Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch

See also related discussions and archives:

• Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel words
• Wikipedia talk:Avoid peacock terms
• Wikipedia talk:Avoid neologisms
• Wikipedia talk:Words to avoid

Addition to Note C suggestion

I notice the {{Like whom?}} template is missing from Note C, which reads: The templates {{Who}}, {{Which}}, {{By whom}}, or {{Attribution needed}} are available for editors to request an individual statement be more clearly attributed. Also, the template {{Where}} is similarly nowhere on the page. Not a big deal I suppose, just pointing this out. 5Q5|^✉

"Ableist" language being "corrected" on dozens of articles (WP:EUPH?)

I've noticed that Smasongarrison is currently going through a plethora of articles and changing the word "suffered" to "had", strangely while citing WP:EUPH, which states

If a person has an affliction, or is afflicted, say just that.

Are they interpreting this correctly? Do we have to write "she had a nervous breakdown" instead of "she suffered a nervous breakdown"? ili (talk) 15:58, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

"Have to" is a strong term here. "Am allowed to" and "it is a good idea to, if you can be so bothered" are better. After all, if you don't want to improve the articles as Smasongarrison is doing, you don't have to. They seem to be doing a fine job without you. --Jayron32 16:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, these changes seem to be in line with a clear WP style to avoid certain passive phrases. --Masem (t) 16:22, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy to change the tag to tone rather than euph if that would make ILIL feel better about it. Smasongarrison (talk) 23:30, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I do think it's typically more in keeping with an encyclopedic tone to say someone "had a nervous breakdown" than "suffered" it, though I don't understand how "suffered" is a euphemism. Even so, there are still probably contexts where "suffered" would be more explanatory and fitting than "had", for example: despite suffering from an injury to her knee, she was still able to push through and win the race would probably be better than despite having injured her knee three weeks prior, ... as it implies she was still suffering from the knee injury during the race. Endwise (talk) 16:34, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that there may be times when "suffered" is appropriate, but many if not most of the times when it is being used is to grant emotional weight to a situation where we probably shouldn't be doing so. This is especially true because suffering is about a person's internal mental state, which in nearly all cases, we cannot assess. To say, for example, that someone "suffers from diabetes" means you're reading their mind on what diabetes makes them feel. If you just say someone "has diabetes" there are no such assumptions made. That's a clear improvement. It isn't that "suffers" should never be used, but it should be used much less than it is, and these changes noted above are all spot on. --Jayron32 14:02, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I fully agree that "had" is almost always better than "suffered", and even in the case above Masem was correct to say that you could still probably work around it instead. Endwise (talk) 16:49, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

There's still a better tone with that example, being something like "she won the race despite having a knee injury". --Masem (t) 17:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Largely said by others now, but ... Smasongarrison's edits seem largely constructive to my eye, based on a spot check. It's worth differentiating between conditions/disorders like cerebral palsy and e.g. a snowboarding accident in which someone broke their ankle. Most of the arguments I've seen about avoiding ableist language are more about the former than the latter. Still, whether we cite this guideline or something like WP:TONE, "X broke her ankle in a snowboarding accident" sounds more encyclopedic to me than "X suffered a broken ankle in a snowboarding accident". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:41, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I think the instinct to move toward more plain language is a good one, but we need to be careful to avoid introducing ambiguities. e.g. here "He suffered a spinal injury while climbing in 1985." was changed to "While climbing in 1985, he had a spinal injury." The first formulation makes it clear that the injury occurred while he was climbing. But the latter could be read as him climbing in 1985 despite having a (pre-existing) spinal injury. Something like "he incurred a spinal injury" would probably be clearer in a case like this. Colin M (talk) 15:52, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Or, even better, "he injured his spine". --Jayron32 16:46, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Good suggestions/points! Smasongarrison (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

"Yet"

Is this a weasel word when used at Persecution of Hindus? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:22, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Some were a bit weasely, some was just not well written. I removed most of the yets. The two remaining seem correct. David Lorenzen asserts that during the Islamic rule period there was state-sponsored persecution against Hindus, yet it was sporadic and directed mostly at Hindu religious monuments. I would have used though there, but it seems fine. The raids caused suffering, yet also rallied the Islamic faithfuls and weakened the infidel prince by weakening his standing among his Hindu subjects. Yet seems correct there, although infidel prince seems not great. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the two, I was thinking "while also". I think I'll change the infidel prince. Should we include "yet" the MOS? Doug Weller talk 15:40, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

As a word to watch? I don't think it's any worse than "though" or "while also" or any other qualifier. I'm not familiar with the topic area, is "infidel prince" an NPOV way to refer to someone in context? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Depends on the context. But in fact the source says "an infidel prince" so I changed it to that. Doug Weller talk 16:26, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

• I would need more details about context and what the sources say to be sure, but what I would be worried about is WP:SYNTH / WP:OR implications - often when editors combine two clauses with something like "yet" or "despite that" or the like, what they're doing is taking one source that says X happened, another source about unrelated point Y that is not directly connected to X by the second source, and using them to make the argument that the first point is negated / answered / rebutted somehow. That's SYNTH, though the severity depends on context. Usually unless two points are directly presented as point-counterpoint in a source I would avoid presenting them that way in the text, not just by avoiding "yet" or "despite that" or the like but by deliberately restructuring the article to place the two sources at different places so the reader isn't led towards an unsourced conclusion. If they have to be placed near each other (because they eg. represent two conflicting views) I would be very careful to avoid wording them in a way that implies that one answers the other or the like unless there's clear sourcing supporting that. Another problem is that the order can be used to create implications - when we have two sources that contradict, framing it as "Y, but actually X" can come across as the second point being the "real" truth even though the sources don't reflect that. I'd also generally avoid allowing WP:RSOPINION to directly rebut or respond to facts - opinions should be separated out and covered elsewhere. "[Factual source says X] but [talking head in an opinion piece says Y] is IMHO usually giving too much weight to the opinion piece, at least if it's only cited to the opinion-piece, unless they are a really well-established expert. --Aquillion (talk) 06:45, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

  Well said, Aquillion. I see this sort of thing too often. Doug Weller talk 10:08, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Feedback request

Editors are invited to comment on the article "Sacred Cod"'s use of style at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sacred Cod/1. ɱ (talk) 00:19, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Changing "gave his/her life" to "gave their life"

I believe that in the Euphemisms section, "gave his/her life' should be changed to "gave their life". I tried to edit the page to change this, but my edit was reverted. However, I do not believe it should have been reverted, as the revert reason doesn't make sense to me; transgender and pronoun non-conforming people can die, just as cisgender and pronoun-conforming people can. The point of using "their" isn't to say that everyone is transgender, the point is gender neutrality and inclusivity; changing it to "gave their life" would not drastically alter the point that the section is trying to get across, but I believe it would better to be fully neutral and inclusive by using "their". Does anyone have any thoughts on this? -HaiFire3344 (talk) 22:16, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to use a gender neutral term when someone clearly identifies as a gender. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:17, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't look as though HaiFire3344 is asking this in relation to a specific article, but within the context of clarifying the MOS. How about "gave his/her/their life" instead? That way you keep the specificity in practice for when a subject's gender is known and is inclusive for when it is not. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:21, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, that I have no objection to, although it's probably unnecessary clarification. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:25, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Done. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:27, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

"His/her/their" is fine. My point was that an article might contain "gave his life" and it might contain "gave her life". Only when the subject is transgender is the article going to say "gave their life", which is, yes, another possibility. But the point of even "gave his/her life" isn't to imply that an article will literally have "his/her", which, if it appeared in an article, I would also collapse to "their". I'm going to stop now because I feel like I need to clarify what I mean further but somehow I think I'll just muddle it more if it isn't already clear. Largoplazo (talk) 00:08, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I get the sentiment, but listing now three different pronouns is distracting from the actual point. In fact, I'd argue that listing the two was also distracting. Since these are just examples, and we don't actually list multiple pronouns in text, why not just replace it with, say, "her"? Nobody is going to think the point doesn't apply to another gender. Crossroads ^-talk- 00:12, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

In that case, why not "their"? Certainly "gave their life" is more commonly used than either of the explicitly gendered terms, at least in the UK and Ireland. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:14, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

In an article about a male soldier, Colonel Joe Peterson, I would not write that "Peterson gave their life". The number of people about whom I would write that is a small minority and, for that reason, in addition to the fact that "their" is ambiguous, is not the best example if we are to choose only one of them. Largoplazo (talk) 00:23, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Certainly "gave their life" is more commonly used than either of the explicitly gendered terms Ngrams disagree.

Anyways, I agree with Crossroads's point. I'm going to boldly change it to use a single pronoun. In the hopes of avoiding any appearance of bias, I'm going to look at the revision id of this edit, and will use "his" if it's odd, and "her" if it's even. Colin M (talk) 17:28, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Relative time references - 'today' or not 'today'?

This RfC concerns List of countries and dependencies by population.

This discussion asks 2 questions:

1. Given that an electronic encyclopedia or gazetteer is a permanent work in progress over longer periods of time, how appropriate is the relative time expression 'today' in the context of this list article.
2. Depending on the outcome of the opinions to Q1 , should 'today' be replaced by 'as of [date]', or another suitable explanation that the dates in the table might not be as up-to-date as inferred by the use of 'today'?

Proposed by: Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

This RfC concerns a current case in one article, List of countries and dependencies by population. However, depending on the discussion the outcome may have implications for other articles, and/or the Manual of Style. It is also possible that such a guideline already exists but which may be hard to find, unclear or ambiguous, or simply not known to or not recognised by some edititors.

(Previous and/or major contributors to the article and its talk page and parent projects have been notified of this discussion in strict accordance with WP:CANVASS)

Guidelines

• Relative time references
• Outdated statements
• As of...

Other (for this RFC):

• Gazetteer
• WP:BRD (now 'discuss' stage)

Issue

List of countries and dependencies by population is a fairly high traffic article with 960 page watchers and 529,816 page views in the last 60 days (as of 6 June 2022). This does not mean however that the article is regularly updated. The page has been edited by 12 users since since the beginning of 2019. The lead paragraph closes with:

Also given in percent is each country's population compared with the world population, which the United Nations estimates at 7.96 billion today. –(The bolding is mine)

One editor added a {{when?}} tag to the sentence. This was followed by another editor replacing 'today' with: as of 2019.. This was then reverted back to 'today' by another editor with the edit summary: Nope, this is a population clock, so the number is as per today. Every day.

The main section of this list article is its table. Whether or not the populations are automatically updated by the 'population clock' sources such as for example in the template {{data Brazil|poptoday 1}}, the table column 'Date' shows many different years for the 243 sets of data in the table, going back to the oldest of 2015. According to their dates of retrieval, many of the referenced sources in the table do not appear to be from 'today' , or even from 2022.

This discussion asks 2 questions

1. Given that an electronic encyclopedia or gazetteer is a permanent work in progress over longer periods of time, how appropriate is the relative time expression 'today' in the context of this list article.

2. Depending on the outcome of the opinions to Q1 , should 'today' be replaced by 'as of [date]', or another suitable explanation that the dates in the table might not be as up-to-date as inferred by the use of 'today'?

Please answer in the Discussion sub-section below. Begin your comment with an asterisk: *

Proposed by: Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

(Please note that this is a discussion and not a straw poll with 'support' and 'oppose' !votes. The closer will assess the consensus.)

• Hi, as you invited me to this discussion, I am here. I would suggest to change the sentence from Also given in percent is each country's population compared with the world population, which the United Nations estimates at 7.96 billion today to Also given in percent is each country's population compared with the world population, which the United Nations estimates at 7.96 billion as of (today's date). RayAdvait (talk) 08:02, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Two comments: 1) The reflections above about the main section of the article, especially that many of the referenced sources in the table do not appear to be from 'today' is irrelevant, since the use of 'today' in the context discussed explicitly is limited to the estimate of the world population. 2) Having said this, I support changing the formula from 'estimates at X billion today' to either 'estimates at X billion as of [date]' or possibly better 'estimates at X billion as of today'. Just 'today' could be interpreted as imprecise and vague, while 'as of today' clearly indicates that the current date is meant. --T*U (talk) 08:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Perhaps for clarity we need wording on the lines of "Also given in percent is each country's most recently available population compared with the current world population, as estimated daily by the United Nations". And possibly re-word the column header from "Percentage of the world" to "Percentage of current world pop." And perhaps re-order the columns, to put the date adjacent to the population figure it describes. PamD 08:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I like the suggestions, PamD, but the linked United Nations source is a 2019 document and I cannot see where it is updated 'daily'. (I did download and view the 2.5Mb xlsx file WPP2019_POP_F01_1_TOTAL_POPULATION_BOTH_SEXES from that site). Maybe I have missed something. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:01, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, I had naively (AGF) assumed that the template was working as described and that the UN were indeed publishing a daily estimate. It seems not - the formula in the template uses a base figure for 2019 pop and an estimated daily increase rate and does the sums, not allowing for any variation (climate change? Covid?). Perhaps in this article we would be better to use one fixed figure, perhaps the estimated population on 1 Jan 20nn, and update it each year. But which figure? As I type, I've found 3 constantly-updated figures: US census offers 7,900m, the "World Population Review" says 7,948m, and "Worldometer" has 7,952m. The UN population division say 7,954m for 2022, higher than any of the three rolling figures. Asking Wikipedia: Demographics of the world says 7.9billion, and World population says "estimated to have exceeded 7.9 billion as of November 2021". Take your pick. Perhaps we should just use the 7.9bn figure and say so, until there is general agreement that we have hit 8bn. In this article it is, after all, only the divider for a percentage. Or use the figure which is the total of the stated populations, if the table can be made to add itself up. PamD 13:46, 6 June 2022 (UTC) updated 13:59, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Keep in mind that readers may download/print off documents and thus the automatic population number will not update with those versions, while "today" will remain in place. It should be replaced with a automatic "as of" (at least to month and year) so that fixed versions will have a clear date when the population estimate should be used. --Masem (t) 12:12, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• (as proposer) I think that whether downloaded or viewed online, the sources themselves that are not today's data render the claim of 'today' a misnomer. Not everyone clicks on sources to check them out - generally readers would probably take the info in the table in an uncontroversial article like this as being accurate, although effectively they are being unintentionally lied to. The problem is that readers trust our content and use it for their dissertations and research papers and possibly even in class. Hence in the scope of the MoS, to use 'today' as a relative time reference in this context would be, IMO, inaccurate/misleading. We do see the {{when?}} tag being used quite often in articles, and not without reason. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:01, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• As a wider MOS discussion, if there is a rare case where a figure does indeed link to a regularly-updated live statistic, then this must be clarified in the text of the article ("a current figure of xxxx (data provided by the Aaa Bbb Ccc and updated daily [/weekly, monthly, annually].)", to reassure the reader that in this rare case the "current" or "today's" is actually correct. Including today's date (or the month or year for monthly or yearly updates), for the sake of offline or print-out readers, might also be useful. PamD 13:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Saw this in CENT. I don't think it's at all appropriate, except if the person who writes today sets a timer and makes a commitment, either individually or as part of a group, to either update the referent or remove "today" every single day, without exception (breaks on weekends are negotiable). The rest of the community certainly isn't going to search through every single instance of today today (or tomorrow), even if we might be able to. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• I may be wrong, but some of the arguments used here seem to indicate that not everybody is aware that the number showing up as the world population is recalculated every time the article is presented. Template:worldpop contains a formula that is based on the methodology used in the UN source, calculating the population on the current date. --T*U (talk) 14:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Won't update automatically for any offline copies. Hence why its a problem. Masem (t) 15:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why this is an RFC. It is a simple matter of changing "today" to "as of [automatically calculated full date]". Just be bold and do it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Wheelchair bound

I'd really like an outsider opinion/reassurance that changing euphemisms to be less offensive towards disabled people is a worthwhile thing and is consistent with the MOS:EUPH guidelines. I've received heavy pushback from one editor @Mathsci who considers these changes silly. I think that the guidance is crystal clear on this. The current contention is about the phrases confined to a wheelchair or being wheelchair-bound. I've tried to raise a conversation about this issue on the talk pages but those conversations seem to just be [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Laughing_Under_the_Clouds#Choice_of_language rehashes ] of this one

Smasongarrison (talk) 23:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Smasongarrison is making indiscriminate edits about plots and fictional characters in films. Often these concern comedy cartoon films or horror films (Madagascar or Frankenstein vs. Dracula). They have developed a robotic automated script, which is gradually developing. In this fictional context, it is inappropriate that these fictional plots or character descriptions should be mangled in this way. No thought seems to been applied, no reflection; they haven't bothered checking proof-reading or reading through the articles.

In the case of Charles-Valentin Alkan, they have tried to process the same stable wp:featured article twice, despite being warned by user:Smerus and me. On previous occasions, they have taken no notice (there were previous complaints in 2018). Smasongarrison's edits appear periodically on my watchlist (sometimes with articles subject to WP:DS). For example, in May 2022 they made edits to Ted Kaczynski, which were reverted. On Talk:Charles-Valentin Alkan, they brushed off problems they were doing, declaring "I don't have the bandwidth to itemize their responses". It has been pointed out to Smasongarrison – who has no formal medical training – that the use of British English terms "suffering a stroke" is standard and cam be found in stroke advice for emergency treatment in the National Health Service. That seems not to have not registered with Smasongarrison, who has made four edits about Charles Dickens recently. The same with Samuel Johnson, a featured article. It's easy to see that the script is crappy: sometimes the Smasongarrison bot-script find "disabled" and does nothing; sometimes there will be replaced by an anachronistic euphemism. Who knows what the Smasongarrison script will do with the wp:featured article A Christmas Carol and the word "crippled".

The automated edits to the article Željko Đurđić shocked me: Smasongarrison's script produced unintelligible content and, given that it was of stub length, no proof reading had occurred. I had to make several corrections myself, taking into account the subject's personal circumstances. Mathsci (talk) 01:03, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm following MOS:MED guidance and this discussion. The script is a human being who looks at the edits and tries to be careful. Please keep the issue focused on the style guide, not on your concerns about me as a human being. I really don't appreciate being called a bot. I try to be responsive and engaging when editors raise concerns and have tried my best.

I'm not perfect, but I think that mathsci is focused on me instead of the actual issue. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mathsci#%22Suffering%22 ] Smasongarrison (talk) 00:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to ping a few folks who were involved in the discussion @Liz @User:Johnbod. But honestly, I'm just going to take a break because I had forgotten how distressing I find dealing with Mathsci. Smasongarrison (talk) 01:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Nobody would start doing this on Dracula vs. Frankenstein. This is a horror film, so clearly fictional. Being able to distinguish between fact and fiction is important. Please note WP:CANVASS (which is usually frowned on). Note also that the misguided edits to articles on fictional plots show a deliberate choice on the part of Smasongarrison; instead of following wp:consensus, Smasongarrison harms wp:featured articles. In the context of horror films or animated movies, these are not real medical conditions but just poorly devised scripts concocted by Smasongarrison's themselves. As far as I am aware, Smasongarrison has never created substaintial content on wikipedia. They have made offensive edits concerning editors who, like me, have suffered from stroke. Mathsci (talk) 01:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

What would happen with the plot summary of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It is fictional. Mathsci (talk) 01:47, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry that I offended you by editing the term suffer within the context of a stroke. My intent was never to offend. I was genuine in my offer to avoid editing the term. However, I don't think that there's anything I can say to convince you that I am a good faith editor who has made substantial contributions both here on wikipedia AND as part of the 'poorly devised bot' team. I make mistakes and try to be responsive, and I agree that I've made mistakes (I do my best to correct them). But, I really need you to try to assume that I am a good faith editor. And I would like to convey that the last time we interacted, I was trying to navigate my own grandmother having a stroke. I was trying to distract myself by doing non-controversial edits, and I did my best to avoid conflict by shifting away from the term, because that seemed easier than explaining the nuances of ableist language. Smasongarrison (talk) 01:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Regardless, it's really clear that this conversation has derailed. And, that there's nothing I can say to convince you that I'm a netgood to wikipedia. And that the reason the "script is crappy" is because I am being very intentional with my edits. That indeed 'sometimes the Smasongarrison bot-script find "disabled" and does nothing' because I'm using discretion and am I person. But obviously this isn't a productive conversation. Smasongarrison (talk) 02:07, 7 June 2022 (UTC)