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Template:Did you know nominations/Elise Barensfeld

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Elise Barensfeld

[edit]

Created by Gerda Arendt (talk). Self-nominated at 21:26, 27 August 2018 (UTC).

  • Is "dedicatèe " even a word? Google returns four hits, two of them related to this. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Probably not.
ALT1: ... that Elise Barensfeld was possibly the dedicatee of Beethoven's piano piece Für Elise? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:03, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
The word "dedicatee" is legitimate but not common and sounds somewhat contrived. I would prefer "subject" in this particular case, or something like "was possibly the one to whom Beethoven dedicated his piano piece ..." Jmar67 (talk) 23:02, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Forgive me, but "subject" is unprecise and not supported - would mean that she is described by the music, to my understanding, - "is the one to whom" sounds awkward. Dedicatee appears 555 times when I use the search function. We could have Beethoven first, but want the clicks for her not him ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
OK. "Dedicatee" falls in the "I just don't like it" category. But it is a valid word. Another possibility: "namesake". Jmar67 (talk) 13:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes
  • Interesting: Yes
  • Other problems: No - This hook clashes with our article on Therese Malfatti where there is a source that she was the dedicatee for "Für Elise". Both the hook and the article should be clear that Barensfeld is but one possible dedicatee
QPQ: Done.
Overall: If you want to avoid "dedicatee", you could phrase the hook as
... that Elise Barensfeld possibly had Beethoven's piano piece Für Elise dedicated to her?
SoWhy 12:18, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Hook and article say "possibly", and no article should assign it to one person without "possibly", so a clash should be repaired in the other article. In the ALT wording, there's too much activity on her part while it looks like Beethoven rather wanted to please her (possible) piano teacher than the young girl. We could have it the other way round, but then she would not come first.
ALT3': ... that Ludwig van Beethoven possibly dedicated his piano piece Für Elise to the singer Elise Barensfeld? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:07, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Since Therese Malfatti has a source that says it was dedicated to her, Elise Barensfeld should have a mention that Malfatti is another possible dedicatee. In fact, Elisabeth Röckel claims that she was the dedicatee. Saying "she was possibly the dedicatee" sounds like her "claim" is stronger imho. Maybe you can phrase it as "she was one of three women identified as the possible dedicatee..." in the article? Then the ALT1 hook, who should be hook-y, would be fine. ALT3 does not fit as well. If you want to be very clear, you could say:
ALT4: ... that singer Elise Barensfeld is one of three possible dedicatees of Ludwig van Beethoven's Für Elise?
Regards SoWhy 15:10, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Teach me English better, but for me "possibly" is weak", "probably" would be stronger. I don't think any person's article should deal with the others, - that's for the piece's article. The research that went into Barensfels as "possible" is the most recent, and the Röckel claim was described as amateurish, so I don't want to deal with it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt: We are both native German speakers, so I won't claim my interpretation as correct. However, I noted that some dictionaries (such as Oxford) list "very likely" as a synonym for "possibly", hence my comment. How about
ALT5: ... that singer Elise Barensfeld is a possible dedicatee of Ludwig van Beethoven's Für Elise?
That way it's imho clearer that she is but one of those who could have been the Elise. As for the other articles, I concede that this is not strictly necessary for DYK, although it would be nice to have consistency. Regards SoWhy 16:19, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
ALT5 is fine with me, if it's better for you. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:27, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Good to go with ALT5. I think I can accept this even if I suggested it since it's only a minor word change. Regards SoWhy 16:44, 11 September 2018 (UTC)