Talk:Honour

This article uses British/Commonwealth English dialect and spelling. Despite originally using American spelling, this article has used British/Commonwealth English since 2003, and general consensus is that it should remain that way. Even though this is a technical breach of Wikipedia policy on non-linked national dialects, WP:MOS states that if an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style. Further debates on the matter serve little toward improving the encyclopedia.

"In Film"?

Does anyone else think that the "Karate Kid, Part II" paragraph really, really, lacks enough relevance to be in this article? 121.217.103.248 (talk) 16:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree - I'm going to delete it. Many films, ideas and parts of life have the idea of Honour in them. Karate Kid is such a vague and stupid reference. Why would anyone looking up Honour want to know about a film in which the idea of honour is featured? I've seen far more suitable In Film/Trivia parts deleted on Wikipedia. --82.27.9.75 (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If the article itself were of higher quality and substance, the Karate Kid reference would work in a section on films about honor. Long way to go before that, though; and since this article isn't exactly my sort of piece, someone else will have to get it there.Dismalscholar (talk) 16:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Majority Spelling

Why do we use the British spelling honour and not the American spelling honour. I would presume many more Americans use wikipedia than non-Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwood89 (talk • contribs) 04:07, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh the irony. Pär Larsson (talk) 18:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

First, I wounld't be so sure that "many more" American than non-America use Wikipedia, I 'd like to see the stats. Second, in the whole English language world more places (including Canada) use "Honour" instead of "Honor". In any case for the sake of standardisation, if you are to change it to "Honor", Wikipedia ought to change to others such "Neighbor" instead of "Neighbour" etc. Comment added by Sea Hobbit (talk • contribs) 15:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Because it has been like that for a long time (although it was Honor originally), and "general consensus is that it should remain that way". --Joshua Issac (talk) 14:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Just curious, but why was it changed in 2003? --Tocino 20:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Someone decided to violate the rules and no one stopped them. (logs: honor, honour) --Joshua Issac (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The population of the UK, Canada and Australia together still isn't nearly as high as the US' alone. As an outsider from neither of these countries I too think that it would be more appropriate to use the American spelling. There was no point in changing it to "honour" in the first place. Clearly a violation of the rules. Also, "honor" would be closer to the Latin word it originated from. 83.187.175.181 (talk) 11:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Are you from Vienna, Austria? WikiWinters (talk) 22:05, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Honor

Well change it back to its original form! To check majority preference - do a Google search of honor and honour and you will see a very clear preference of more than 10 to 1 for honor!

The consensus is to keep the current spelling. Google search did not return 10 times as many results for honor than honour (so no 10:1 ratio), but it did return just under 3 times as much. However, the article will use honour unless there is enough consensus to change the spelling. --Joshua Issac (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

And the box says, "Further debates on the matter serve little toward improving the encyclopaedia." --Joshua Issac (talk) 18:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me explain why its Honour. Its the English language (English language, England - give you any clues?) Therefore the American regional variation of the English language comes second so English proper on a site such as Wikipedia because it is just that, a variation of the English language, a language which originated, developed and continues to do so in England. 79.76.216.80 (talk) 14:45, 31 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.171.77 (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: from a linguistic standpoint, neither American English nor British English has any actual "properness" per se. Both are considered dialects of the English language, and neither is better or more proper than the other, as there is no way to quantifiably determine what is "proper" and what is not. British English has some spellings that are closer to those of the etymological sources of the words, while American English has changed less in its pronunciation over the past 400 years than has British English. It is impossible to scientifically determine which one is more "accurate", as languages are by their nature fluid. This article uses honour for the reasons given in the box at the top of this Talk Page, and certainly not because of any perception of British English as being superior to American. As the Manual of Style states, "The English Wikipedia does not prefer any major national variety of the language. No variety is more correct than another. Editors should recognize that the differences between the varieties are superficial." Some articles are written in American English, and others in British English, for the sake of consistency within each individual article, which will better serve the reader than a confusion of spellings. –The Fiddly Leprechaun · Catch Me! 23:57, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I might add that persons using British English were incredibly militant about their orthography and went up in arms when they thought that others were "trampling" it. That is why in 2003 someone changed most of the instances from "Honor" to "Honour" (and no American English user reverted it - presumably because they don't care as much) and then later when there was the original vote about whether to change back to "Honor," most users of British English went up in arms and voted against, since they assumed the original article had been in British English despite the case being the opposite. I pointed out the technical breach and yet since it was considered "unstable" to change it back to respect the original owner's contributions, it was decided to "Let it stand." The lesson here is that if you want articles' primary listings in American English, you need to be proactive like the Brits. Although I don't recommend sinking to the level of preemptively changing orthography in stable articles whereever you see it. Shiggity (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The IP is incorrect actually. Wikipedia is hosted in Florida, USA. The creator of Wikipedia is American. We use the version of English that the article had --Rockstonetalk to me! 04:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

American pronunciation compared to British? Which part of Britain? - Plus American English, appart from the pronunciation of Rs, is actually quite different than when the dialects/accents went their different ways as far as Im aware; especially due to being infuenced by many other accents such as Irish & Germanic ones. I'm pretty sure 17th/18th century Britons didn't have whiney accents (bar Liverpool of course ;)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.27.9.75 (talk) 12:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Know how this can be solved? Title the article "Honor/Honour". Bam, problem solved. Moving on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.152.191.2 (talk) 17:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

That would be in violation with WP:TITLE policy, which prohibits slashed titles. If it were that simple, we wouldn't have all the edit warring on Dokdo/Takeshima, Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, Changbai/Baekdu Mountains, Sea of Japan naming dispute, Macedonia, et cetera. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

But then the Brits couldn't lord it over the Americans. And here at Wiki, that is job number one. Jersey John (talk) 08:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not your battlefield, and you shouldn't WP:ATTACK your British friends like that. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Why are some of the Americans on here so vitriolic? Honour is probably used because it reflects the tradition the word conveys; and since honour is a concept that is hundreds of years old it would be more appropriate to use the British spelling.

More than likely in response to "some" of the UK vitriol? Which is much more widespread. The UK vitriol, and I do admit this is anecdotal, seems to be weighted more on the imflammatory side and less on the reactionary side, whereas the US vitriol is more often reactionary (to the UK vitriol) than it is inflammatory. In other words, if we were in kindergarten, it would be "you started it!" Jersey John (talk) 08:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

You mean Commonwealth, not UK. Of all the nations that natively speak English, there is only one that uses United States English dialect and spelling (and I specifically write native so we don't go off the whole "what about the Philippines" tangent). You're claiming that it's only people from the UK that are arguing for "UK English", however the UK is not the only nation to use Commonwealth English. I can't speak on behalf of all Australians, but as one, I use the Commonwealth English dialect and spelling of English words, and prefer it that way, as do many others from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Zimbabwe (if we're going for non-native official, add India to that list). -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

You can have your honour if we can have our airplane. 184.3.250.15 (talk) 18:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Alright everyone, the talkpage template above makes it very clear that further argument over this trivial issue does no benefit towards the Wikipedia project. Any further bickering is borderline WP:FORUM, and will be dealt as such. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed paragraph

This anonymous edit removed a paragraph, which I was just going to replace, but I notice it was entirely uncited, so I'm just posting here, in case someone wants to do some kind of follow-up. -GTBacchus^(talk) 15:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have restored it partially, since the article is tagged with {{Globalize}}.--Joshua Issac (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Lost, Aberdeenshire?

Why is Lost, Aberdeenshire in the See Also section? Did I miss something? --PokeYourHeadOff (talk) 01:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Removed. Tomasz W. Kozłowski (talk) 22:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

In culture

I think a section on the role of honour in culture (medieval, Japanese etc.) might be interesting. Tomasz W. Kozłowski (talk) 22:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Ironic Picture

The main picture for honor is the American politicians Hamilton and Burr dueling, yet you use the spelling honour... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.181.241 (talk) 23:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Because this article is written in British English. --Île flottɑnte~Floɑting islɑnd ^Talk 00:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Only because it was militantly subverted some time ago to be that way. Jersey John (talk) 08:08, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not an appropriate picture for the article, anyway. It would serve for an article or section "Matter of Honor", linked to "Duel", but honor itself would be better illustrated by something like a little girl laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, an image would would show three meanings of the concept of honor at once.[User:Dismalscholar|Dismalscholar]] (talk) 16:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Honor and the Glory of Japan

I used to think the Japanese were obsessed with honor during her imperial days. Lucas Duke (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

From the Norman Invasion?

I assume Honour came into English post-1066 and from the French (rather than latin, hence the spelling), yet this isn't stated in the article at all. It also makes the English spelling seem inferior due to the Latin spelling being stated as the only root of the word. --Kurtle (talk) 12:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Questioning the statement about "on my honour"

It is not true that the word was first used in the sense of lands which gave honour: the word derives from "Latin honōr-em repute, esteem, official dignity, honorary gift, ornament, grace, beauty." (OED). On the stated origin of "on my honour", I am rather dubious since it is not supported by the Oxford English Dictionary. It gives first examples in late 15th C. and those seem to be in modern meaning.

Can I ask whoever added this to check their sources and the OED and consider revision, or alternatively to give fuller sources. Aardwolf (talk) 21:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

2007 comment from Talk:Honor

Found on a redirect talked and moved here.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 04:09, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

This article focuses on a very small subsection of what can be called honor: namely, aspects having to do with revenge and retribution of insult or injury. I think it misses the main concept... which more along the lines of (from Oxford American Dict):

Adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct

Of course, it depends on what your particular standard of conduct is, but traditional honor relates to all areas of life and relationships. For example, paying back money you owe, how to treat your elders, refraining from taking advantage of someone who's in an inferior or vulnerable position (ie. child/employee), giving up a great job to stay home with an ailing family member, etc., etc.

The article seems to imply that honor and rule of law are at odds with each other, and this would indeed be the case if honor was only concerned with revenge. But using the broader, more correct use of the word, it is clear to me that a code of honor simply takes over where the law leaves off. You can't make laws saying that you have to help the old lady across the street. But honor may dictate that action.

Also, an act out of honor is usually NOT done out of selfishness; the article seems to equate honor with a lack of self-control. But it's really the opposite: an act of honor almost always has an element of self-sacrifice. You may lose you a business opportunity or be inconvenienced or even have to allow your reputation to be tarnished in the public eye. In short, honor means doing what's "right", and the article, as it stands, doesn't adequately address this concept.

I very much agree. I think it is of rather high importance that this article be revised, lest it tarnish an idea which is already almost forgotten in the philosophical sense. Medevilenemy 01:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes I despair of Wikipedia!

I came here from Family honor to check how the essential word was dealt with. I found the lead sentence inadequate and a subsequent sentence meaningless, so I went looking into the History to discover why.

What I found was that back in 2066 the article had a perfectly good introductory sentence. It said: Honour or honor (see spelling differences) comprises the reputation, self-perception, or moral identity of an individual or of a group.

So in October of 2006, Esperant thunders into the article, discovers that there is a definition by Doctor Samuel Johnson that is quoted a little further down, and (presumable with all the best intentions) simply deletes the lead sentence, taking the article back to 1755 as if no further thought had been given to the subject. One can only presume that Esperant thought Dr Johnson was a current editor of the OED.

Someone eventually wrote a new introductory sentence, but not nearly as good as the original.

Honor is the evaluation of a person's social status as judged by that individual's community.

This definition is inadequate on three counts.

1. It is not just the "individual". It can be any number of individuals corporately, including a whole nation. "The honour of the regiment" is the typical example that comes to mind.
2. It is not just about social status. People with very little social status can perceive themselves and be perceived as having "honour".
3. It is not just the way the community views the person/group that gives honour. It is also a matter of self/internal perception.

So I have just rewritten the first sentence to be much closer to the way it was back before the inappropriate deletion.

Amandajm (talk) 01:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Garbled sentence?

"From the point of moral relativism, honour is perceived as arising from universal concerns for material circumstance and status, rather than fundamental differences in principle between those who hold different honour codes."

I don't follow this; perhaps the original author of this sentence can help. Should the grammatical subject be no honour, but /differences between different individuals' or societies' perceptions of what constitutes honour/? This would explain the "rather..." clause, which otherwise doesn't make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.86.154.207 (talk) 23:58, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Honour

Just keep the proper spelling, please. 149.172.237.0 (talk) 09:27, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Reference to "habitus" would benefit from linked article

In the section "Cultures of honour and cultures of law", the article mentions a concept, "habitus", written about by a French author that is worth reading but offers no link to even an article stub. I believe this article would be improved by even a brief definition stub article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.156.223.122 (talk) 12:09, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Help me I/'m drunk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.34.192 (talk) 03:07, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Move article to indicate Common -nglish spelling, because honor is not "honour"

The spelling "honour" belongs to the domain of language regulated by a particular government, and is therefore not a part of the Common Anglish/English/Ynglish language pattern, which honors a greater body of people and a greater vision of government, to which the word "honor" is bound to greater ownership of the altruistic, sacrifice for the greater body of people, for the higher then the highest principle, and to the providential and not merely the prosperous. In the context of auto- olig- and mono- archic governments, the term is also loaned to the honor-ific, to the stylistic, and, in a different way than in the land-abundant nations, to the materialistic.

The democratic nations have a higher concept of honor which is not undermined by the oligarchic nations concept of honor, which is flexed with indicated spelling which is stylistic in the local pattern of Received English and therefore gives loan to European English and the European ideas of government, which do not give sufficient bodily form to the anti-oligarchic principle. -Stevertigo (t | c, ed. 2002) 17:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)