Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to the MOS pit[Humor]


    Style discussions elsewhere

    [edit]

    Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

    Current

    [edit]

    (newest on top)

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Capitalization-specific:

    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Current.[edit]


    Move requests:

    Other discussions:

    Concluded

    [edit]

    Gender neutrality in grammar examples

    [edit]

    Articles about languages, or about their grammar, typically include examples of sentences in the language and their equivalents in English. Many languages don't make a gender distinction in their pronouns, so a sentence using the third person singular could equally well be talking about someone who, in English, would be referred to as "he" or "she" or singular "they". In several places, Greenlandic language uses "(S)he" for these cases.

    With this edit, DdeWylvyn changed "(S)he says" to "They (sg.) say". While recognizing the omission made by "(S)he", I felt that, particularly since all the other examples "(S)he" were left intact, this made it look like the Greenlandic sentence could only be translated with the gender-neutral singular pronoun, that the Greenlandic equivalent to the sentence with "he" or "she" instead would have been something else. So I undid their edit with the edit summary While I've taken to using "they" as an indefinite singular in prose, this is too confusing, implying that the word is used ONLY for singular they and not for he or she. Also, you made it inconsistent with the other occurrences on the page. If anything, perhaps change it, consistently, to "(S)he or sg. they".

    But that led me to think I should get feedback, hence this post. I'm also going to notify WP:WikiProject Languages of this discussion. Largoplazo (talk) 00:12, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Tentatively, would it be worth footnoting the first instances of (S)he and he/she/it to the effect that in this article they stand for gender-specific, gender-neutral and impersonal third-person singular nominative pronouns such as she, he, singular they and it? NebY (talk) 10:57, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That would seem sensible: err on the side of comprehensibility in the text, and then give the specific bounds in precise terminology in the footnote. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:35, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That seems reasonable. Largoplazo (talk) 19:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I apologise for having left inconsistency in the article; I was in a hurry at the time and it slipped my mind to go through the rest of the article. I believe that use of "they (sg.)" is most natural and logical, as it includes all 3rd person arguments regardless of gender (though perhaps not including inanimate ones) without any clunkiness. (unlike something like "he/she", "(s)he" (both implying the existence of only two genders) or "he/she/they" (very long; is unclear as to number) ("/it" could also be appended, for including all possible 3rd person pronouns)
    Honestly, it is just really inconvenient and annoying that English lacks any simple 3rd person gender-neutral pronoun. DdeWylvyn (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I find it use the word "one", as in substituting One can use "one" as a gender neutral pronoun" for They (or she or he) can use "one" as a gender neutral pronoun sometimes useful. Unfortunately, it sometimes sounds awkward, but much of the time it works fine.
    Informally "s/he" sometimes work for a generic person. It obviously does not suffice when referring to an individual who has identified a set of pronouns.
    Neopronoun is a relevant article for this discussion. Peaceray (talk) 18:30, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think "one" really works as a replacement for a third person pronoun. Its use is (~was) as an impersonal pronoun, never referring to a specific person. English usually uses "you" for that now. ("Can one/you be acquitted for a crime they didn't commit?" (yes, that is a strange example sentence that I just came up with))
    I generally use "they" for people, especially if I'm unfamiliar with them. If someone asks me to use something else, I will of course oblige.
    My opinion is that the best option for gender-neutral language in English is something like "they (sg.)" I haven't ever really heard a better alternative, and "they" comes quite naturally to me. DdeWylvyn (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As I noted earlier, the problem with that is that it implies that the non-English sentence is likewise using an explicitly gender-neutral pronoun or suffix where a different pronoun or suffix would be used for sentences equivalent to English ones with "he" or "she". Since I don't know Greenlandic, I'll use Turkish, which also has no grammatical gender, to illustrate my point. If an example of Turkish were "Bana bir hediye verdi" (where ver- is the root for "give" and "-di" is the third-person singular past) and we translated it to "They (sg.) gave me a gift", that would imply that the Turkish sentence equivalent to "He gave me a gift" or "She gave me a gift" would be something other than the example given, that "verdi" is specifically for non-binary usage and Turkish uses one or more other third-person suffixes for male-identifying and female-identifying people. But that would be wrong. "Bana bir hediye verdi" means "He gave me a gift" and "She gave me a gift" and "They (sg.) gave me a gift". Writing only "they (sg.)" is just as misinformative as writing only "she". Largoplazo (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see it as implying that. Would you read something similar into "you (sg.)", and if so, what? Gawaon (talk) 02:25, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Since Modern English has only one second person singular pronoun, there's no analogy with the third person case with respect to the issue that I'm raising. (If this were Hebrew Wikipedia, where Hebrew does distinguish "you (m.sg.)" from "you (f.sg.), that would be another matter.) I'm also wondering whether you think my problem has to do with "(sg.)". It doesn't. If the pronoun that eventually came to be generally accepted for those who don't use "he" or "she" had been "ze/zig/zigs" instead of "they/them/their", and DdeWylvyn had made the same edit but with "ze" instead of "they (sg.)", I'd still be raising this issue. Largoplazo (talk) 03:11, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the obvious difference is that singular they is widely used and understood, while ze is not. And it's used as neutral pronoun, not just 'for those who don't use "he" or "she"'. Gawaon (talk) 06:54, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My premise was that "ze" had attained the role for the singular non-gender-specific pronoun that "they" has in fact attained. So, in that scenario, it wouldn't be a difference at all, the scenario is defined by it being the equivalent situation.
    You've just illustrated further what's wrong with it. My concern was already that it's misleading; you've just pointed out that it's ambiguous as well. Expecting readers to see "they (sg.)" in examples like these and to know intuitively that it's being used as a neutral pronoun for which "he" or "she" could just as well be substituted rather than as a non-gender-specific pronoun for which "he" or "she" could not be substituted is unrealistic, especially since in other situations, with other languages, it could be the other way around. The reader doesn't know which of these two equally possible meanings was intended. Since the point of the translation is to hone in on exactly what's going on in the other language, this fails the purpose of the translation. Largoplazo (talk) 14:09, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "They" is also used in English when someone's gender is unknown or unspecified, not only for non-binary people. jlwoodwa (talk) 05:20, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is another reason why just having "they (sg.)" is a problem. The reader doesn't know whether it's being used this way or the other way, and the difference is relevant to understanding what the sentence in the other language does mean and what it doesn't mean. My original concern was that this approach is misleading; it's even moreso because of this ambiguity. Largoplazo (talk) 14:10, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Using singular "they" usually works very well, but Greenlandic language does rather reveal English's problems. Some of the illustrative examples are translated using he/she/it, some with (s)he, and some with he/she/it/they, and Largoplazo asked for feedback here after you gave "They (sg.) say" instead of "S(he) says". That last highlights that if we use singular they, we have to change the English verb's inflection, or offer alternatives as also in the article, ""He/she/it/they love(s) us" and "He/she/it/they love(s) you (pl.)".
    As someone that doesn't know Greenlandic, I worry that we might not always represent the language correctly if we made such changes throughout (e.g. is that a singular or plural inflection of the verb in Greenlandic?), and also that we might make it harder for general readers to follow all our examples in a long article if we phrase them at such length. What to do? NebY (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We are not here to right great wrongs. We should follow what reputable sources like Britannica, BBC, or other reputable sources are doing at the time. Czarking0 (talk) 16:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Another issue with turning "(S)he says" to "They say" is that "They say" more often indicates plural than it does a singular. Would such a thing not cause confusion? Assuming, that is, that the word in Swedish is an exclusively singular, though gender-neutral pronoun? ~2025-38703-06 (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    That's what DdeWylvyn anticipated by writing "They (sg.) say". Largoplazo (talk) 23:27, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Atleast in English there are only two genders, and inanimate object dont't carry a gender. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:05, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Except ships, of course. EEng 18:41, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the laugh! Any opportunity to get eyes on the old essay, eh? 😄 Largoplazo (talk) 19:20, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Some say "God bless America, land that I love. / Stand beside her and guide her / Through the night with the light from above." NebY (talk) 19:26, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be a sinking ship. EEng 19:30, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Then there's the Church, "she" to Catholics and Anglicans alike, though also, per Mystici Corporis Christi, the mystical body of Christ. NebY (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, since Jesus didn't have a biological father (and thus a source for a Y chromosome.) --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:47, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That's incorrect. "It" is the neuter pronoun used for inanimate objects. But these examples are generally about people so "it" wouldn't be an appropriate translation for the example in the other language. Largoplazo (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that it is pertinent to this discussion to mention that the singular they was first used in 14th-century English,[1][2][3] although its use has been criticized since the 18th-century.[4]
    FYI
     – I took the references straight from the singular they article.
    Peaceray (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    When addressing people who insist "You can't use 'they' as a singular pronoun", sure, some respond by noting "Of course we can, it's been done since the 14th century." But that's not what this discussion is about. Largoplazo (talk) 21:38, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems that Largoplazo has dismissed my comment as dismissive. However, I think that my comment is germane. My intent was to broaden the discussion. Peaceray (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    And it is so tempting to broaden it – or digress wildly, as I did! But I do worry that we're not helping resolve the issue Largoplazo brought here, how to present the grammar examples in Greenlandic language. I'd even narrow it down further to one test case: how should the table in Greenlandic language#Noun incorporation be phrased? NebY (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "... broaden the discussion" = "take it off topic". Do you mind not diluting a discussion someone initiated for a specific purpose by turning it into a free-association free-for-all so that the original purpose gets lost? Largoplazo (talk) 19:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ Balhorn, Mark (June 2004). "The Rise of Epicene They". Journal of English Linguistics. 32 (2): 79–104. doi:10.1177/0075424204265824. ISSN 0075-4242. S2CID 144747717. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
    2. ^ Loughlin, Ayden (23 May 2021). "Frequency of singular they for gender stereotypes and the influence of the queer community". Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference. Archived from the original on 25 May 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
    3. ^ "they". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
    4. ^ Wales, Katie (1996). Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge University Press. p. 125. ISBN 9780521471022. Archived from the original on 13 December 2023. Retrieved 13 November 2019.

    Consistent naming of countries of birth

    [edit]

    This is a question about unifying country name policy for infobox birthplaces.

    Following from this RfC on using the de facto polity at the time of birth, should this policy be enforced for all articles?

    There is often a discrepancy, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Stoiber uses a politically vague "Germany" without a link and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog uses "German Reich" with a link. Should all births and deaths between 1933 and 1945 use "German Reich" or "Nazi Germany" for places in what was clearly an internationally recognised country at the time? If not, what is the relevant difference between the individual SSRs and the German Reich?

    Beyond these two examples, there are many other such discrepancies and it would be helpful to have a unified policy for all cases. Portadapter (talk) 21:49, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    This is more suited to the Infoboxes section: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RFC: Consistent naming of countries of birth Portadapter (talk) 22:11, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, one (to me) glaring difference between the individual SSRs and Nazi Germany is this: Nazi Germany, at the time, was simply called "Germany" and though the borders have been slightly altered roughly corresponds with one modern country that is also called "Germany". My personal opinion is that it should never be referred to as the "German Reich" in infoboxes, or at all, really. I think that teeters uncomfortably close to an ideological line that should not be crossed IMO (which I'm certain was nobody's intention, but it is what it is). I'm more neutral towards "Nazi Germany" but I honestly think just "Germany" would be best. The USSR is a different case, because that was one country that cushions to 15 modern countries; so infoboxes for people born in the USSR should say they were born in the USSR, and which SSR it was they were born in. Likewise with Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and all such similar cases. ~2025-42413-82 (talk) 03:13, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Poland's old and new borders, 1945 (Kresy in gray)
    If the person was born significantly outside the borders of modern Germany then it is potentially misleading to say "Germany" without qualification (but surely we can do better than "German Reich"!). If they were born in Breslau (Wrocław) before 1945, then according to the RFC, they were born in Germany not Poland. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    "Germany" is correct; "Nazi Germany" should never be used as the name of a country. Similarly, someone born in the present-day United States should be said to have been born there and not in the "Trump regime". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:49, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    And "German Reich" is a correct usage, but it covers both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, because "German Reich" was the official name throughout that period. I don't see it as an ideological line to use the official name of a country. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:06, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    no, because it is a (deliberately) loaded term. "German Empire" is the correct translation. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:18, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    "Reich" can also be translated as "realm", not meaning a monarchical government. The Weimar Republic Constitution, art 1, states: "Das Deutsche Reich ist eine Republik." / "The German Reich is a republic." That was the official name of Germany from 1919 until 1943, when the Nazi government changed it to "Großdeutsches Reich" / "Greater German Republic". See: Reich; Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs (1919); Weimar constitution. I fail to see how using the official name, set out in the Weimar Constitution, is a "loaded term". Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:03, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    But Reich is a word in German, not English. And there is no getting away from the fact that, when used in the middle of a sentence in English, the intention is pejorative. So NPOV means we have to choose either Empire or Realm. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Reich is a borrowed term in English like Czar. It is commonly used in English languages texts without translation. Czarking0 (talk) 16:19, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, true, but in what context? It was being used pointedly during the Great War – like "the Hun" or "the Boche" – and its use resurfaced for WWII. The word Empire could have been used but neutrality was not on the agenda. Its use was consciously not neutral, othering was the prime motive. Likewise, the King of Germany had to be the Kaiser. Consequently if we use it on Wikipedia, we must fail WP:NPOV. "German Empire" is the neutral term. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Please keep in mind that Germany is only being used as an example. The aim here is to resolve this issue for all possible cases in the future. Portadapter (talk) 14:02, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe a simple rule of thumb could be: Use a simple name when it's unambiguous, add more details when needed? So "Germany" is fine (unambiguous) between 1872 and 1944 and since 1991, but insufficient/unclear for other times. Gawaon (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Plus, we have to accept that borders and the names of states do change, so we should use the name that was used at the time of the birth, not the current country name. Even if the place where the person was born is no longer part of the country (or the country no longer exists), for historical reasons I think we should use the name at the time of birth. For example, if someone was born in Prague in 1985, I think we should list the place of birth as "Czechoslovakia", even though Prague is now in the Czech Republic. Similarly if someone was born in Montreal in 1860 their place of birth should be "Province of Canada", not "Quebec" or "Canada", because those political entities did not exist at that time. The Province of Canada no longer exists, but that's where the person was born. So for the example of someone born in part of Germany pre-1939 that is no longer part of Germany (eg Danzig / Gdańsk), the place of birth should be Germany. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:24, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, sure. Gawaon (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    This all appears to be a roundabout attempt to overturn the Baltics states RFC, to be honest. GoodDay (talk) 15:30, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    How could it? That the Soviet Union was the Soviet Union at the time it existed seems undisputed. So whether 1935 Nazi Germany should be called just "Germany" or something else seems essentially unrelated to it (the fact the OP did indeed mention that RfC notwithstanding). Gawaon (talk) 16:10, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok. GoodDay (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Should the word "that" be deprecated in Wikipedia articles?

    [edit]

    A new editor, User:Glardenc, created their account on December 8, 2025, and as of this post has made 170 edits [[2]]. Of those 170 edits, by my count 88 of the edits have either been:

    (1) to eliminate the word "that" from articles, on the basis that it is an inferior word, permissible in oral speech, but not in written English, where there are "superior" words, such as "which" or "who" which should always replace "that" (e.g. in many edit summaries Glardenc states: "edited the ill-used conjunction "that", replacing with the grammatically preferred and better "which", "who", "the", "this" ");
    (2) comments on Talk pages rejecting critiques of their usage. The most recent appears to be in response to a Note on their Talk page [[3]], where Glardenc states:
    "And I don't have the faintest of cares about opinions regarding editing it. My form reads cleaner, more compact, polished. It's truly an indication of poor grammar and iq to use it widely."

    I'm raising this issue here, rather than on ANI, because it seems to be a matter of style at this stage. Personally, I disagree entirely with Glardenc's wholesale rejection of the word "that" in written English, and do not think it is appropriate for one editor to attempt to impose their personal style preferences on Wikipedia in this way.

    (Altho' I am concerned that the quoted comment is a rejection of consensus to resolve issues, and the assertion that anyone who disagrees with them suffers from "poor grammar and iq" verges on a breach of Wikipedia:Civility.)

    As soon as I complete this post, I will leave a note on Glardenc's Talk page, and try to ping any other editors who have commented on particular pages.

    ETA: have added note to Glardenc's Talk page. [[4]]

    Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Courtesy pings to: Courtesy ping: WikiOriginal-9; Courtesy ping: EEng; [[Courtey ping|Magnolia677}}; Courtesy ping: Mark and inwardly digest. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Try again: Courtesy ping: Magnolia677 Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:20, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Their changes do not appear to be consistent with WP practices, nor with English grammar rules. The words "which" and "that" have two distinct meanings. "the car which was red ... " vs "the car that was red... " are both valid, but have slightly different meanings. "Which" means the redness is incidental/tangential; "that" means the redness was identifying/significant. As far as I can tell from the editor's change history, the editor is changing some "that"s to "which" - without validating that "which" is more appropriate in each situation. I think the editor should respond here and confirm they understand the distinction between which & that, and confirm that they are leaving "that" in place where it is appropriate. Noleander (talk) 17:19, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It's the difference between restrictive clauses (with "that") and non-restrictive clauses (with which). But, conventionally, non-restrictive clauses are also demarcated by commas: "the car, which was red, ...". Anyway, this is a long-entrenched guideline, at least as I learned it in school and have seen it presented since then.
    That's the traditional, prescriptionist view. As Merriam-Webster explains, "which" in fact appears interchangeably with "this" in restrictive clauses. That and which can both introduce a restrictive clause, ... Which is the word used to introduce a nonrestrictive clause, ....[5] Largoplazo (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the info from M-Webster. But even if which & that are interchangeable for the restrictive situation, doesn't WP have guideline that says that editors should not change the wording of an article merely to switch between two valid stylistic choices? Comparable to the rule that prohibits changing an article from UK English to/from US English; or metric to/from imperial? Noleander (talk) 18:50, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:VAR: Edit warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is disruptive and is never acceptable. Unjustified changes from one acceptable, consistently applied style in an article to a different style may generally be reverted.. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:56, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't agree with your interpretation. I think this is a distinction which is only made in some regions and not others. It also is a distinction that depends on tone of voice.
    Further, I think this distinction is only made in some localities, and this distinction depends on tone.
    It is typically more active voice to say "You saw a red car." Is preferred over the passive "you saw a car that was red".
    Maybe you have sources to support your argument?, but Largoplazo sources support me here.
    The issue that I think Largoplazo is subtly introducing is if we should be prescriptionist. I think yes. What is the point of a guideline that is not prescriptionist? The guidelines are there to help create a uniform style not to document many different styles. Czarking0 (talk) 16:29, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Mr SB. I wonder if Glardenc is any relation to the "comprised of" guy? Mark and inwardly digest (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    You can actually ping more than 1 person using {{Courtesy ping}}. For example, {{Courtesy ping|Mr Serjeant Buzfuz|Example}} returns Courtesy pings: Mr Serjeant Buzfuz, Example. FaviFake (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The comment about "not caring about the opinions of editing it" was specifically and only aimed to the derogatory comment of a member who assailed my stance as "horseplay", and attempted to discredit it in any substance as being proper or useful.
    That is the context of that comment. In the thread of that comment, I gave the member specific examples showing where other conjunctions and determiners provided clearer usage above the word "that". Even after providing these examples, the member nonetheless attacked my grammatic position as unprofessional and sophomoric. My retort included the truth that their (specific/one) opinion of my usage of grammar is not dissuasive.
    It is noted, though, that in this instance you alluded to one brief snippet, without mentioning the context in which it was delivered. Glardenc (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)Edit summaries which call "which", who" and "the" "more descriptive conjunctions"[6] do not inspire confidence in the editor's opinions; perhaps they could quote a style guide or English grammar instead. The current Fowler's has four pages on the appropriate uses of "that". It notes, for example, that some omissions of "that" are feasible but does not go as far as recommending such removals as those in Glardenc's edit, correct to state that they are, The university also confirmed that the removal of the statue. It does quote, approvingly, Fowler himself in 1926:

    The relations between that, who, and which, have come to us from our forefathers as an odd jumble, and plainly show that the language has not been neatly constructed by a master builder who could create each part to do the exact work required of it, neither overlapped nor overlapping; far from that, its parts have had to grow as they could.

    NebY (talk) 18:21, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In the edit "The university also confirmed **that the** removal of the statue...", the sentence retains its full meaning. In this matter, the edit made the sentence more concise, without changing any connotation. Finding instances where connotation remains intact, while making the text itself less chatty/wordy, is a plus for the site and its articles. Of course there are instances where "that" is appropriate. It's not a wholesale assault on the word. It is, rather, the aim to increase the concision of existing text. In cases where the context remains firm with "that" removed, it proves "that" (in these instances) is both unnecessary and cluttery. It seems Wikipedia would prefer articles be as compact and polished as possible, while still getting the information of the article/topic expressed. I will sometimes find "that" expressed 4-5 times in the span of two or three sentences. This is not attaining the bar which Wikipedia surely wishes to achieve. Glardenc (talk) 19:05, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    "The university also confirmed that the removal..." can be parsed unconsciously and without hesitation, unlike "The university also confirmed removal...". We don't want to minimise the number of words we use; we want to minimise the time and effort readers have to put in to figure out what we mean.
    Can you cite a style guide that supports your approach? NebY (talk) 19:17, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    (A) "Minimizing time and effort readers have to put in to figure out what we mean" is exactly the aim of my edits. (I haven't seen anyone mention it was/is about reducing the number of words - I specifically stated, "Finding instances where connotation remains intact, while making the text itself less chatty/wordy, is a plus for the site and its articles.") I am fairly new to WP in terms of looking to improve articles, and it is surprising how cluttery and overly wordy the majority of articles are. (B) Why prompt unconscious parsing by readers, when parsing can be done upfront via improved concision in how articles are written? Waiting for unconscious parsing is not proactively having the mindset of "minimizing time and effort readers have to put in to figure out what we mean." (C) I haven't yet come across a book written by my high school English teacher, who had three degrees: B.A.'s in English and History, and a J.D. in Law. She brought keen attention to the overuse of "that", and she was 100% correct - doesn't matter whether she wrote a book on it or not. It's something which sticks out like a sore thumb. In instances where its presence is plain/benign/unnecessary, it exudes, to be blunt, sloppiness and laziness - the antithesis of concision, and not a good look (in this current discussion, for WP).
    It's much more acceptable in spoken/conversational English. In written grammar, "that" is often (not always) dispensable. In many instances, context is retained via simply removing it (the parsing & concision being talked about). Other times it has a plain/benign/vanilla presence, and the sentence is improved by (an)other option(s): (ex: "Brady is the only NFL player WHO **not THAT** has been on seven Super Bowl winning teams.") Of course, there are times it's right on the money, (ex: "In that time, he had 232 passing yards and the Stallions won the game, 21–14."). Glardenc (talk) 20:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Gosh, was your high school English teacher WP:MISSSNODGRASS? EEng 00:45, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Glardenc, one of the foundational principles of Wikipedia is that we use Reliable sources. Other editors in this discussion have referred to Merriam-Webster, to Fowler's, and to The Chicago Manual of Style, in support of their positions. Those are all reliable sources, accepted as good guides to English grammar, and anyone who wants to check what they say when cited as a source can do so, because they are publicly available. "My teacher told me" is not a reliable source. We don't know who your teacher was, and whether she should be accepted as a reliable source. None of us can check her statements up, either online or on hard copy, because she's a complete unknown. Therefore, citing her does not advance your argument. If you disagree with the reliable sources that have been cited in this discussion, please provide a reliable source that supports your position. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:34, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Here is a breakdown of the changes in Glardenc's edit to Texas A&M University:

    1. To Aggies who (correctly) point out that they refer to "alumni" under the term "former students" -> To Aggies who (correctly) point out they refer to "alumni" under the term "former students"
      This is a stylistic choice, and one I'd disagree with. I don't think it's technically wrong but I don't think this sort of edit should be made on a mass basis. Also, this is inside a comment, meaning there's very little value in fixing it.
    2. a higher proportion than that of any other American college or university -> a higher proportion than any other American college or university
      Again a stylistic choice, but I think this is more defensible. I might make this edit myself if I were copyediting an article, but again I don't think this is a good choice for mass edits.
    3. The university also confirmed that the removal of the statue would require approval from the Texas Legislature -> The university also confirmed removal of the statue would require approval from the Texas Legislature
      I think this is a mistake, or at least a poor stylistic choice. Without "that" it takes the reader a split-second longer to parse the sentence, which could now be read as "the university confirmed that the statue had been removed" until the eye moves past "would".
    4. university president M. Katherine Banks implemented university-wide administrative restructuring that involved several changes to academic unit names -> university president M. Katherine Banks implemented university-wide administrative restructuring which involved several changes to academic unit names
      I think this was done because of the that/which restrictive clause issue, but it wasn't necessary as there was no subsequent clause. Again this is a stylistic preference, not a correction.
    5. Dozens of buildings are visible including one that is domed -> Dozens of buildings are visible including one which is domed
      Same as above. In this case I would agree; the version with "that" sounds a bit clumsier, but this is not a correction. I might have made this edit if I were copyediting.
    6. In 2021, The Washington Monthly assessed Texas A&M 21st nationally based on their criteria that weigh research, community service, and social mobility -> In 2021, The Washington Monthly assessed Texas A&M 21st nationally based on their criteria which weigh research, community service, and social mobility.
      This is a valid correction; we don't want the restrictive "that" here.
    7. Texas A&M works with state and university agencies on local and international research projects to develop innovations in science and technology that can have commercial applications -> Texas A&M works with state and university agencies on local and international research projects to develop innovations in science and technology which can have commercial applications
      This changes the meaning, and is not a grammatical correction; the sentence now says that the innovations may have commercial applications; with "that" the implication was that they were intended to have commercial applications. This change shouldn't be made without understanding the intended meaning; perhaps Glardenc checked the source in this case but I doubt it given what they say about their approach to these edits.
    8. the Texas A&M University System was the first to explicitly state in its policy that technology commercialization could be used for tenure -> the Texas A&M University System was the first to explicitly state in its policy technology commercialization could be used for tenure
      Stylistic again, and I think a poor choice; the reader's going to take a moment to understand that "policy technology commercialization" has an implied conjunction in its midst.
    9. the dogs in question were given several experimental treatments to improve or cure a genetic condition that also affects humans -> the dogs in question were given several experimental treatments to improve or cure a genetic condition which also affects humans
      I assume this was done because of the which/that restrictive clause issue, but I think it's an error. The original version was restrictive and that seems likely to be the intended meaning.
    10. the university announced on 9 February 2024 that it would be closing its Qatar campus by 2028 -> the university announced on 9 February 2024 it would be closing its Qatar campus by 2028
      Stylistic, and not a terrible choice, though to my eye it makes the sentence a touch less readable.
    11. a series of twelve arches that allude to the spirit of the 12th Man -> a series of twelve arches which allude to the spirit of the 12th Man
      The restrictive clause issue; the change is fine but it wasn't necessary because the first clause is not being used to choose arches from an implied set of more than twelve.
    12. an all-male choral group not affiliated with the Corps of Cadets with about 70 members that was founded in 1893 -> an all-male choral group not affiliated with the Corps of Cadets with about 70 members which was founded in 1893
      Same as above; the change is fine but not really needed.
    13. lights a candle to symbolize that although their loved one is not physically present -> lights a candle to symbolize although their loved one is not physically present
      This is just wrong.
    14. Students who die while enrolled at Texas A&M are honored at Silver Taps, a ceremony that is held, when necessary, on the first Tuesday of the month -> Students who die while enrolled at Texas A&M are honored at Silver Taps, a ceremony which is held, when necessary, on the first Tuesday of the month
      I agree with this change though again it's not strictly necessary because there is no sense that other ceremonies are being defined out of the clause. I might make this edit myself if copyediting.
    15. The song is not played to the east, symbolizing that the sun will never again rise on the deceased student -> The song is not played to the east, symbolizing the sun will never again rise on the deceased student
      Stylistic, and to my eye this definitely hurts readability; a reader is almost sure to stumble on "symbolizing the sun".
    16. The rivalry was renewed in 2024 when the Longhorns joined the SEC, ending the hiatus that began in 2011 -> The rivalry was renewed in 2024 when the Longhorns joined the SEC, ending the hiatus which began in 2011
      I'm a Longhorn myself so perhaps I should know this, but this changes the meaning and I don't know if it's correct. Were there previous hiatuses? And I'd rephrase anyway: perhaps "ending a hiatus which began", or make it absolutely clear whether there had been earlier gaps.

    I'm sure others will disagree with some of my assessments here, but I think at least a few of these are clearly stylistic choices, and a couple clearly change the meaning and should not be done without reference to the sources. I don't think anyone should be making a project out of this sort of edit. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:14, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Overall, I don't disagree with your analysis, Mike Christie; that's exactly the kind of careful, word-by-word analysis that I think is appropriate on Wikipedia. As opposed to " 'that' is a bad word in written English and needs to be replaced wholesale by 'superior' words." Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Glardenc - Even if your changes are technically correct, would you consider redirecting your energies to areas of the encyclopedia that are of more import? WP needs volunteers to help in many areas: creating new articles, adding missing material to existing articles, finding sources for articles that don't have footnotes, helping new articles get shaped into encyclopedic form, etc. Of course, WP has editors that focus on copy editing  – such as the WP:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors – but if that is your desire, perhaps you could focus on articles that need major copy editing, such as articles that (which?) were machine-translated from other languages. Noleander (talk) 01:08, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Glardenc confuses its and it's, hypercorrects hyphens into places they don't belong, doesn't know a hyphen from a dash, thinks which and who are conjunctions, and indulges in comma splices (for all of which see [7]). Meanwhile (see above in this thread) they commit blunders such as I gave the member specific examples ... Even after providing these examples, the member nonetheless attacked ... (apparently forgetting, from one sentence to the next, who gave the examples), and seems to think grammatic is an impressive synonym for grammatical (maybe because it saves two letters?). So I don't think you've done them, or Wikipedia, a favor by suggesting that copyediting would be a good task for them. EEng 06:38, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      While not doing other people favors, might I suggest to Glardenc or others who want to make English simple by removing not needed words: we have a project for writing in simple English, simple.wikipedia.org. They might find a more welcoming home there. Or not. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Actually, DE (and I know you'll agree once I say this): Compressing information into a more parsimonious representation does not, in general, simplify extraction of the underlying content, but rather makes it more difficult, because a more complex algorithm, and more CPU (or brain) cycles, will typically be required for decompression. EEng 22:55, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Simple English avoids unclear formulations like omitting “that”. So Glardenc’s changes would be highly detrimental on the Simple English wiki. — tooki (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • I completely disagree with Glardenc. For the record, Chicago MOS says (I paraphrase) to use that unless there's a preceding comma, in which case use which. This person hasn't got a clue. Tony (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      That was my thought, also. 'That' qualifies the preceding subject whereas 'which' provides additional information about it, following a comma. Sometimes (but not always) there are simpler ways of saying something (particularly in conversation) that can avoid using these, but that doesn't make them incorrect to use. If someone is going to launch an editing crusade they'd do better to focus on usage that is actually incorrect, of which WP offers plenty of material on which to start work.... MapReader (talk) 09:45, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Let's cool it with the name-calling, maybe? In any case I agree that the word "that" is fine in most contexts and this proposal is unlikely to gain consensus. CapitalSasha ~ talk 18:01, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Killjoy. EEng 22:57, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Mike Christie, thanks for posting this analysis. I generally agree, with a few points that I'd like to make:
    • 1. a higher proportion than that of any other American college or university -> a higher proportion than any other American college or university - This actually changes the meaning of the sentence. The first version means "a higher proportion than any other college/university's proportion"; the second means "a higher proportion than the college/university itself". Granted, it's not important in this particular article as most readers will assume the first meaning, but there are some cases where this is semantically different.
    • 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16 (changing "that" to "which") - In American English, "that" is used to denote a restrictive clause that is vital to the meaning of a sentence, whereas changing it to "which" (usually when preceded by a comma) makes it a non-restrictive clause and, thus, changes the meaning of the sentence. For example, the text The rivalry was renewed in 2024 when the Longhorns joined the SEC, ending the hiatus that began in 2011 tells us that the hiatus began in 2011. The rivalry was renewed in 2024 when the Longhorns joined the SEC, ending the hiatus which began in 2011 tells us that there may have been one or more hiatuses, and that only one of these ended in 2011.
    – Epicgenius (talk) 16:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The article these edits were taken from is in AmEng, and I know AmEng tends to be much more rigorous on the which/that distinction. I don't fully agree with you, though as a native BrEng speaker I can't be sure you're wrong about any of this. A couple of comments to see if we can understand each other:
    • 1: I think you're only technically right. I can't imagine anyone actually parsing this incorrectly. But we agree it's a harmful change, so it's moot.
    • For 6, 7, 9, and 16: we agree the meaning changes as I commented above.
    • For 5, 11, 12 and 14: I'd like to suggest the meaning doesn't change, even if one insists on the that/which restrictive clause distinction. For example, in 11 -- a series of twelve arches that allude to the spirit of the 12th Man -- there's no set of arches from which we are selecting only the ones that allude to the spirit of the 12th man. The reader can't say to themselves, "Ah, this is a series of twelve of these restricted alluding kind of arches, rather than a series of twelve arches which may or may not so allude". Well, perhaps the reader can, but I think the implication is so distant as to be safely ignored. Or am I underestimating the strength of an AmEng reader's expectation that "that" in this structure must always imply a restriction?
    -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:05, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    1 is the sort of thing I routinely fix when I see it. Of course, because of pragmatics, we understand it in speech when someone says "the Xness of B is larger than C" but where academic-level writing is expected, it's sloppy. It should be either "the Xness of B is larger than C's" or "the Xness of B is larger than that of C". In the case of a higher proportion than any other American college or university, "that of" is probably better than the contraction. Largoplazo (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    (Native speaker of American English here.) I agree with your analysis. Among the ones where “that” is simply deleted, I can’t identify a single one that is improved by the deletion. In every case, the sentence becomes more difficult to parse. Non-native or lower-skilled readers may find the version without “that” to be significantly more difficult, potentially to the point of failure.
    I used to work as a technical writer, and in that discipline, one always uses “that” to ensure clarity. Microsoft’s Writing Style Guide (intended for writing documentation, and overall an extraordinarily high-quality resource based on decades of experience in the pitfalls of writing documentation for end users) has a page on the topic: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/a-z-word-list-term-collections/t/that-vs-which which includes the statement: “Global tip: Include that even if the sentence is clear without it. It helps to clarify the sentence structure.” (“Global tips” are their recommendations for writing for an international audience.)
    In short, I don’t see a single one of the edits to be an improvement; they are neutral at best and significantly worse at worst. I would argue that Glardenc has a very warped view of what “good” writing is, especially in the context of prescriptivist rules, as well as not fully understanding those and other grammatical rules, and should back off from doing any edits of the kind. — tooki (talk) 12:34, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes - is there any reason they can't be banned from making edits of this sort? Johnbod (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess only the ANI could decide on sanctions of such a kind. Gawaon (talk) 12:56, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I point out THAT they haven't edited in two weeks, so it appears THAT the issue is moot. EEng 13:13, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Take THAT, pronouns! Talk Like That might be a song they hate. – The Grid (talk) 13:52, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we all band together and finish undoing the misguided edits? I just spent an hour fixing George W. Bush manually, since others had made subsequent edits, making a simple revert impossible. The sooner we fix whatever’s left, the better… — tooki (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    "Which car?" "That car...!" That Girl, etc. I edit under the ambit of "Prosody and nuance" often enough, but this is an inane idée fixe if ever there was one. No sense of proportion. kencf0618 (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Absolutely not. The word that is perfectly legitimate and does not mean the same as which. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Mike is correct about there being WP:ENGVAR issues here. The article on That doesn't say much about British vs American styles. Perhaps putting the information in the Wikipedia article another way to approach this.
    For myself, I normally follow the approach Harold Ross, who adored Fowler's on this point,[8] mandated for The New Yorker, but I'm only concerned about other editors' choices if they make unfounded assertions that the correct and traditional (e.g., Shakespearean) use of that is actually "wrong". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    legalism guidance

    [edit]

    The following provided example strikes me as being unreasonably confusing:

    Do not use the legalism Smith J for Justice Smith.

    Is "Justice" intended here as a title or as a given name? (On its face, it appears simply as a case where the citation generator is unable to differentiate between a title and a given name.)

    Anybody care to clear this up? Fabrickator (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Question about capitalization of a title

    [edit]

    Hello stylish editors! Here's a question about capitalization of a title. In the article about the song "The 'In' Crowd", it says it was "originally performed by Dobie Gray on his album Dobie Gray Sings for "In" Crowders That Go "Go-Go". In the album title, should the word "that" be capitalized? I'm using MOS:TITLECAPS to guide me, but I'm not sure what part of speech "that" is here. I'm thinking that it's a pronoun, and therefore it should be capitalized, but I'm really not sure. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:14, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    That is never a preposition and it should always be capitalized if title case is used. It's as simple as that. Gawaon (talk) 02:26, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    You mean: as simple as That? EEng 02:40, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    As Simple as That! Gawaon (talk) 03:07, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Okay, so it sounds like, in this album title, "for" is a preposition and "that" is a relative pronoun. Therefore, based on MOS:TITLECAPS, the current capitalization is correct -- Dobie Gray Sings for "In" Crowders That Go "Go-Go". Good, thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 11:34, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    My recollection (from many years ago) had been that it was about word length. I checked against chatgpt, and it cited several different style guides. Nearly all of them (if you trust AI) state that prepositions and conjunctions should be capitalized only if 4 letters or longer, while the MLA style guide simply saying not to capitalize prepositions and conjunctions. (I have left out the finer points, and of course with the caveat that it's "me" summarizing and paraphrasing AI.) Fabrickator (talk) 00:54, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In this case that's irrelevant since that is a pronoun in the title in question. Our own style says that prepositions with five or more letters are capitalized, but shorter ones are not. Hence with, but Without. I think that's a bit odd, but it is as it is. Gawaon (talk) 02:50, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, we could avoid all of this arguing and ambiguity by switching to either 1) using sentence case for titles or 2) capitalizing every word in a title with no exceptions. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:59, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We could, but fortunately there's already a tool that does it for us: [10]. Gawaon (talk) 03:23, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually it seem I have to withdraw my recommendation here, as it gets prepositions with four letters wrong in "Wiki" style: it capitalizes them, we don't. Gawaon (talk) 03:31, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I think I might vote for sentence-case titles! It would be consistent with how we capitalize our own articles and sections, although I can imagine it might be surprising to many readers, and would lead to an entire new category of wiki-lawyering (is Lord of the Rings a personal title, and thus a proper noun, or is it a descriptive phrase, thus The lord of the rings?) It would also introduce new ambiguity, as many pages about works are currently disambiguated by capitalization. pburka (talk) 04:16, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, realistically, it's too big a change to happen any time soon. Gawaon (talk) 05:06, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is why my personal choice is for my second option, capitalize all words in a title with no exceptions. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:43, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That's Even More Unlikely To Ever Happen, And It Looks Ugly. (Though I Suppose One Could Get Used To It Over Time.) Gawaon (talk) 14:34, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The current "capitalize all words, except those on this list, unless these specific exceptions to the exceptions apply" rule results in titles that look exceptionally ugly to me. Aside from just being a silly rule that engenders all this discussion. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:49, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Disambiguation solely be capitalization is also something we should do away with. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:51, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Rfc on adding section for abbreviation of (proper) names

    [edit]

    Currently there is no MOS section anywhere for simply abbreviating (not initializing) names of things (as in "the Church" for the Catholic Church). I would include this either at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations or here at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Abbreviations (though I don't know why the contents of this section can't be migrated to the Abbreviations page). I would suggest the following guidance:

    After a named referent has been introduced in an article by its full name, it can be abbreviated in subsequent reference. Abbreviations can be a shortened form of the name (capitalized), or a general descriptor (uncapitalized). For example, the Catholic Church might be abbreviated to "the Church" (shortened proper noun, specific), whereas the River Thames is more aptly abbreviated to "the river" (common noun, general).

    Within each article, all abbreviations of the same name should consistently follow the same style. If abbreviations of the same name are inconsistent, consensus for which to use can be sought on the relevant talk page. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 12:15, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Describing these as abbreviations is misleading ISTM. MapReader (talk) 12:30, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm following the Cambridge Guide to English Usage: "Capital letters in abbreviated designations and titles: After introducing a name or the title in full, most writers abbreviate it for subsequent appearances – it would be cumbersome otherwise. The word retained is often lower-cased. So the Amazon River becomes the river..."
    But perhaps it is better called a shortening Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 13:02, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    This is already covered in MOS:INSTITUTIONS. Don't capitalize "church". pburka (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I would add that the full name should be presented on the first instance of mentioning, so the reader understands the shorter version in context. So… “The Anglican Church is the largest Christian denomination in the UK. The primate of the Church is the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Etc. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't capitalize common nouns. "The king and the archbishop are both powerful figures in the church.' pburka (talk) 13:20, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The Church in the instance is a proper noun (abbreviation of Anglican Church) Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 13:48, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    So are the King of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury. But we don't write "The King and the Archbishop both powerful figures in the Church." MOS:CAP is quite clear on this, and the Cambridge guide you quoted above also says that the shortened forms are usually lowercase. pburka (talk) 14:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. This applies to all proper nouns, not just institutions Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 13:03, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    So does that chapter of the MOS. I just linked directly to the most relevant subsection for your example. pburka (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I see no prior discussion per WP:RFCBEFORE and no indication that this is a matter that needs an RFC to resolve any disputes. Procedural close? NebY (talk) 13:10, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 MapReader (talk) 13:45, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes Czarking0 (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Expatriates

    [edit]

    Is there a provision anywhere in the MoS about using the word "expatriates" (see Roatán, for example) rather than "immigrants"? I have an idea of the socioeconomic nuance behind the distinction and wondered what the sense was of the treatment of that distinction here. Or do we treat that as irrelevant and use whichever word is being used in the sources being referenced in an article? Largoplazo (talk) 01:42, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    It looks like the said expatriates in that article were various stripes of outlaws or other "unsavory" folk, pirates, buccaneers, and the like, and apparently a significant proportion of that islands population are their descendents. This is very different from what is usually meant when discussing "immigrants". ~2026-20824-9 (talk) 23:10, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the distinction between expatriates, emigrants, immigrants, and settlers is one of perspective. Emigrants are the people who left one place; immigrants are the people who arrived in another. Settlers are people who arrived from elsewhere, when you're thinking of them as local people. Expats are people who arrived from elsewhere, when you're thinking of them as nonlocals (or when they're thinking of themselves that way). But really it could all just be the same people. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:29, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The literal meanings cover different circumstances, anyhow. Someone who is ‘ex patria’ is away from their home country, implying that their circumstance is temporary, or at the least that they hold and retain the citizenship of their old country rather than their new location. Whereas immigration generally implies the opposite - permanency and acquiring new (or additional) citizenship. MapReader (talk) 06:35, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. As far as I'm concerned (and the definition I've always used for catagorisation purposes), an immigrant is someone who has settled (or intends/intended to settle) in another country permanently (maybe taking citizenship, although that isn't a requirement - many immigrants never do). An expatriate is someone who intends to go back to their home country after they've finished doing whatever they're doing in another country (and almost certainly doesn't acquire citizenship). -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    There's definitely a class distinction, but I agree that "immigrant" implies some permanence. Low-income expatriates are often termed migrant workers or guest workers. pburka (talk) 15:49, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm afraid it's a matter of wealth and power. Americans abroad are always expats, while someone from Bangladesh is always an immigrant (or maybe even a migrant or guest worker, as pburka says). Europeans moving to Asian countries are usually expats, even if they want to stay forever (retirement expats), supposedly because their countries of origin are usually more wealthy than the destination. Gawaon (talk) 16:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    [edit]

    I happened to find a circular link in the section Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Third-person pronouns. Specifically, the part that says The she/her optional style does not apply to other vessel/vehicle types, such as trains. (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history § Pronouns.) Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history § Pronouns is simply a section that links back to this part of the manual of style, I don't see any other relevant information there.

    I dug through the history and it looks like it got merged at some point so that it's all on this page? The text was removed from the Military history page here [11] and the link was added to the Manual of Style page here [12]. I think the link to the Military history page should be removed. (I would make the edit myself but I don't have permission!) Zichqec (talk) 19:50, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    🎵 She for ships, and ships for she
    It's me for you, and you for me 🎵
    Alo-o-o-o-ne!
    🎵Nobody near us
    to see us or hear us ... 🎵
    • I've removed the cross-reference. It's possible that MILHIST could at some point expand their own guidelines to be more encompassing than the main MoS, and in that case we can always restore it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:13, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you! I checked when I got on and it looks like there's some broken formatting now, FaviFake letting you know your edit may need some adjustment? Zichqec (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Just needed a closing bracket, fixed! FaviFake (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God, don't let the she-for-ships debate rise from the grave. Please dear God ... EEng 20:47, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Language marking in section headings

    [edit]

    Someone asked about this at the MOS:ACCESSIBILITY talk page at [13] in 2022 and got no responses, so let's see if I'll do better here. In this edit, @Erinius, in accordance with MOS:HEAD (and the technical limitations that it represents), removed {{lang}} tags that someone had placed inside section headings. But then MOS:LANG is being broken. Rock meets hard place. Is there anything to be done? Has a consensus been reached before on which of those provisions wins out? Is there any way to jigger the parsing of section headings in link creation and so forth so that MOS:LANG can be adhered to? Largoplazo (talk) 13:50, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure MOS:LANG applies there, since those section titles just include single letters. I'd originally just intended on removing the lang tags but I checked and it seemed transclusions of any kind don't belong in section titles. Would substituting lang or angbr templates be advisable in some section titles?
    I'd also been sort of idly curious about how MOS:LANG & accessibility needs intersect with article titles that are in another language - there are a few of these in the Spanish dialects/variation sphere like Voseo and Yeísmo. What should be done there? Erinius (talk) 13:57, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    For article titles, you either use {{title language}} or, if only part of the title takes a tag, {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and {{lang}}/{{langr}} with |cat=no. Paradoctor (talk) 14:52, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In the case at hand, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I was on the fence over removing them myself for that reason when I saw those tags inserted not many days ago. Largoplazo (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Templates shouldn't be used in section headings, so removing them seems correct. MOS:LANG is supposedly more about running text and needs to stand back in case there are technical reasons against template use. Gawaon (talk) 14:02, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Special:ExpandTemplates can be used to convert a heading with template call into one without. Or you go hi-tech and use subst:. Paradoctor (talk) 14:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In short, MOS:HEAD is more important because it's a technical problem. It says These technical restrictions are necessary to avoid technical complications and are not subject to override by local consensus. What if we make it clearer? For example:

    These restrictions are mandatory to avoid technical complications and are not subject to override by local consensus or incompatible guidelines.

    I'm guessing there's more than once case of this in the wild, it's just that nobody discovered it yet. FaviFake (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I updated MOS:LANG to mention MOS:TEMPLATE. FaviFake (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Ideally, the opening tags of the <h1>...</h1>, <h2>...</h2> etc. elements would include a lang= attribute. This attribute, like class=, id= and style= is a global attribute, which means that it may be used on any HTML element, without exception. But MediaWiki doesn't provide us with the means to add attributes to these heading elements, however what we can do is to use a <span>...</span> element within the heading: 
    ==Pronunciation of ⟨<span lang=he>ע</span>⟩==
    --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    But is HTML markup permitted? The guideline doesn't say it isn't, and it does allow empty spans for anchors, but is this OK? Largoplazo (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure! Why would this be unlike {{subst:Anchor}}? FaviFake (talk) 17:01, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, at least span tags seem to be allowed, so Redrose64's example should work as suggested (except that it seems to include spurious parentheses). Gawaon (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
     Done FaviFake (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gawaon: They're not parentheses, they're angle brackets. Why? Because the diff link in the second sentence of the original post showed the removal of not just some {{lang}} but also of {{angbr}} that wrapped them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:42, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah! In the font used for preformatted text those look essentially indistinguishable from round parentheses to me, but I got it now. (And maybe I need new glasses?) Gawaon (talk) 15:53, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    BC or BCE in ancient history

    [edit]

    WP:BCE is indifferent to the choice of BC or BCE, urging that whatever system has been adopted on a topic be retained. In recent decades, however, most journals of ancient history, and (I believe) most university presses, prefer BCE to BC. On the BCE side, we have MLA, The Society of Biblical Literature, Journal of Roman Studies, and Classical Quarterly. It is a bit jarring to refer to some date in Ur III (2112–2004 BCE) in reference to an event that two millennia away. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:48, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    But WP is not an academic journal or university press, is it? This question often comes up. I suggest you read Common Era for example: "In 2013, the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History) in Gatineau (opposite Ottawa), which had previously switched to BCE/CE, decided to change back to BC/AD in material intended for the public while retaining BCE/CE in academic content.[1]" The British Museum continues to use "BC", and so on. I've seen various queries on talk pages asking what on earth "BCE" means - usually I think from Indian readers, but never about what "BC" means. Non-first-language readers are I think generally not used to CE. Johnbod (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't really understand why BC should be more "jarring" in that context than anywhere else. It's essentially an arbitrary point in time, not really an "event" (it's generally thought that Jesus was born somewhere from 6 to 4 BC, if I recall correctly). Most people rarely think of the meaning of BC or AD (or BCE or CE for that matter); they just basically mean "negative" and "positive", with the unfortunate hiccup of the missing year 0. --Trovatore (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    As said above, WP:BCE allows both BC and BCE, favours neither and only insists that an article is consistent.
    Academics journals do indeed favour BCE - including Christian journals.
    But the general public (at least in Western countries) rarely know what BCE means and generally understand BC better.
    If you think (2112–2004 BCE) is jarring, what would you replace it with. (2112–2004 BC) also references the same point in time. Other reference points are not well-known to the general readership.  Stepho  talk  01:47, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I messed up; I think 2200 BC is jarring because good old Esarhaddon had no idea he was 2200 years before something. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:25, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    But he did have an idea that he was 2200 years before the "common era"? I really don't follow the argument. Some respondents seemed to think you were arguing in favor of BC, so I guess they don't either. --Trovatore (talk) 19:09, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Why is it jarring? Do you find it jarring when people write about antebellum architecture even though the Civil War ("antebellum" = "before the war", with the Civil War being the one referred to by the term) hadn't happened yet as of the time the the structures to which the term applies were built? Or, likewise, pre-Columbian Mexico? It's normal today to talk about events and conditions with reference to some date or other event before which they occurred or prevailed. We're writing for people who are alive now. Largoplazo (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. "Antebellum" makes sense in the time when the US Civil War could be anticipated, but not otherwise. "Pre-Columbian" is no longer used by Southwestern or Mexican archaeologists for precisely this reason. MarkBernstein (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    But going back to the question: 2200 BC is jarring because good old Esarhaddon had no idea he was 2200 years before something. But, surely the ..CE is as equally jarring as ..C for Esarhaddon as he had no idea he was "before" either common era or Christ?? DeCausa (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether the Civil War could have been anticipated at the time isn't why we call it that (it isn't as though a certain form of architecture evolved in anticipation of such a war), and I'm pretty sure that if "pre-Columbian" is no longer being used, it's because of rhetoric around "not centering" Columbus, not because there's something inherently jarring about situating events in history whose occurrence before some other particular event is of significance to whatever's being discussed, with respect that other particular event. Largoplazo (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That last is pretty much what I said at Talk:Antikythera mechanism, which may have been what prompted the question to be raised here. I won’t reiterate except to point out the second of the archived discussions I mentioned (from 2017), which I think is pretty typical of how these conversations go.—Odysseus1479 02:49, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    To avoid this, we should restandardize our calendar to use dates like 13,799,995,827 ABB (after the Big Bang). Unfortunately, that results in pretty long dates that might be hard to remember, but then, you can't have everything. Gawaon (talk) 09:28, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't like the current compromise and even more I am frustrated by some people's inability to understand why it is a problem, but I've been here a while and I don't think change will happen. As problems in the go, it's one of the smaller ones, so I live with it and suggest others do too. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:30, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lots of articles about ancient history use terms that are unfamiliar to the general reader, so we use wikilinks like BCE and Mesolithic so that such readers are not left floundering. The many of us who are not Christians will resist any attempt to impose the Before Christ notation. MOS:ERA provides the wisdom of Solomon. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:32, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      You've inadvertently triggered an unrelated hobby horse of mine here. Wikilinks are not there to avoid confusion as to what the text means. They're there to provide information for users who want to learn more about the topic. If BCE actually were confusing (I don't think it is) then a wikilink would not be a sufficient remedy; you should provide a gloss or explanatory footnote. --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree. I was responding to the assertion that it is a term that is too unfamiliar and we shouldn't use it. For the majority of readers of ancient history, it is certainly not unfamiliar but for the others, the wikilink will clarify matters at the time and educate them for future reference. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      (ec) BCE certainly is unfamiliar and confusing to some readers, especially younger ones, non-Americans, non-college-educated, and non-native speakers. I see a trickle of talk page queries asking what it is. I think it is only taught in schools, if anywhere, in the US, and it is very rare in newspapers here in the UK. It isn't very obvious for 2nd-language speakers of English; where there is a local equivalent (not I think everywhere) it usually uses different letters. We can't assume our readership consists of "readers of ancient history"; obviously it doesn't. Johnbod (talk) 03:11, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      In the current Digging for Britain series on BBC, the script says "BC" but the background timeline (that shows the date of the site being excavated in the long-term historical record) uses BCE. I rather suspect that Alice Roberts was ordered to say BC. (She uses CE rather than AD in her popular science books.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:56, 23 January 2026 (UTC) added info re AR's books. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:06, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Note we have {{BCE}}, which can present either a tool-tip or a link to the CE article.—Odysseus1479 03:05, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      True, and in my comment below I suggested wikilinks (via templates) only because the text I came up with for better got too long. A tool-tip like c. produces would be far better, though the text for BCE and CE would need to be a bit longer. Stephan Leeds (talk) 06:30, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      The many of us who are not Christians will resist any attempt to impose the Before Christ notation. Well, I'm not a Christian (or an adherent of any other mythical sky pixie) and BCE still irritates the hell out of me! So, frankly, you're only speaking for yourself. It doesn't matter what you call it: it's still based on the supposed birth of Christ. Trying to rename it is simply mealy-mouthed guff. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:06, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      I tend to agree, but I find it more irritating that regardless of which letters you use these systems skip straight from the negatively numbered years to the positively numbered years without a year zero. Astronomical year numbering is more logical. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:32, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      I suggested creating a year zero with zero days in it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:28, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      I emphatically concur and very much want this to be addressed programmatically rather than having these things in literal article text, though I believe Wikipedia decided long ago that literal text and inconsistency was better than the programmatic alternative. I would truly love to be able to read articles with the information presented consistently, with astronomical year numbering and SI number format and units of measure, and without any time format that considers {12, 1, 2, 3} or {24, 1, 2, 3} counting, US schizo-endian date format (middle, least, greatest, seriously?), or English units of measure. I gather there is technical argument against honoring the user’s format preferences, but I don’t assume it outweighs the problems of the current way. Stephan Leeds (talk) 07:01, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Unfortunately, your intuition about technical reasons is wrong. If every reader logged in then it could be put into a user setting and the problem indeed goes away (apart form teaching them how to set it, which is no easy task considering that many users still haven't figured out how to change any settings).
      The more problematic situation is for readers not logged in. Which one do we assume? The so-called religious zealot BC/AD ? Or the so-called BCE/CE which confuses many readers? The WP software would still have to arbitrarily choose one based on some parameters (location on Earth?), which puts us back in the same situation. Or just force it to one or the other. In which case why not just force it to be one of them always for every user. Since there are people that hate one and love the other and other people exactly the opposite, that is going to one lovely bun fight.
      Lastly, we would use a template (like {{BCE}}). But now you have to use that every that we previously just said "1000 BC" or "1000 BCE". It takes ages to teach new editors to use any templates rather than just typing the text (converting newbie plain text references to {{cite news}} takes a lot of my time). A small point but one I'm not keen to spend my time on fixing up other peoples stuff.  Stepho  talk  07:45, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

      I have vanishingly little sympathy for anyone who wants information to be presented in only one way. I don't think we should consider that as a goal to be sought after here. Learn to convert. It's good for you. --Trovatore (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we can be too prescriptive with these things. I think editors should continue to be free to use either AD/BC or CE/BCE, provided it is consistent throughout an article. Dgp4004 (talk) 12:35, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    But, as I read it, it is forbidden to change era systems anywhere for any reason. I think the era in Antikythera Mechanism ought to be BCE, but it appears BC is effectively permanent on all pages that are not explicitly Jewish. MarkBernstein (talk) 16:28, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    or explicitly Islamic. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, you're reading it wrong! The mechanism in WP:ERA is clear and simple, but the few attempts to use it are usually so badly-argued that they fail. As various people have pointed out, you have produced a new and original crap argument all of your own in "one advantage of BCE is that it does not anticipate a (supposed) event that was far in the future", when obviously it does. The other bad argument that is normally produced is "this article is nothing to do with Christianity". Ancient Greece is an area where BC is pretty much the norm on WP, so it is probably harder there than in some other areas. As for Islamic, I used to use CE myself for new Indian articles, until I realized that fewer Indian readers (without expensive foreign educations) understand it than those from the ROW. Johnbod (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, perhaps see Joshua J. Mark and Robert Cargill (with explicit reference to Wikipedia). Britannica has shifted to BCE. Jared Diamond IIRC uses BCE. Graeber and Wengrow (Dawn of Everything) use BCE. The US National Park Service says " In the late 20th century, scholars began shifting to the use of BCE and CE, before common era and common era, which directly correlate to BC and AD but instead are secular." MarkBernstein (talk) 20:01, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Americans all, I notice! There is an ENGVAR aspect here too. Johnbod (talk) 04:28, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Your comment caused me to look this up. It surprised me to learn that despite the name Brittanica is no longer British; it is currently based in Chicago. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It has been since 1901! In fact it's now owned by Jacqui Safra, according to WP, although I thought it had passed to a Cental Asian figure. Johnbod (talk) 13:15, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Mary Beard uses BCE in her books. And also, if I’m not mistaken, in TLS. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    BC and AD are products of, and contribute to, religious bias. Wikipedia is meant to avoid religious bias. BCE and CE are the improvements to not perpetuate that bias. Wikipedia has a mechanism for the reader who hasn’t encountered the modern terms: {{BCE|5100|link=y}} and {{CE|1900|link=y}} produce, respectively, 5100 BCE and 1900 CE, linking to a perfectly clear, concise explanation. This is literally what hypertext is for. Unless I’m missing something, a rather simple bot could add one of these templates at first occurrence of BCE or CE (or both) in each page that uses either. Using the biased terms to save some readers a trivial one-time effort perpetuates the problem – exactly the opposite of what this amazing, inspiring project is meant to do. Stephan Leeds (talk) 13:13, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    BC/AD are indeed products of religion. But no, they do not contribute to religious bias. The average person just thinks of AD as counting from a long distant event. They probably know that it is the birth of Christ but beyond using it as a way to count years, think no more of it.
    On the other hand, BCE/CE are known mostly by scholars and are not well known to the average person.
    If you are really on an anti-religion crusade (pun not intended) then you may also try to change the days of week - which are based on ancient theology or astrology.  Stepho  talk  07:28, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Few people have been endangered by Woden worshippers in recent centuries. There is not substantial movement in any major power to replace its constitution with Thorist Nationalism. There is little danger that Freyja worship will be made compulsory anywhere in the next few years. But aside from this, BCE/CE make explicit that this is merely a common convention, and have nothing to do with it being the year of our lord. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:32, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ "Museum of Civilization putting the 'Christ' back in history as BC and AD return", by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, National Post, 27 February 2013

    Where to go

    [edit]

    Would the place to go be here or somewhere else to establish a precedent for the MOS where there is not already one? Helper201 (talk) 00:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Please elaborate on what you mean. EEng 05:36, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    [edit]

    In Lagrange number, we see "Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's". Should this be changed so the posessive marker is inside the link, like "Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's"? — COArSe D1RTxxx (talk) 19:12, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Apparently not.
    Help:Link § Illustrative examples of display text agglutination: Punctuation breaks display text agglutination. This is often helpful for possessives: for example, [[Batman]]'s gives Batman's. Paradoctor (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    See prior discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#Possessives as well as the current discussion I linked in the thread below for related background. There seems to be rough consensus that the possessive marker should not be inside the link but I don't know that there is strong enough consensus for the MOS to specifically recommend against this practice. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:37, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect § Otherwise-implausible redirects originally intended as editor assistance (i.e. possessive redirects)

    [edit]

     You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect § Otherwise-implausible redirects originally intended as editor assistance (i.e. possessive redirects). —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The discussion specifically concerns redirects. It relates to the recurring style question about possessives and links. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    External links from article prose

    [edit]

    Hello MOS experts! I am under the impression that external links embedded in article prose should generally be avoided. For example, an article should not say "The Tedeschi-Trucks Band announced their summer tour", with the text "summer tour" linking to an external website. Instead it should use a footnote, like this: "The Tedeschi-Trucks Band announced their summer tour.[1]" But, I can't find that standard in the MOS. I don't see it at MOS:ELLAYOUT, or at WP:ELNO. Where can I find this guideline?

    References

    1. ^ Wardlaw, Matt (January 23, 2026). "Tedeschi-Trucks Band Announces Summer Tour". Ultimate Classic Rock.

    — Mudwater (Talk) 15:41, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    See WP:ELPOINTS: "With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article." Links to scriptural verses seem to be a case where this rule isn't observed, and that actually seems reasonable to me because it serves as a space saver, so I'm not complaining. An additional problem with a link like that is it's effectively no different from WP:ELMINOFFICIAL: The article shouldn't serve as a portal to the various sections of their website. Their home page can be linked from the "External links" section and the infobox, and people can then browse the band's online properties from there. Largoplazo (talk) 15:48, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. In my example I didn't use the band's official website, I used a third-party article, but WP:ELPOINTS is probably what I'm looking for. Though perhaps that guideline could be expanded a bit, to more clearly apply to the situation I'm describing. Which I guess is links to external websites that should not be in the External Links section either, they should be in footnotes. — Mudwater (Talk) 16:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    What's unclear about "external links should not be used in the body of an article"? Gawaon (talk) 16:08, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    At WP:ELPOINTS it says "With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an External links section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable." So, like WP:ELLAYOUT and WP:ELNO, it seems to be focusing on links that are, or should be, in the External Links section. But I'm talking about external links that should be in footnotes. Though on the plus side, you're right, it does say that external links should not be used in the body of an article. — Mudwater (Talk) 16:35, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, if you know that they should be in footnotes, you already know that they shouldn't be outside of footnotes. If you don't yet know that, on the other hand, then the advice not to use them within the article body seems clear enough. Gawaon (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    A reference with a URL for a source is apart from external links as covered by WP:EL. The applicable guidelines are at WP:Citing sources. Yes, often sometimes who doesn't know or want to take the trouble to add a footnote will supply it as an external link. When I see such a case, Ai replace one with the other. Largoplazo (talk) 17:36, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    How about if we add on to WP:NOELBODY -- it's point 2 within WP:ELPOINTS -- to say this? "With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an External links section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable, or in footnotes in the Notes or References section (i.e. inline citations, as mentioned in the previous point)." — Mudwater (Talk) 19:05, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    In your example, why wouldn't the announcement be cited as a source? I can't see a reason to put it in a non-ref footnote. Schazjmd (talk) 19:10, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The suggested word could be interpreted as allowing URLs in footnotes that are not citations (say explanatory notes), which is wrong. Except for the places already mentioned in ELPOINTS, URLs are in fact only allowed in references, whether in footnotes or given in a Bibliography or similar section. Gawaon (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    URLs are in fact only allowed in references, whether in footnotes or given in a Bibliography or similar section.: at the risk of being pedantic, this isn't quite true: they can also be used in "Further reading" or, well, "External links", both of which consist of works not cited in the article. But the broad point is correct -- they should be in the miscellaneous bulleted bits at the bottom of the article, not the important paragraphy bits that contain the actual content. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:49, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Perhaps the wording I've suggested is not ideal. My point is that I think the guideline should be enhanced to call out what I said in the first post in this section. That's that links to appropriate web pages that support the statements in an article should be cited as footnotes -- not linked to from the text itself -- as shown in my example. — Mudwater (Talk) 20:20, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe the confusion is because you're thinking of them as "external links". A URL used as part of a citation to a source isn't an external link, in wikipedia terms. The MOS:LAYOUT section that discusses them is MOS:REFERENCES. Schazjmd (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:COLON and MOS:ENGVAR

    [edit]
    RESOLVED
    by removing two sentences that had many critics and seemingly no defenders. Gawaon (talk) 17:42, 30 January 2026

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    The section MOS:COLON currently reads When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter. To British eyes, this is unambiguously incorrect grammar but I gather that it is standard practice in US English. Clearly this is a case where MOS:ENGVAR should apply.

    So I propose that the sentence

    In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, such as for a proper name.

    be rewritten to say

    In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence and the article is written in US English, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, such as for a proper name.

    Comments? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    That sounds correct to me. The rule I was taught was was to start the word after the colon with a lower case letter unless the word that follows the colon is a proper noun or the text after the colon is a question that is a complete sentence. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Capitalising after the colon certainly surprises my Australian eyes (we follow mostly British grammar). At https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/semi-colons-colons-and-dashes/ (University of North Carolina) they have some interesting comments in their "Should you capitalize the first letter after a colon?" section that says it depends on which style guide you are following. So it might not necessarily mean that US English means capitalise it. I would favour just dropping the capital (excepting for pronouns, etc).  Stepho  talk  02:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Which I interpret to mean that you agree with RGloucester's response below: delete the whole thing because the MOS has no interest in punctuation in the first place. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:27, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]


    I agree that the passage should be changed. I'm also Australian, and in my dialect capitalisation after a colon is generally incorrect in such cases. I'm not qualified to comment on what is standard in American English, but your suggestion appears to accord with style guides:
    • Fowler: Note that in British English the word following a colon is not in capitals (unless it is a proper name), but in American English it is capitalized if it introduces a grammatically complete sentence.
    • Swan: In British English, it is unusual for a capital letter to follow a colon (except at the beginning of a quotation). However, this can happen if a colon is followed by several complete sentences. [...] In American English, colons are more often followed by capital letters.
    • Chicago Manual of Style: When what follows the colon is not a complete sentence [...] the first word following the colon is lowercased (unless it is a proper noun or other term that would normally be capitalized). When, however, a colon introduces one or more complete sentences [...] the first word that follows the colon should be capitalized.
    – Michael Aurel (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support: if the "US English" label is controversial, we could do something vaguer like "and the article is written in a variety of English which allows it", and footnote that British and Commonwealth Englishes generally don't. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:36, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Your understanding is mistaken. As I said below, I never capitalise the initial letter after a colon (except for proper nouns) and will not do in future, but this usage is allowed for in various British styles. For example, one may consult Grammar and Style in British English, a reputable style guide used in academic work. It provides the following example of capitalisation of the initial letter following a colon: When asked if it was easy to start her own business, she laughed: ‘You must be joking!’ The trigger, of course, being that a 'full sentence' is what follows the colon – in every other case, lowercase is preferred. The Guardian likewise uses a capital letter after a colon when introducing a full-sentence quotation: A colon, rather than a comma, should be used to introduce a quotation: "He was an expert on punctuation." Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 10:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The key point is that the sentence following is a full sentence quotation. That's the real (and only) trigger. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Precisely. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I am aware. Do you understand that this proposal as it stands would prohibit this usage? Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 12:29, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I hope that this discussion will become academic ('moot' for US readers) if the proposal to delete completely is accepted but no, the proposal as it stand would not prohibit this usage. See the next sentence except where doing so is needed for another reason. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Quotes need not be introduced with a capital letter after a colon, so what is 'necessary' is in the eye of the beholder. Your proposal would also eliminate the ability to use a capital letter after a colon when multiple sentences are introduced, something which is also allowed for in British styles. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 21:07, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Before we decide on this, can we first see how this is treated in various style guides? If American style guides more or less unanimously prescribe the rule as we currently have it, while British or Commonwealth style guides equally unanimously advise something else (more lowercase), it might indeed make sense to treat it as an ENGVAR issue. But if not, then not. So where's the evidence please? Gawaon (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      https://titlecaseconverter.com/blog/capitalization-after-a-colon/ summarises the major US style guides (no mention of Commonwealth styles). Most guides use lowercase after the colon unless the 2nd half introduces multiple sentences. Eg, "There are numerous guides: First is CMOS. Then MLA. And more. Now with free steak knives." Beware that many of the examples given are for headlines, which do tend to capitalise.
      https://cmosshoptalk.com/2022/02/15/when-to-capitalize-after-a-colon/ has an interesting discussion about how hard it is to interpret even a single guide such as the CMOS.
      Looks like even the Yanks aren't clear on which they they want to go.  Stepho  talk  09:09, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Paywalls don't make it easy so multiple contributions will be needed. I have The Economist style guide. It says nothing about capitalisation after colon but in the cases where it uses a colon, it does not capitalise. For example, it writes "American states: commas are usual after the names of American states when these are written as though they were part of an address." 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose and remove this guidance – I never capitalise the initial letter after a colon, but this is a matter of style, not ENGVAR. A cursory glance at our articles suggests that many of them do not follow this piece of guidance. It has already been determined that punctuation is not an ENGVAR issue, and there is no reason to make it one now. The real solution is to remove this piece of WP:SNODGRASS guidance altogether. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 09:34, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      That certainly makes good sense to me and am happy to withdraw my proposal in favour of yours if it gains further support. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:02, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. Certainly, as a British English writer I would not capitalise: but have we established that capitalisation is a standard US English 'thing' in the first place? MapReader (talk) 10:21, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose and remove/revise this guidance per RGloucester and the links collected by Stepho-wrs. It seems that this isn't a clear-cut ENGVAR issue but that lowercase is fairly normal in all variants of English (except when a literal quote or something similar follows). American may have a higher tendency to capitalize, but it's clearly weak and can't justify a "capitalize when using US English" rule. Gawaon (talk) 11:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment – I have investigated the origin of this guidance. It was first added to the MoS in 2020, following a brief discussion on this talk page. It is quite obvious that the editors involved did not intend to impose a new rule like this – if anything, Mr EEng's advice in 2020 is as sage now as it was then. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 12:43, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I'm a bit surprised that this case isn't already covered at MOS:CAPS, where we discuss, e.g. hyphens. I think the primary guidance ought to go there. Generally, MOS is quite opinionated about minimizing capitalization. I think we should discourage capital letters after colons except in the case of quotations or other capital letters required by MOS:CAPS. pburka (talk) 13:40, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Is anyone actually arguing for the current guidance directing caps to follow a colon, or is this a clear WP:SNOW case that this guidance should quickly be deleted from the MoS? MapReader (talk) 14:36, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Revised proposal

    [edit]

    In the light of the discussion above, my revised proposal is this:

    • Delete the current text at MOS:COLON
    • Consider reassigning the shortcut to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Punctuation before quotations, specifically to the line It is clearer to use a colon to introduce a quotation if it forms a complete sentence, and this should always be done for multi-sentence quotations:, since that is considered good practice both sides of the Atlantic (and the other six seas too, I trust).

    Agreed?--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    What exactly do you propose to delete? MOS:COLON is long, surely you don't want to delete all of it? Gawaon (talk) 18:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Whoops, the "current text" that I wanted to put to the sword is

    In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, such as for a proper name. When a colon is being used as a separator in an article title, section heading, or list item, editors may choose whether to capitalize what follows, taking into consideration the existing practice and consistency with related articles.

    as it is either contentious, local preference or needless 'rules overload'.
    I have scratched the second part of the revised proposal, I distracted myself. What I had in mind was whether A colon may also be used to introduce direct speech enclosed within quotation marks needs anything more. I hope that clarifies matters. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The final sentence, about case after colons in headings, is important and should stay. I remember there was an RfC or similar that led to it being added. The first two sentences could be scrapped without much loss, I guess. Gawaon (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed: in prose, In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it is good advice, but of course one of its major roles is to seperate parts of a title/heading (e.g. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), and there it's quite unusual for the first part to be a complete sentence. We could amend "in prose, a colon generally works...", or simply remove it as duplicating most other style guides and so probably not needed in the specific Wikipedia MoS. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, and that's why we have the ordinary article Colon (punctuation). How is it the function of the MOS to teach editors how to write grammatical English? The MOS is a style guide, not a grammar primer. What is the style issue? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I still think we could drop that first sentence without anyone experiencing a terrible feeling of loss. Gawaon (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Except that the presence of phrases like “In most cases” or “generally” in the MoS should always ring an alarm bell. The MoS is only guidance in the first place, not rules, although it’s guidance we’d like people to respect, and we do use it to settle disputes. But getting those matters that are unambiguous “always” bits of guidance respected is difficult enough - is there really any value in telling people something that is expressly not a general rule? MapReader (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've just boldly removed the sentence in question, considering that it seems either trivial or wrong, depending on how you interpret it. Let's see whether anyone has strong feelings about its usefulness. Gawaon (talk) 22:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The final sentence can’t be that important since it basically says “do what you want”? MapReader (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It's important, because otherwise lower-case would be required since we use sentence case (not title case) in headers. Or at least that's how some editors interpreted our rules in the absence of that sentence, which is why the discussion led to its addition to settle this thing per an "anything goes" compromise. Gawaon (talk) 22:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Rather than treat this as a dialect difference I would prefer that “When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter” simply be removed. (I often agree with Chicago but not on this. To my (US) eyes the uppercase-just-because-it’s-an-independent-clause thing often just looks awful.) Stephan Leeds (talk) 11:21, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It has already been removed, and I think we are done here. Gawaon (talk) 16:41, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I don't understand what the text referring to article titles is supposed to mean. WP:TITLE forbids colons in article titles except "in the limited cases of subtitles of some creative works and lists split over several pages." Section titles are supposed to follow the same rules, but in practice colons oftensometimes appear in those. pburka (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, it refers to section titles such as "1965–1978: The formative years" or something like that. The sentence makes it clear that a capital after the colon is allowed in such cases. Whether such section titles are good or bad style is not now for us to discuss, I'd say. In any case they occur, as you mention. Gawaon (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      And (see my comment above), along comes an example that isn’t one of those “most cases”! MapReader (talk) 22:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Subtitles of works are already covered in MOS:CAPTITLE. If we're going to formally permit invented subtitles in section headings, we should do so explicitly in MOS:HEADING, not through implication here. I don't think we should have any guidance about capitalization in this section. General rules about capitalization should be kept together in MOS:CAPS. I'm leaning towards completely deleting MOS:COLON, or stripping it down to only the final sentence ("Except in technical usage (a 3:1 ratio), no sentence should contain multiple colons, no space should precede a colon, and a space (but never a hyphen or dash) should follow the colon."). pburka (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Frankly, I'm against trimming COLON further, it's fine as it is. Regarding the capitalization after separators in article titles and section headings, the same rule, but applying to dashes instead of colons, can also be found in Wikipedia:Manual of Style § In article titles. Gawaon (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
      Just removing that sentence resolves the most contentious element so I am content to give way to the consensus against further changes. Thank you all. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:12, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Upgrade MOS:ALBUM to an official guideline

    [edit]

    You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Upgrade MOS:ALBUM to an official guideline. mdm.bla 16:23, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The discussion concerns the promotion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style advice from its current status as an essay to a guideline within the Manual of Style. mdm.bla 16:24, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation#Help with IPA in Italian

    [edit]

     You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation#Help with IPA in Italian. ~2026-66421-0 (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    A gap in MOS:POSS?

    [edit]

    I promise I hesitated to (re-re-re-)open discussion of this topic, but one effect of the current guideline seems so awkward to me that I suspect the guideline has an unintended gap regarding, specifically, singular common nouns pronounced ending in /z/ and spelled ending in ⟨s⟩. I searched the archived discussions from the RfC establishing the present consensus forward and failed to find this narrow subset of the topic specifically addressed in discussion, though it is explicitly mentioned in the original proposal and there is much discussion of proper nouns with /-z/ and ⟨-s⟩. Copious apologies if I missed it, but I’m not confident that consensus has ever really been reached on this narrow bit, especially given that the guideline’s examples include no /z/-final singulars spelled ⟨-s⟩ at all.

    According to the guideline, the possessive of singular “series” is styled “series's”, which is pronounced /ˈsɪrizɪz/ and similarly, necessarily ending in /-rizɪz/~/-riːzɪz/, e.g. “the series's third season” rather than “the series' third season”. (“Ceres’s third rotation” feels less foreign to my ear, though I couldn’t naturally speak it any more than “the series’s third season”.)

    So per MOS we have, respectively singular and plural:
    “the series's third season” (/ˈsɪrizɪz/) and
    “the series' third seasons” (/ˈsɪriz/).

    I recognize that we can so deeply internalize language structures that we falsely believe most native speakers have internalized the same, and I may be doing precisely that here, but I have to ask: Keeping in mind that writing is primarily an encoding of speech or sign, not the other way around, is there really a substantial portion of native speakers for whom this construction is natural, who in a formal register would speak “the /ˈsɪrizɪz/ third season”, not “the /ˈsɪriz/ third season”?

    The guideline is clear and unambiguous on the question, but given the absence of a /-z/–⟨-s⟩ example and, I think, absence of discussion of this precise case, is this an intended result? Stephan Leeds (talk) 05:46, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The specific example series has another unique and possibly rlevant property: that the singular and the plural forms are identical. I think it would be reasonable to have an explicit exception for words ending in [s] whose plural and singular forms are identical, to use just an apostrophe alone rather than 's if singular and ' if plural. Writing "series's 3rd season" but "series' 3rd seasons" is totally absurd, and the MOS shouldn't force this; I can't think of any other such words atm, and it might be there aren't any, but "series's" is just plainly wrong and if the MOS mandates it that needs to be corrected. ~2026-59608-1 (talk) 01:23, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    On the contrary, the approach taken by POSS allows the reader to see whether or not we are talking about a single series, or multiple series. It’s the best and clearest approach fkr words like this. MapReader (talk) 03:53, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Fkr words? Please, watch your language! There are ladies present! EEng 03:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    By that as it may, adding an exception or extra rule for a single word sounds like WP:CREEP. Gawaon (talk) 08:22, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I certainly would say “the /ˈsɪrizɪz/ third season”. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:10, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Possessive of name with apostrophe in it?

    [edit]

    How should I form the possessive of a name like O'Connor? I tried O'Connor's which I guess is technically correct, but it sure looks funny. RoySmith (talk) 16:41, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    100% correct -- see O'Brien's from the Guardian, O'Sullivan's from the Washington Post, or O'Connor's from the Irish Times. If the orthography really bothers you, you could go for e.g. "the brother of O'Connor", "the singer's first album", and so on, but would have to be careful of falling into elegant variation there. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:45, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Hazel O'Connor has four instances of O'Connor's. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It's totally fine and normal to write "O'Connor's". Popcornfud (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Or even "the fo'c's'le's sailors". pburka (talk) 23:54, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds a bit naughty when you think about it. EEng 00:10, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Suggestion Mode – new Beta Feature on Tuesday

    [edit]

    Hi folks. Please see this post, Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Suggestion Mode – new Beta Feature on Tuesday, about an upcoming Beta Feature that may be of interest to you. It is a tool for VisualEditor users, especially newcomers in the future, to discover constructive ways to contribute, while also inspiring them to explore the policies and guidelines these changes are grounded in. More details are in the post. Thanks, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style&oldid=1336833648"