be other such changes). It's also not relevant to the WT:MOSABBR thread resolution, which is why I did not raise that issue over there, only here. If the circumstances have changed since yesterday, great, and I suppose the matter is resolved. In retrospect, a subheading would have made it clearer that the cleanup-work topic for this page and the guidelines-conflict topic for the WT:MOSABBR page are not the same topic, just situationally connected; I've now added one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:26, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Maybe instead of spending your time going through one editor's contributions, you should think about everyone else who does it without knowing about the MoS' instructions. Do not try to make out that my five edits changing e.g. to eg last year are going to be that much of a problem to change (how about you say for example instead?). You are trying to suggest that all of my edits are going to be bad. That is not right. You do not 'have' to do this. Because ... shock, horror ... I do not go around trying to go against the advice of the MoS. As you will have seen from your two hours yesterday. You are trying to suggest that my edits are all disruptive. You do not take note of my opinions. I do not like that. It is not a reasonable attitude. The user page has been changed. Because of your abusive and aggressive tone. Even your tone in the above comment is harsh and unforgiving. WP:AGF. I am sure you are aware of it. Maybe some consideration is necessary. I wonder if you would have this attitude if you were actually talking to me face-to-face. 'including my counter-evidence of numerous British businesses using PLC in the top two pages of Google search results constrained to the UK'. Please show me where you left your counter-evidence. You will not take my extensive knowledge on the topic, you ignore what I say. I will not have any further opinion on your discussions. I will only reply if a comment is directed towards me. But anyway, here's a list of links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. My parting gift: all use 'plc' - check them!-Sb2001 (talk) 17:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC) Not suggesting anything like that; I've stated at your user page twice that most of your edits are good. I'm also making various other improvements to the affected articles, e.g. fixing broken citations that link to dead webpages, and other issues that have nothing to do with your editing at those pages. In another thread on this page, you've expressed stern opposition to the idea of you writing here in any style but your personally preferred "properly" one, so that leaves it to other editors to clean up after it, either programmatically as I've been doing, or by random and inconsistent happenstance over a much longer time span.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:07, 6 July 2017 (UTC) PS: I'm finding additional problems in your "corrections" at various articles, including insertion of nationalistic assertions without sources, editorializing like "incredibly rare" without sources (i.e. you are trying to get the reader to discount a source as irrelevant), alteration of quotations and titles of works to suit your spelling and punctuation preferences, and other such problems. I was entirely right to be scrutinizing these edits.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC) User:SMcCandlish: you should raise this at either my user page, or start an entirely new discussion at the MoS talk page - if you think it is of strict relevance and should be brought to the attention of other editors. It is not a necessary/useful addition to a thread about plc v PLC. I will be happy to explain any specific instances, if you inform me of them. Further to this, last night I did volunteer to change back some of my edits away from the MoS. If you give me chance to do this, and if we agree a point at which my editing starts and yours ends (to avoid an overlap), you may find that many of your problems disappear.–Sb2001 talk page 17:33, 9 July 2017 (UTC) Sounds good (though another thread here isn't necessary; I think we've resolved this between user talk and e-mail). This has been productive anyway; cf. the additional sourcing I did at List of Latin phrases (E) and Date and time notation in the United Kingdom yesterday.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:06, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

MoS talk fragmentation

• BTW, when I raised this at the MOS:ABBR talk page 3 months ago, as suggested above, I was pretty much "trying to move nit-picks out of the main MOS to the, well, nit-pick pages". Was that a mistake? Should I have generally waited longer, or done something else to draw attention from knowledgeable and interested editors? – Reidgreg (talk) 11:27, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • We should probably consider centralizing MoS discussion, by redirecting all the MoS subpages' talk pages to this one. As the editorial pool shrinks, these subpages are increasingly likely to wander off into WP:CONLEVEL problems, PoV forking from the main MoS page. This has happened intermittently since at least 2012, and seems to be happening more frequently now. The remaining editors who watch these pages do not have the time or energy to go to all of them every day or even every week. Centralization of discussion is generally recommended, and doing it here would also prevent a lot of discussion forking, and the obviate the ncessity to notify MoS talk page A of discussions on MoS talk page B that are relevant to both. The problem with MoS itself is it's too much information in one page, needing some details merged off of it into subpages; but the discussion problem is one of fragmentation into numerous and often redundant threads that do not get enough input to reach consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:32, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

it's and its

Is there a MoS for the spelling of the term which means "belonging to it"? I note that wiktionary claims that it's is depreciated and non-standard use. However I don't see this reflected in the MoS. It seems to me that if Joshua's car means a car belonging to Joshua then it ought to be correct to say "It's car" meaning a car belonging to it. I'd agree it isn't a very elegant way to write, but I'd say it is different to the use in the phrase The tree had lost all of its leaves because we wouldn't say The tree has lost all of Joshua's leaves, which seems clumsy and wrong. In the latter case we'd say "The tree has lost all of his leaves" so it is possible to replace his with its in that context. JMWt (talk) 09:01, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

• It's = it is (less commonly it has).
• Its = belonging to it.

See apostrophe. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:09, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes but I'm asking about the MoS. And thinking harder about it, if its is interchangeable with his/her then it ought also to be correct to say "its car" in the same way as "his car", but the problem is that we wouldn't say "ones car", I think we'd use the apostrophe to say "one's car", so somehow we're saying it is wrong to use the apostrophe on it but not on one or when indicating the noun's possession at the start of a phrase. JMWt (talk) 09:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

This is the English Wiki, so MOS follows standard English grammar. Modern English does normally form the genitive with apostrophe-s but there are special cases. Consider ox-oxen or child-children. "His" is an irregular genitive of "he", were you to use "he's" it would be mistaken for "he is". Likewise "its" is the only genitive form of "it". "It's" is always a contraction of "it ...s" which reflects speech patterns: "it's a nice day today" [= "it is"], "it's been a while since I saw you" [= "is has"]. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

MoS doesn't cover spelling or grammar basics, and doesn't need to. This is a matter of basic fluency/competence. It's for its and vice versionversa are common typographical errors, including among professional writers. Just fix it when encountered.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:42, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

"Vice version"? Let's see... would that be, for example, My Secret Life, Second Edition? EEng 17:14, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. With a broken arm, I'm a bit reliant on software auto-correction and sometimes it is wrong and I don't catch it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Bodie and Doyle sure ain't got nothing on you two. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

There may be an exception for Cousin It or It (film), but possessive for a regular it is "its". AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:47, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Wicked me, I was tempted to try to add an actual example based on The Addams Family, but it turns out the proper spelling is Cousin Itt. EEng 00:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Scrolling lists?

Hello, as I think I might be interpreting MOS:SCROLL incorrectly, could somebody tell me if the usage I have made here (the six images) is acceptable or not? Without it, the last image overflows outside of the white frame and into the gray space. I would've put them into a gallery, but the fact that they are templates doesn't let me do that easily. — Anakimi_talk   18:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Anakimi: Not a robust approach. Output is going to be highly variable by device and browser, and I suspect the results are going to be negative on mobile. In Chrome on MacOS with a big monitor, I see a pointless vertical scroll bar appearing and that is all. At any window width, the vert. scroller remains. If I markedly reduce window width, I start getting a horizontal scroller, but only briefly, when the field images are inlined with text between the Di Stéfano and Amarmo images. If I make it smaller still, the field images all snap to below the two player pictures, and the horiz. scroll goes away. At a very narrow width I get the horiz. scroller back, only when the viewport is finally too small to hold the field images on one line. Which of course raises the question: Why are you trying to force them all to be on one line? It would be a more usable and accessible approach to just let them flow naturally, and appear on two or more lines as needed (especially on mobile browsers). It's said that ~60% of our users are on mobile devices now (of which probably 4/5 are phones and phablets).

See Real_Madrid_C.F./sandbox for a robust approach that should work regardless of OS and browser. On a big monitor, the images are all on one line. They'll auto wrap and re-center as needed on smaller devices, the way <gallery>...</gallery> works. I've applied this fix to both sets of field (pitch) layouts, and to the uniform (home kit) material. The CSS can be put into templates; you need a wrapper div with text-align: center; created that as {{Gallery layout}}, since this isn't really footy-specific. The image templates themselves can be edited to have a parameter to use display: inline-block for such layouts. That would probably save time in implementing this solution on other articles. PS: I also fixed a typo and an venue infobox parameter error.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:29, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

That was very helpful! Thank you very much! — Anakimi_talk   02:25, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@Anakimi: You're welcome. If you need help integrating the display: inline-block into templates, let me know. It should work regardless what the surrounding element of the template is, so for some templates it can just be passed in a |style= or |css= parameter to a parent template. For templates that aren't meta-templated, the template's own code may need to be changed to be wrapped in a <span>...</span> or <div>...</div> to which this CSS is applied when requested, e.g. by a |gallery=y being passed to the template.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Roman Catholic

I'm not sure this is really significant enough, but I can't think where would be better to ask. Periodically I see articles which say "Fred McSubject is a Roman Catholic". I usually alter this to say "Catholic", given that the word "Roman" seems entirely redundant. I appreciate that - well, essentially, the stuff in the lead of Catholicism is so - but AFAIK in ordinary usage the word "Catholic" alone is always interpreted as referring to the Catholic Church, and as such "Roman" doesn't alleviate any actual confusion on the part of the reader. Comments? Pinkbeast (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

There are two issues here.

1. The attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to appropriate the term "Catholic" is deeply offensive to some other Christians. It's a biassed claim to universality. As an Anglican, I consider myself a member of the "holy Catholic Church" as per the creed I say weekly. Wikipedia should be neutral as to claims of being "the" Catholic Church, just as it should be when some branches of Islam claim that other branches cannot be called Islamic. The correct neutral description is "Roman Catholic".
2. Even within its own usage, "Roman Catholic" is not the same as "Catholic". There are non-Roman churches recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as "Catholic", such as the Eastern Catholic Churches. An example of the confusion that comes from eliding usage is in the statement at the head of that article: This article is about Eastern churches in full communion with the Catholic Church The Eastern churches that are in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church form part of what they call the "Catholic Church"; to say they are in communion with the "Catholic Church" is to say they are in communion with themselves.

So, no, "Catholic" is not the same as "Roman Catholic". Peter coxhead (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

If I remember correctly from my GCSE RS, you can have Catholic Christianity, but not Roman Catholic Christianity. Roman Catholicism exists as something else. So it is almost like they are entirely separate ideas/belief systems. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:02, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with these comments; the distinction is encyclopedically important. Lots of "how people say stuff in daily life" matters are not how we write at Wikipedia, usually for similar precision, disambiguation, and other clarity reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:11, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Use of "foot per inch" instead of "feet per inch" in article titles

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (plurals)#'Measurements involving two or more units (such as pounds per square inch or miles per hour) should usually have the first word in the plural'; while this discussion isn't strictly an MoS matter, changes to title style often affect in-article usage, and attempts to gather more editorial input into the question by "advertising" the discussion haven't been very successful so far, so posting about it here might bring some additional eyes and brains.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

"Sir" is an honorific prefix, not a forename

"Sir" is an honorific prefix, not a forename. As such, it belongs in the honorific prefix section of an infobox, not immediately precedent to and on the same line as the article subject's name. It functions exactly as other honorific prefixes — "Mr", "Mrs", "Ms", "Dr", "Rev.", and so on.

--Vabadus91 (talk) 00:37, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but why state that here? This is already covered at MOS:BIO.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:32, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

"The internet" and "the web"

Somewhere I thought we were already addressing this, but I don't find it in MOS:MAIN, MOS:CAPS, or MOS:PN. We really should address this. The Internet and the Web (short for the World Wide Web, which no one says any more) are proper names; they are specific, unique things like the Pacific Ocean and the language French. Journalism style guides (Wikipedia is not written in news style) have been pushing hard to lowercase these, but they're factually wrong to do so when the do it to the Internet and the Web.

Lower-case internet as a noun means "a (i.e. any) network of networks". Various internets combined to form the Internet, and there are internets that were not and still are not part of it (though various internets are also part of the Internet today). Due to ambiguity, internetwork or inter-network – or more recently a completely different term, wide-area network – has usually been used instead.

Lower-case web as a noun is something a spider makes, with various metaphoric applications of the word ("a web of trust", etc.).

Lower-case as adjectives, both words refer to technologies (protocols, standards, applications, etc.) that can be used for intranets as well as the Internet. These are thus properly lower-cased most of the time; it is hard to think of any such technology that cannot be used for an intranet. Both can also be capitalized as adjectives when used to refer specifically to the Internet or the Web ("he had no Internet access while on the island").
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:31, 11 July 2017 (UTC)