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Talk:William Thompson (general)

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Requested move

[edit]
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


The word "General" is a title, and should be capitalized to be distinguished from the adjective "general" that can mean "general entry" for the article "William Thompson"

Comment. Capitalizing "general" in disambiguation doesn't seem to be the usual practice: Charles Lee (general), John Glover (general), Diophantus (general), David Henderson (general), John Nixon (general), Theodoros Pangalos (general), Demosthenes (general), etc. There are a some exceptions, e.g. Artapanus (General), John Forbes (General). Of course, "General" can be used as a title or as a description of rank, so it's sometimes capitalized, sometimes not. You would write, "This article is about General William Thompson", or "William Thompson was a general." The second example is not capitalized (at least not in American English), though Wikipedians frequently get this wrong. Whether or not using the uncapitalized form in disambiguation is potentially more confusing, I don't know. Personally I don't care which one is used, just pointing out that lower case seems to be favored right now. —Kevin Myers 04:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the caps issue could be avoided by using William Thompson (American Revolutionary War officer) or William Thompson (Continental Army officer) (he had many other ranks than just 'general')? William Thompson (brigadier general) would be another way to make it clear that it's the military def of general. Sohelpme 23:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I like the William Thompson (American Revolutionary War officer). More descriptive and specific than "General". Ipeirotis 15:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Officer" is not really needed, since there aren't non-officer William Thompsons in the Revolutionary War we need to distinguish him from. I would go with fewer words, either William Thompson (American Revolution) or William Thompson (American Revolutionary War). —Kevin Myers 16:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 08:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]