Talk:Montague, Massachusetts

July 2021

There has been a lot of back and forth about “Turners Falls” as a metonym, so I wanted to set up a talk page. With regards to my recent edit:

The current citations support the fact that the Town of Montague is not generally referred to as “Turners Falls”. For example, the Montague Reporter (citation 3) will always specify the village in which its article is focused. Articles about the bridge of names, for instance, are correctly labeled as “Lake Pleasant”, not “Turners Falls”, the latter being what would be used if everyone “generally” referred to everywhere in Montague as “Turners Falls”. The next two citation link to pages that says prominently at the top, “Town of Montague”. The citations after that are Greenfield Recorder articles correctly identifying Montague-related news stories as happening in Montague. Then there is the school district site, which also identifies the town as Montague, and two more news stories that refer to the town as “Montague”. If the term “Turners Falls” were generally used as a metonym for the town, then almost all sources would use it, including official ones. In reality, some people do incorrectly use “Turners Falls” as a metonym for Montague, but it is uncommon outside of the village of Turners Falls. The villages of Montague all have distinct cultures, and people from other villages tend to bristle at being lumped in with the village of Turners Falls.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, either. In E.P. Pressey’s History of Montague: a typical Puritan town (worth a read), he includes an 1895 address by Robert P. Clapp, I believe to the Montague Historical Society of the time. In it, he says, “As this is a day for considering the old town we need not pay further regard to our suburbs of Turners Falls and Millers Falls than to point out what a privilege it has been for them to possess a share of our soil. Besides, we may today fairly indulge a spirit of mild resentment at the former of these thriving villages for having captured and carried away from us our town meeting. As one of the institutions established by the fathers, it deserves to be here now, close by the site of the first school and church, the three together symbolizing the practical sagacity, the learning, and the piety of New England.”

In other words, there have been divisions between the villages for at least a hundred years. So, there is historical precedent when contemporary Montague natives take umbrage at being lumped in with Turners Falls. Basically, calling the town “Turners” is, to many Montague folks, akin to being considered part of Boston by an out-of-stater (or indeed, Turners being considered part of Greenfield by someone unfamiliar with the area).

In any case, the point is, Montague has five villages, and people from the other villages won’t identify themselves as being from “Turners” (except maybe Montague City, though the Montague Reporter’s new “Montague City Rambler” column indicates a nonzero number of people who do consider Montague City separate from Turners). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:140:9100:FC60:DDA:4739:98E4:7622 (talk) 11:26, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

The answer to which is WP:COMMONNAME; Wikipedia policies and guidelines trump theoretical parochial opinion polls. I've supported the metonym statement with numerous citations, and I could run that twenty deep if it wasn't obnoxious. That residents of the other villages in Montague comprising collectively less than half the population of the town -- as well as the anon IPs who've been the only ones objecting -- feel snarky over it, or that they allegedly have "distinct cultures" (???) is utterly irrelevant. That the regional media tend to use "Turners Falls" as a metonym for the town is all that is relevant. I'd direct my complaints to the aforementioned media. Ravenswing 02:14, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

All of the citations supposedly supporting local media using "Turners Falls" in place of "Montague" were refuted point-by-point by another user. (As an aside, why does it matter if they have a username or not?) The citations in question were either correct usage of "Turners Falls" referring to the village, ambiguous, or in one case a blog post that was citing this very Wikipedia article's statement on "Turners Falls" as a metonym. The "most local" media, the Montague Reporter, always correctly specifies the village about which an article is written. Furthermore, barring some sort of scientific survey of local language usage, there really is no way to prove general usage. I would argue the plethora of citations of correct usage would prove that not everyone uses "Turners Falls" when they mean "Montague", and thus the use of "Turners Falls" as a metonym cannot be said to be generally applied; otherwise, there would be almost no instances of correct usage.Left the Shire (talk) 14:25, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

To quote this ravenswing character claiming to be an authority on the name of the town: “Heck, it was years before I learned that "Montague" was the official NAME of the town.” That doesn’t prove the point you think it does, pal. There’s about a million clues you’d have to miss. Signs in and out of town, bills, police cars, addresses, maps, libraries (you never wondered why Montague public libraries had a branch in Turners? Or why the Town of Montague was sending you excise taxes? Or why Turners was in the Gill-Montague School District? Or why the literal signs into town say “entering Montague?”) Not hard to notice if you’d ever actually been there. And you say it took you YEARS? Seems fishy. But you know what? I believe you. Because even now you don’t seem to understand that people can be referring to Turners or referring to Montague and be referring to separate things (as in your sources which, again, don’t prove the point you think they do). So maybe I can believe that YOU really didn’t know the name of the town you lived in for years. But there’s not a lot of people on that list with you, bud. So maybe drop your strange vendetta, get on your high horse, and head back east, before you make yourself look even sillier. 174.208.233.95 (talk) 04:37, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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