Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 161

I noticed that Slim Virgin has been improving the section on logical quotation; nice work! I also noticed that there appears to be an error or omission contained therein. I'm specifically referring to this statement:

"On the English Wikipedia, place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not, regardless of the variety of English in which the article is written ... It does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside the quotation marks all the time, but maintains their original positions in (or absence from) the quoted material.

This is not 100% accurate to LQ as described by Fowler, because a reproduction of what is technically a complete sentence does not necessarily justify inclusion of the full stop inside the quote marks, even when the full stop is present in the source material. E.g., if the quoted fragment does not represent the author's complete thought as presented in the source material. Fowler gives this sentence as an example:

Do not follow a multitude to do evil.

If we quoted a portion of that material that was also a complete sentence, such as We need not "follow a multitude to do evil", the full stop would not, according to Fowler, belong inside, because the quoted portion does not reproduce the author's complete thought. I'm not sure if I've explained this all that well, but hopefully others will understand what I mean. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I also think it might be helpful to re-order the text a bit to make it clearer earlier that the final period of the quoted sentence is retained only when the end of the quoted sentence and the end of the matrix sentence coincide ("[w]here a quoted sentence occurs before the end of the containing sentence, a full-stop inside the quotation marks should be omitted"). I suppose that rule also applies when the only remaining part of the matrix sentence is a bracket, as in my last sentence. Similarly we should clarify (if correct) that the first word of the quoted sentence is capitalized only if the beginning of the quoted sentence coincides with the beginning of the matrix sentence; I couldn't find this anywhere, and there does seem to be some confusion about it. --Boson (talk) 21:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The capitalization issue is discussed in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Typographic conformity. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I thought I'd seen it somewhere. It still seems odd that capitalization of the first word and terminating a sentence with a period are dealt with so far apart. --Boson (talk) 23:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This is one of the most contentious parts of the MOS, with multiple RFCs and pages of debate, from as early as last month. Adding advice about non-logical punctuation is confusing, since that's not what we use. The wording has been heavily debated too, and I think reverting to pre-debate versions is just likely to create the exact same debates all over again. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

For now I think we should revert to the wording that was settled from the last few debates. I don't think SlimVirgin had a clear consensus to revert to wording that is guaranteed to cause major drama, as it is the exact wording that caused major drama in the past.. If people want to suggest changes to this section, suggest the wording here and get consensus, otherwise we'll have a lot of angry editors who invested days of their lives in the last few debates. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This section has an inline note, that I hope was just accidentally not noticed by the editor making the change: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Changes to this section may escalate into heated dispute. Please consider raising any proposed changes for discussion and consensus-building on the talk page before editing. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• We ought to retain a description of aesthetic punctuation, given that it's what most Wikipedians use (and probably most of the publishing world). It's otherwise not clear what the choice is. We also need a description of LQ. Was there consensus to remove it, and if so, can someone point me to the discussion? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

If we say what to use on Wikipedia, then it's clear what we use. I know there's a choice in the greater world. That's true of every other section in the MoS. We don't list everything we don't use, and in this case, we have a large number of examples in that section. Any attempt at describing LQ in greater detail to everyone's satisfaction have led to acrimonious debate. I can't dig up every discussion right now, but if you look in the archive under "Logical quotation" you'll see how heated and protracted the discussions were. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:18, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I think this was the last discussion to attempt consensus: . I don't think anyone wants to do this from scratch by reverting to a version all of these editors squabbled over.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone removed the long-standing warning that LQ does not involve placing all periods and commas outside, which is what most Wikipedians think it means. I can't find consensus to remove that, so if it exists, please show me. I have added:

This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time. (In contrast, when using aesthetic punctuation (common in the United States, and much of British fiction and British journalism), periods and commas are always placed inside the closing quotation marks, whether or not they are part of the original quoted material.

From "in contrast," sourced to R. M. Ritter, New Hart's Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 155–156. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone removed it after months of discussion. If you want it returned please discuss first. All it takes is one look at the archives to see that making broad undiscussed changes to this section is like starting a forest fire of wasted editor energy. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This instant reverting is really unacceptable, especially when it's a long-standing sentence that's being restored. The way that section is currently written is very unclear. Please point to the discussion where it was agreed to remove that sentence. Otherwise let me restore it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the fact you ignored the inline note to seek consensus first was regrettable first. Since that was changed with discussion on the talk page, it's now a bold addition to change it to the pre-discussed version. I think you should show you have a consensus for your change. This is a perennial hot issue, and big changes should be discussed first. I pointed you to this earlier discussion and you should also consider talking to FormerIP about the addition. What the other involved editors ended up with doesn't look my proposed text, so I'm not attached to it. But I do know that what you're attempting to add was seen as inadequate by multiple editors. I think you're making it in good faith, but past discussions haven't shown a consensus for that text.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It was in there a long time (for as long as I recall), and was removed on 1 June by Darkfrog. It needs to be restored, because it's an issue that most Wikipedians get wrong (which is why recommending LQ is a bad idea, but if we're going to recommend it, we must at least make people aware of that point). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was there a long time, and people constantly fought about it. There was a huge discussion after that, and the text was not re-included after it. At this point, I think that if we are putting Coca-cola on the menu, then we don't need a couple paragraphs explaining exactly what Pepsi is in great detail and how we don't have it. If you can think of a new way to explain it that will meet some kind of consensus, more power to you, but defining it as "part of the quoted material" was also fundamentally confusing to people. (Maybe I'll just come back here in a week and see if this newly opened can of worms was successfully dealt with, or if it's just a lengthy re-hash of all the arguments given a couple of months ago.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Elaqueate, I've been watching this page for years, and I don't recall anyone fighting about that particular sentence (This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time). We do need to warn editors that LQ does not mean sticking periods and commas outside. Can you point me to the discussion where there was consensus to remove it? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:21, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I've pointed you to the vigorous talk page discussion regarding the total wording of the section twice previously. The current section had its examples expanded to address that periods and commas shouldn't be placed outside in all situations. The very first example has the period on the inside, and currently illustrates what you say needs illustrating.__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think that the line, This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time should be restored, because the key feature of LQ is that there is no definitive answer for every situation, or as Fowler says, "all signs of punctuation used with words in quotation marks must be placed according to the sense."(original emphasis). Rationalobserver (talk) 22:47, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• That's a good way to put it. We ought to base this section on sources, rather than editors making up examples and descriptions of their own. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

You know... if policy/guidance really is descriptive and not proscriptive, then I would suggest the entire MOS could be shortened to: Just write as comes naturally to you. Someone will follow up and correct what ever errors you make (even if they are not errors). Then someone else will follow up and correct the correction... after which everyone will get into a long debate about what is and is not correct on the MOS talk page. Meanwhile you can go back to writing articles. That would accurately guide editors on what actual practice is. Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Too logical__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) If LQ is required of all articles, then this whole section is proscriptive. The guideline is also missing Fowler's suggestion to replace a full stop with a comma and include that comma inside the marks when quoting a fragment that ended with a full stop mid-sentence. As written now, this section is sorely lacking in its attempt to explain what LQ is according to Fowler. It sounds like some editors made this up. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the LQ recommendation ought to go. Most publishers (and most Wikipedians) use inside punctuation. LQ is difficult to use correctly, and difficult to explain. But at the very least, the long-standing This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time should be restored, as should a description of inside punctuation for contrast.

I agree with Rationalobserver that the current version does not explain it well. Perhaps we should revert to before the May 2014 edits. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

This was the section on 28 May before the changes began. It seems clearer to me. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:16, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that's two of you. There was a massive RFC on this last year. Are there any new arguments that weren't brought up then? __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

That RfC wasn't worded neutrally (it made AQ sound as confusing as LQ, and mistakenly implied that Brits always use LQ), and it should have been hosted in a neutral venue. The MoS ought to be descriptive on this point, not prescriptive. We ought to describe both systems (using sources, rather than making up our own descriptions and examples), and request only internal consistency. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:29, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that a name like J. R. R. Tolkien should have that many spaces after the initials, but it's Wikipedia's default style by consensus, and I would not demand that we include a paragraph about how my preferred way is popular and sensible. It's our style convention, even though it's not one I prefer myself. It sounds like you have a problem with the style and past consensus more than the wording.__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:43, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not. As has been pointed out above, this doesn't always hold. As it is often described, LQ is about placement according to sense (i.e. *not* source).

This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time. I'm not sure that guidance of this type is needed. It is something that should only be added if there is clear consensus for it. In the event of such a consensus, I would say that wording is unclear and, as it is, not correct. In my experience, LQ does indeed place final stops and commas inside or outside quotations marks all the time. Never above, below or in the same place, but always inside or outside.

On the question of whether we should cite sources, we generally do not in the MoS, although I don't see why it should never be done. However, in the current case, there is consensus to use LQ on en.wp, nothing more. Which means we need to ensure that we are not taking an over-prescriptive approach, so we need to be sure that anything we cite is uncontroversial.

I don't think we should revert to May. Even if the current version can be improved upon, that particular action would definitely not be an improvement. Formerip (talk) 00:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Elaqueate, it's both. I think LQ shouldn't be recommended on WP because it's fussy and difficult to get right. It's a measure of how difficult it is that MoS editors have not been able to describe it clearly.

Most publishers don't use it. Most editors don't use it either, and of the few that do, most don't get it right. It's particularly difficult to use correctly on Wikipedia, because to do so you need access to the source, but our articles have multiple authors, many of whom don't have that access.

Given that we have STYLEVAR, CITEVAR and ENGVAR, it's puzzling that the MoS takes a different approach with this one, difficult, style issue – and now goes so far as to remove even a description of the more widely used, and much easier, alternative. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:42, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the WP:MOS, we don't list all of the alternatives, just because there are alternatives. There are different standards in the world for where to add a possessive "s", for how to capitalize titles, for how to add punctuation to abbreviations, etc. This isn't an article describing all of the world's options when it comes to these issues. (We do have an actual article for that, where all styles are documented.) There are many popular styles we don't mention, because there's no consensus to recommend using them. I don't agree with every convention we have in the MoS, but it's a document to show where consensus has fallen on certain broad style issues in the past. For the less common examples where the advice isn't helpful, there's common sense. I don't want to get into a drawn out debate over why there's a consensus of one over the other or why you prefer one. You're welcome to your opinion, some people share it, most others on Wikipedia seem to have disagreed. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:32, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I was amused to see such a collection of statements with which I disagree (I am referring to SlimVirgin's last post here):

• That a practice cannot easily be codified to the last jot and tittle is no argument to abandon it. In this instance, when what is "right" is confusing, the detail probably does not matter that much. We may as well abandon English.
• "Most ... don't use it"; "more widely used": this has no real relevance and sounds overstated anyway – which style to use is a choice; there are real benefits in a coherent choice of style; which style dominates in other contexts is not important.
• xxxVAR: These are all symptoms of a lack of uniformity, but at root they are a rule to keep the status quo rather than warring. They are not at root motivating an introduction of style variation, which is what you seem to be motivating. ENGVAR is a particularly thorny one, not to be emulated.

—Quondum 15:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: your comments above reinforce my concern that you are attempting to change the consensus view rather than clarify it. If you have such strong feelings against LQ, then you probably shouldn't be making these edits. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The situation is somewhat more complicated than some of the discussion above implies. The English Wikipedia uses the same quotation marks for different purposes, including actual quotation, scare-quotes, and indicating a mention of a word rather than a use. For the last two, the advice is very simple: never include the punctuation within the quote marks. For quote marks used to indicate actual quotation, it is indeed hard to give clear advice, as we discovered in previous RfCs and discussions. However, TQ doesn't solve the problem entirely since it only applies to commas and full stops/periods. You still have to decide where to place colons and semicolons, for example, although these cases are admittedly less frequent. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I think an issue that is complicating this process involves the varied interpretations of multiple editors. I suggest that we start by identifying which source we should use as a primary guide. I assume that source is Fowler, so why not re-write the guideline as a direct paraphrase of what Fowler actually suggests, and limit this section in perpetuity to only that which can be directly sourced to Fowler? In my Burchfield edition from 2004, Fowler outlines what we call logical quotation with two overview sections and eight sub-sections. Maybe we should attempt to structure this guideline similarly. I.e., as long as this section is subject to the opinions of editors we will not achieve a lasting consensus. However, if we all agree to only add that which is consistent with Fowler, we will arrive at a lasting consensus that is both accurate to external style guides and relatively easy to follow. Rationalobserver (talk) 18:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the degree to which there actually are varied interpretations of multiple editors here, RO. AFAICT, no-one actually disagrees with what is in the current version (unless I've missed it). It's more about whether we should be recommending LQ in the first place and/or particular introductory remarks would be useful. But what I would say is that we should not defer to any particular usage guide. If there are differences between different authorities, then what we should do is advise both or neither. Plus, from a copyright point-of-view, we can't just paraphrase Fowler's. Formerip (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

As I said above when opening this thread, the guideline as written is not 100% accurate to Fowler.

[LQ] does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside the quotation marks all the time, but maintains their original positions in (or absence from) the quoted material.

This is not 100% accurate to LQ as described by Fowler, because a reproduction of what is technically a complete sentence does not necessarily justify inclusion of the full stop inside the quote marks, even when the full stop is present in the source material. E.g., if the quoted fragment does not represent the author's complete thought as presented in the source material. Fowler gives this sentence as an example:

Do not follow a multitude to do evil.

If we quoted a portion of that material that was also a complete sentence, such as We need not "follow a multitude to do evil", the full stop would not, according to Fowler, belong inside, because the quoted portion does not reproduce the author's complete thought. If we aren't basing this guideline on Fowler, then which style guide are we using? Have we invented a system that we call LQ from consensus of editor opinion? Rationalobserver (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Umm, that's not the guideline as written; please note that you seem to be quoting the removed sentence as if it was in the guideline now. Many editors agreed with you that the description that contained "maintains their original positions" had problems of sense. That's why we don't have the wording now, and why it was removed in June. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

My bad. I hadn't looked back the guideline since SlimVirgin's recent edits were reverted. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Technically, it does not matter whether whether WP follows any external style guide, nor whether it chooses to apply the name LQ at slight variance to other style guides, and indeed it does not matter whether the style can be sourced. The purpose of a MoS is to set a style, and this inherently will be done via a consensus between the editors.

That said, using another style guide in refinements to the MoS can be helpful. —Quondum 16:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I hear you, but that's not really my point, which has more to do with attempting to gain consensus amongst numerous editors without any frame of reference. I would bet that 90% of our MoS is taken directly from external style guides anyway, even if they aren't mentioned in-line by name. The way I see it, our style guide should be consistent with external style guides whenever it's not Wikipedia specific. This years-long dispute will never end as long as you and others hold the opinion that we can make this up as we go, and that we can create an LQ system that is not consistent with any one particular style guide. Having said that, I guess local consensus does trump all external logic and reasoning, and I think I'll just disengage here, as this is a mess that nobody wants to correct in any lasting way. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

One last point that I'll reiterate is that the guideline is currently missing Fowler's suggestion to replace a full stop with a comma and include that comma inside the marks when quoting – mid-sentence – a fragment that originally ended with a full stop. E.g., if the source material reads: Some dog breeds are obedient, and others are gentle but not obedient., and we quote the last portion: According to John, some dog breeds are "not obedient," but others are., because the quoted fragment ends with a full stop, that full stop should be replaced with an inside comma, per Fowler. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Understood, and I don't disagree. But what we have is probably going to remain a poor reflection of a comprehensive style because it does not make sense to devote as much space to it as a comprehensive style guide does.

The example that you give here is unfortunate, since one would never include the period terminating the sentence with a sentence fragment. Hence, it would not be there to be replaced by a comma. Besides, the MoS already does in a sense include your final point: it says: "Where a quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, a comma should be used in place of a full-stop [...]", though I've now reworded this to apply to other clauses. —Quondum 19:54, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it looks better now, and to clarify, all I meant was that because the source material being quoted included a full stop – e.g., "not obedient.", that full stop is replaced with a comma that is included, whereas the full stop, as you pointed out, would have been omitted because the quoted portion is not a complete sentence. However, if the quoted portion was "John is not obedient.", the same rule would apply when quoting this complete sentence mid-sentence. I.e., the full stop should be swapped out with a comma that is included inside the quote marks even though the original text did not have a comma in that position. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I apologize for being obtuse; I should have phrased my reply to acknowledge what was obviously your intent. —Quondum 21:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Rationalobsever, please could you give a citation for this thing about commas mid-sentence? As far as I can see, Fowler's recommends on p 647 that closing points should generally be omitted if the quote occurs before the end of sentence and not replaced by a comma (this is in section iii), but that a comma is used to represent the stop where what follows is "such words as he said" (section iv). This is the same advice as given by the Oxford Guide to English usage. So, I'm very unsure that the change made to the page was appropriate. Formerip (talk) 22:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

FormerIP, on page 647, in IV, a semi-colon is turned into a comma, and included inside the quote marks. Fowler says that "any punctuation at the point where it is broken off, a comma is placed within the quotation marks to represent this." Rationalobserver (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

You've quoted half a sentence, though. The full sentence is

When a quotation is broken off and resumed after such words as he said, if it would naturally have had any punctuation at the point where it is broken off, a comma is placed within the quotation marks to represent this.

This only seems to apply in the specific case of a clause identifying the speaker, as per the current guidance, not to any case where a quotation occurs mid-sentence. Formerip (talk) 16:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

How so? It seems to apply to whenever the quotation is interrupted, and has little or nothing to do with identification of the speaker. If you want to interpret the example too narrowly, you risk confining it to the specific phrase "he said". The simplest alternative is to interpret it as any interrupting clause. —Quondum 19:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

That's a different suggestion to what has been made above. I'm not sure, though, that it's really possible to have a clause interrupting a quotation other than one identifying the speaker particularly in an encyclopaedic style. Can you think of an example? Formerip (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

How about, "It has been said, 'we need not follow a multitude to do evil,' but Wikipedia editors do not necessarily agree." The speaker has not been identified, but the quoted fragment ends with a full stop that ought to be replaced with a comma. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no interrupting clause in that example, so even if you take a wider interpretation of "words such as he said" than I think is warranted, the example is not supported by Fowler's (because the quote does not resume). Maybe you could have an interrupting clause as an editorial note, but that should really be placed as a footnote or in square brackets. So I think we may be talking about a situation that will never arise. Formerip (talk) 22:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

How about, According to Fowler, "it cannot be done," so Wikipedia accordingly recommends that we accept his advice and "give up the task". Notice that I did not include the full stop inside because, although a complete sentence, it does not represent the author's complete thought, which is another aspect of LQ that is currently not represented in the guideline. Rationalobserver (talk) 22:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

This example is also not supported by Fowler's because it doesn't contain a single quote which is broken up and resumes. It just contains two separate quotes. Formerip (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

How is this syntactically distinct from: "It cannot be done," he said; "we must give up the task.", which is the example that Fowler gives? Rationalobserver (talk) 23:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Because you've attributed the first part to Fowler's and the second part to Wikipedia, so what you've ended up with two separate quotations. Also, because your sentence does not contain any "words such as he said". Formerip (talk) 00:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Above you said, "I'm not sure, though, that it's really possible to have a clause interrupting a quotation other than one identifying the speaker particularly in an encyclopaedic style."

Source material: "It cannot be done; we must give up the task."

Possible quotation: Nonetheless, it was decided that if "it cannot be done," then "we must give up the task." The need to identify the speaker can be established by the preceding material, and in the proper context the above example is perfectly encyclopaedic. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

This example provides a good example of why the rule you are supposing is mistaken, whichever version of it we are talking about. Most people would recommend separating off the relative clause in your sentence with commas, which can be understood more easily if we convert to reported speech:

Nontheless, it was decided that, if it could not be done, then the task should be given up.

This is just common-or-garden punctuation, nothing to do with LQ. But if we also apply your LQ rule, we end up with this:

Nonetheless, it was decided that, if "it cannot be done,", then "we must give up the task."

Formerip (talk) 17:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

FormerIP, if your point is that we ought not include any language that refers to unlikely scenarios, will you please indicate which, if any, of the current examples are likely constructions on Wikipedia. Except maybe from an article about a movie or book that details a plot summary, every current example is incredibly unlikely to occur in encyclopaedic writing. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it matters very much one way or the other if we describe a rule about something that is unlikely to occur, so long as following the rule will not produce an error.

Here's a challenge: can you find examples of a comma coming immediately before a quotation mark, where what follows is something other than a "he said" type clause, on the websites of The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph or The Independent? Formerip (talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's one that took me about 10 minutes to find: "As Basil Fawlty famously exclaimed, as he struggled to start his car: 'If you don't go, there's little point in having you,' and Nico Rosberg might have sympathised with those sentiments on Sunday when his team-mate Lewis Hamilton roared off to win the Singapore Grand Prix, leaving the German stuck on the grid." Rationalobserver (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

My copyedit that you reverted was just trying to make it read better. But there's a bigger issue in the immediately preceding edits, such as this one in which the advice for whether the comma goes inside or out seems to be explicitly contradictory now, whereas before it was only slightly so. We need to decide which to recommend, or clarify the conditions that would make it go one way or the other. Dicklyon (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, that was just me not paying attention to my own revert. I've done it properly now. Formerip (talk) 23:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I've been trying to formulate a short description of the rules behind LQ, which has resulted in me feeling that the bit on the comma that is already there is an intrusion of an AQ rule into the LQ framework. Whatever the case may be, the piece on the comma substitution seems a little inconsistent as it stands. It would be nice to clarify the position on this. —Quondum 23:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I can't follow who is arguing what here, but I want to support Rationalobserver's point about sourcing this to Fowler (and citing it), not making up examples and descriptions of our own, and not leaving out key points. I also can't see a reason to leave out a brief description of the more-common alternative style (commas and periods always inside). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

FTR, Fowler addresses the "alternative style" in Quotation marks, section 3, which he calls the American English style. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, my Cambridge Guide to English Usage calls this a North American practice,(2004, p.454) and my edition of New Hart's Rules calls it a US practice.(2005, p.155) Rationalobserver (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Most style guides refer to these as British and American, or North American, style. The obvious solution is to make it an ENGVAR choice. There has been resistance to doing that, because American style is also used in the UK (in British fiction, in particular).

But that just makes it all the more puzzling that we force the less-popular and more-difficult style on the entire English Wikipedia, including in North American articles, where readers are less likely to have encountered it before. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It's interesting to look back at the archives and see how many editors deny this obvious fact. It's almost as though they know it's an EngVar issue, but they take the approach that it is not so that nobody can say that the BrE system is being forced on AmE articles, but as far as I can tell, it is. I agree that punctuation within quotations should be dealt with in the same way that we deal with the other EngVar issues, but I would be very surprised if a consensus would form around that, though I'm really not too certain why it isn't an option. Implementing LQ can be tedious for many AmE editors, whereas the so-called American Style could not be more simple. The previous RfC's suggest that this is – for no apparent reason – Wikipedia's EngVar exception, whereby AmE editors are not afforded the opportunity to reject LQ in favor of the American style, even if local consensus agrees, which seems like a very strange situation indeed. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

My own preference is that it be a STYLEVAR issue, i.e. the first major contributor chooses. But failing that, ENGVAR would solve the years-long controversy about it, and would make the MoS consistent with what most editors do anyway. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

"we force ... more-difficult style" that is an opinion not a fact (I think LQ is simpler and less confusing) and I think you ought to qualify such statements by indicating that it is you opinion and not a fact. You are in favour of wording in the MOS that forces reference tags after punctuation, is it not hypocritical of you to support one universal rule that you like and then complain about another that you do not? -- PBS (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

PBS, one of my objections to LQ is that we're forcing a minority preference onto the majority. Your ref preference is also a minority one. My aesthetic objection to LQ and your ref tags is that they leave dangling periods and commas, "like this", and this^[1]. If you like the danglers, at least you're consistent! SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

For those who understand LQ's subtle machinations, it is not really more difficult, but it does require that the person checking for compliance with LQ has access to the source material, which is not always a convenient thing for a collaborative project like Wikipedia. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that you don't really have to do that. You can just always put the period outside the quote. That always complies with at least the idea of LQ — even if the period was part of the original quote, so was the part without the period. Similarly for commas. Question marks and exclamation points, if part of the original, need to go inside, but for those there's a clear difference in meaning.

Admittedly this becomes problematic when you're quoting multiple sentences inline. I think (I certainly hope) that that's a rare case. When quoting multiple sentences, editors should consider a pull quote instead. --Trovatore (talk) 21:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

"You can just always put the period outside the quote." That is decidedly not LQ; that's the North American style that is expressly forbidden on Wikipedia. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Possibly I'm not following you — I thought the "North American" style was "always inside" rather than "always outside"??? If I had to give what I was talking about a name distinct from LQ, it would be something like "programmers' style". --Trovatore (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in NA style it is "always inside", so that wasn't really accurate. What I meant was that to always do one thing or the other is not at all LQ, which explicitly suggests to place "according to sense", not to place based on a rule-of-thumb. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not a "rule of thumb". It follows the logical structure. The period always has the meaning of closing the sentence at the same logical level at which it appears. You just might omit to close off the quoted sentence, but that's not as bad as omitting to close off the "main" sentence (the one doing the quoting).

To do perfect logical quotation, what you should do, when quoting a complete sentence, is allow a period, followed by a quote mark, followed by a period. The "inside" quote mark closes the quoted sentence; the "outside" one closes the main sentence. This seems to be disallowed for purely aesthetic reasons. So which period to omit? If you omit the "outside" one, my programmer brain says that the main sentence was never closed off at all, and it bugs me. Omitting the "inside" one bugs me much less. --Trovatore (talk) 22:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

RE: To do perfect logical quotation, what you should do, when quoting a complete sentence, is allow a period, followed by a quote mark, followed by a period." Sorry, but, according to Fowler, this is also wrong; he addresses this point in 2(v), and he recommends that "the point should be set inside the quotation marks and the point closing the main sentence omitted." Rationalobserver (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not talking about Fowler. I'm talking about logic. --Trovatore (talk) 22:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

(ec) That isn't LQ, Trovatore (and logical quotation has nothing to do with logic). The problem is that Wikipedians use their own punctuation style now, because they've had LQ forced on them, but few know how to use it. So our articles are internally inconsistent. This is bad for new editors, who need to be able to look at an article and discern consistent styles (punctuation, spelling, citations) so they can copy them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Ideal would be to use programmers' style consistently, and completely short-circuit the nationalistic aspects of the discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

See discussion here: WT:AT#Italicization of Latin incipits --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I changed WP:ORDER to be a text summary and list overview of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout. I would appreciate anyone commenting at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#WP:ORDER_and_a_master_list_for_the_layout_order on the changes I made. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone asked for the diff - I am now sharing it here, but please put comments on the layout page because that is the natural place to archive discussion. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I have requested a discussion on whether the explanatory key to a list should be prominently displayed before, to the side or after a list, or is there a better, smarter, but still fully accessible to all users, alternative method of providing a key. As far as I can see, the key is not mentioned in any MOS guideline. Whilst the discussion started at a FLC review and continued at WT:CRIC, it is bigger than a single article or project, so should be discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lists#The_List_Key. The-Pope (talk) 01:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

We say here, "Do not use U.S.A. or USA, except in a quotation or as part of a proper name (Team USA), because these abbreviations are also used for United States Army and other names."

The rationale pertains to prose. Is there any reason to shorten or expand USA in template {{infobox person}} and {{Persondata}} birthplace and deathplace parameters? I doubt it.

--P64 (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No means no. Radiopathy •talk• 23:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

In relation to {{infobox person}} I have submitted a proposal to promote entries on "Citizenship" in a relatively prominent position or instead of "Nationality". The idea here is to better facilitate patriotism rather than nationalism but in a way that would give editors more freedom of expression. Nationality only permits entries such as "American" or "British" while citizenship permits these entries but will also permit entries such as "U.S.", "UK", "United States" or "United Kingdom".

It also may be of relevance to note that enemies of the United States make consistent use of the term America and that the terminology "United States" is pretty well country specific while the term America is applied to two continents.

Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Enemies such as the BBC? Radiopathy •talk• 23:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah yea, and that proposal is dead. Not the best place to propose something as far reaching as that. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:51, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games. --John (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 116#Is close paraphrasing acceptable?. A WP:Permalink to that discussion is here. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capitalization

The capitalization of animal breeds is not specifically called out in the Manual of Style. This has led to numerous disputes, and it seems to me the MOS should provide some guidance in this matter. There is no reason to leave it up to the individual editor. Obviously this would not apply to proper nouns within a breed name. Should 1) the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms section, 2) the Common names subsection of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Animals, plants, and other organisms, and 3) the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) page be amended to add animal breeds to the list of items that are generally lowercase? Krychek (talk) 19:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nominator - Dictionaries and neutral style books tend not to capitalize breeds, while pet industry publications do. However, to cite the latter is an example of the specialist style fallacy. Krychek (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC) Links refactored by SMcCandlish, after move of RfC from MOS subpage.
• Oppose, at least for now.: It's more complicated for breeds than for species names. Deets in a sec.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support, for now Have to hear what McCandlish is talking about to be sure. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: See below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• Details as promised above: See outline at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names#Capitalization of breeds and cultivars for why this is complicated for breeds. Most of the disputation over animal breed article titles (see the large number of ongoing WP:RM discussions about such article titles) is not about capitalization of the unique part of the breed name, which has been done throughout almost all articles on formal breeds already. (Whether one wants to make a WP:FAITACCOMPLI argument about that is a different matter.)

The issues usually are:

• 1. Whether to use natural vs. parenthetical disambiguation ("Siamese cat" vs. "Siamese (cat)". WP:NATURAL policy clearly tells us to use natural disambiguation over parenthetical, and WP:COMMONSENSE tells us to do this in article prose any time the usage isn't clear. E.g., use "had a Siamese cat" not "had a Siamese" in a bio article, since readers may have no idea what "Siamese" means in that context otherwise.
  2. Whether (in some cases or in all cases) the species name is included and capitalized as part of the breed name (Siamese Cat vs. Siamese cat). This is a WP:RS (but not exclusively specialist sources) matter: Do most reliable sources indicate that it's always part of the name (as in cases too ambiguous for anyone otherwise, like American Quarter Horse and Norwegian Forest Cat? In most cases the answer is "no".
• I wrote most of the WP:Specialist style fallacy essay, and am not entirely convinced it's applicable in this case, because most breed names are are composed of adjectival forms of proper names to begin with (Persian, etc.), thus capitalized by everyone, and for those that are not (or contain parts that are not, e.g. the "shepherd" in "German shepherd" dog), the usage in general, non-specialist sources is much more mixed than it is for species common names; "German Shepherd" is actually quite common. Even Chicago Manual of Style contradicts itself on this, suggesting lower case, but showing "Rhode Island Red", with "Red" capitalized." Virtually no non-specialist sources capitalize species names. (When's the last time you saw "I was riding my Horse after I fed my Dog and Cat, when I saw a Mountain Lion chasing a Red-tailed Deer"? No one writes like that.) However, a non-trivial number of general-readership sources do capitalize names of standardized breeds. I agree that MOS definitely should say something specific about this, but lower case across the board probably isn't it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comments

• It would be helpful if we used "title case" vs. "sentence case" rather than "capitalization" vs. "non-capitalization"; everyone agrees that words like "German" or "Rhode Island" are capitalized regardless.
• If you try Google ngrams on commonly used breed names, like "German Shepherd" vs. "German shepherd" (as here) in my experience the sentence case form is always more frequent when there are sufficient cases to make the comparison meaningful. As with other aspects of capitalization, there's an ENGVAR difference: title case is less common in American English than in British English.
• most breed names are proper names to begin with – well, no; most breed names seem to contain words that are conventionally capitalized, like geographic locations, but in their entirety they are not proper names, any more than the English names of species are. The grammatical evidence is quite clear. Thus if "German Shepherd" were a proper name like "Germany", you couldn't use an article with it or make it plural, but "I have a German Shepherd" is perfectly ok, as is "I have two German Shepherds". Grammatically, breed names are most often used as count nouns but can also be used as mass nouns (as in "The German Shepherd is a reliable dog").
• a non-trivial number of general-readership sources do capitalize names of standardized breeds – it's hard to do the statistics, but most serious generalist sources don't seem to use title case. The National Geographic, for example, has had several articles about dogs in the last few years – most recently in the June 2014 issue – and never capitalizes words like "shepherd".
• If we have to have a general rule (personally I'm happy with just consistency within articles), the easiest for everyone to follow is the style generally preferred in the MOS, namely sentence case. This avoids all the disputes over whether the species name is part of the breed name and so capitalized. The rule is simple: capitalize only those words in a breed name which would normally be capitalized in a normal English sentence. Remember that editors writing in articles not about breeds and so not specially interested in them may need to mention a breed and need guidance from the MOS.
• Whatever is decided, both forms will continue to be commonly used throughout Wikipedia articles, as they still are for the English names of species regardless of the long and bitter battles over this.

Peter coxhead (talk) 08:08, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: It'll itemize a response; none of it's earth-shaking, and may not affect the outcome much, so I'll collapse-box it to avoid a text-wall in mid-RfC.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment: CMoS may have one seeming contradiction in it, but that doesn't exactly open the floodgate or prove that it's a useless model to follow. The reasoning behind their main entry is still solid. Capitalization is not a matter of respect, which is the main argument the breeder crowd seems to keep taking. We capitalize a word to show that it refers to a specific, unique, individual instance of a thing as opposed to category of things. A breed is, by definition, a category of things. We capitalize German because there's only one Germany. We capitalize Tara Reid because we are referring to a single person who goes by that name (even though there may be others). If we were to capitalize Cocker Spaniel, it would imply that there is only one dog in all the world that is a Cocker Spaniel, or that we are always referring to a certain specific individual dog when when use that term. I think it's important to remember the reasons behind the rules before we start making exceptions. Krychek (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Krychek:@Peter coxhead:I'm not going to vote, but I hope a grammatical comment is in order. We often capitalize categories of things. As an American and a Jew (who has never been to any of the Hamptons), I know this, and as a white man and an assistant professor, I know we don't capitalize other categories. (Well, some people capitalize racial "white" and "black".) The way to answer this question is not by whether "golden retriever / Golden Retriever" is more like "Berber" than it is like "white person". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I was punning upon Emerson, to point out that very thing about those who insist on a one size fits all ironclad rule of capitalization. It isn't going to work! Your comment that capitalization is common across most specialist sources actually lends credence to my point; show respect for the experts! Birdcon also is a case in point; after much hue and cry, the experts were discredited and some of them left altogether in disgust. This does not lead to WP being viewed as a reliable source for anything; rather it embeds its unreliability in people's minds. Montanabw^(talk) 19:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@JerryFriedman: In general, adjectives inherit the capitalization of the proper nouns they derive from. We capitalize the word "American" because it is derived from "America," of which there is only one. We capitalize the word "Jewish" because it is derived from "Judaism," of which there is only one. Of course, breed names in WP article titles are nouns, so this may be slightly off-topic. Krychek (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@Krychek:I meant "American" as a noun, and I used the noun "Jew", not the adjective "Jewish". If you want a proper name that "Judaism" is derived from, it would be "Judah" (if there was such a person), not "Judaism". But that's beside the point. A number of categories of people that aren't named after singular proper nouns are still capitalized: Berber (which I mentioned), Apache, Nama, Vlach, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Sunni, etc. A number of others aren't: black, atheist, artist, woman, etc. Grammar won't help with the names of animal breeds. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@JerryFriedman: Grammar won't help with the names of animal breeds. Absolutely – any more that it did with the English names of species (see my essay English species names as proper names, which applies equally to breed names). Capitalization is a convention; one which varies in time, by variety of English, by topic area, by kind of publication, etc. Where there is such variation the English Wikipedia is free to choose its own conventions. Consistency with the choice already made for the English names of species (which I disagreed with at the time) and clarity of explanation for non-expert editors suggests to me that sentence case – capitalizing only those words normally capitalized in running text – is the best convention to adopt. But it's clearly just a convention, and the alternative proposal below is equally clearly just another one. Neither has any particular claim to grammatical authority. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@JerryFriedman:Well, "Vlach" comes from "Walachia," a singular geographical region, and "Sunni" comes from "Sunna," a singular subset of Muslim holy law. The Presbyterian Church was originally a singular institution, though it may no longer be considered as such by some people. And we do not capitalize the word "orthodox" unless it is used to refer to a specific religious sect. I'll grant you "Apache" as the exception that proves the rule; no rule of grammar is 100 percent consistently applied, even in standard English. But in general, my guideline remains solid. Krychek (talk) 14:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@Krychek:"Vlach" doesn't come from "Wallachia" (OED)—it's more like the other way around. And since you granted Apache, what about Navajo, Pueblo, Blackfeet, Iroquois, Nama, !Kung, Ashanti, etc., etc., etc.? This saves me from having to argue about the others, some of which I admit are in grayer areas. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. English names of domestic animal breeds, hybrids, and lines are invariably capitalised in Wikipedia as in all reliable sources, such as (to name a couple of the most obvious) DAD-IS (the world reference agricultural breed database), the thesaurus of CAB International or the standard printed reference work: Valerie Porter, Ian Mason (2002). Mason's world dictionary of livestock breeds, types, and varieties. Oxford; New York: CABI. ISBN 9780851994307.

There are some grey areas. One is the capitalisation of foreign-language names that are current in English: should our article be at Cinta senese (correct Italian capitalisation, the name of the breed) or at Cinta Senese, following English capitalisation rules? Another area that is grey to me is the capitalisation of colour variants and the like in pet and fancy breeds; is it Black molly or Black Molly (our article has both)? We don't have an article on the Black Pewter; when we do, will it be at Black Pewter or Black pewter? There are about a hundred chicken colour patterns, not nearly all of them in the List of chicken colours; when those become articles, will they be capitalised? However, these are largely academic, though I'd appreciate views on the foreign-language names. Overall, we capitalise, as do the sources. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

MOS:DASH states: "When naming an article, do not use a hyphen as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span (since eye does not modify hand)..."

However:

• "hand-eye" OR "hand–eye" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "hand-eye" OR "hand–eye" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "hand-eye" OR "hand–eye" in scholar tends to support hyphen, comma or slash usage
• "pp. 100-101" OR "pp. 100–101" OR "pp 100-101" OR "pp 100–101" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "pp. 100-101" OR "pp. 100–101" OR "pp 100-101" OR "pp 100–101" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "pp. 100-101" OR "pp. 100–101" OR "pp 100-101" OR "pp 100–101" in scholar gives no directly assessable results
• "10-15 percent" OR "10–15 percent" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "10-15 percent" OR "10–15 percent" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "10-15 percent" OR "10–15 percent" in scholar tends to support hyphen and then dash usage
• "1914-18 war" OR "1914–18 war" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "1914-18 war" OR "1914–18 war" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "1914-18 war" OR "1914–18 war" in scholar tends to support hyphen usage and in one case a double hyphen
• "200-250 people" OR "200–250 people" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "200-250 people" OR "200–250 people" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "200-250 people" OR "200–250 people" in scholar tends to support hyphen usage with intermittent usage of hyphens
• "Christmas Eve-New Year's Day" OR "Christmas Eve–New Year's Day" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "Christmas Eve-New Year's Day" OR "Christmas Eve–New Year's Day" got no relevant results - mainly commas or spaces
• "Christmas Eve-New Year's Day" OR "Christmas Eve–New Year's Day" in scholar tends to support spaces and commas usage
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" on web tends to support hyphen and dash usage
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" in scholar tends to support hyphen and dash usage with a few commas
• "2000-2010" OR "2000–2010" OR "2001-2010" OR "2001–2010" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "2000-2010" OR "2000–2010" OR "2001-2010" OR "2001–2010" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "2000-2010" OR "2000–2010" OR "2001-2010" OR "2001–2010" in scholar tends to support dash and hyphen usage
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" on web tends to support hyphen and dash usage with a few commas and spaces
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "24-26 December" OR "24–26 December" in scholar tends to support hyphen and dash usage
• "78-89 mm" OR "78–89 mm" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "78-89 mm" OR "78–89 mm" in books tends to support hyphen usage
• "78-89 mm" OR "78–89 mm" in scholar tends to support hyphen and dash usage
• "boyfriend–girlfriend problems" on web tends to support slash or hyphen usage
• "boyfriend–girlfriend problems" in books tends to support slash or hyphen usage
• "boyfriend–girlfriend problems" in scholar tends to support slash or hyphen usage
• "Paris–Montpellier route" on web tends to support hyphen usage
• "Paris–Montpellier route" in books supports hyphen usage
• "Paris–Montpellier route" in scholar supports hyphen use (single usage)
• "New York–Los Angeles flight" on web tends to support space or hyphen usage
• "New York–Los Angeles flight" in books marginally supports hyphen usage
• "New York–Los Angeles flight" in scholar tends to support hyphen and dash usage equally
• [ ] on web tends to support hyphen usage
• [ ] in books tends to support hyphen usage

I fail to find support for the use of dashes in real world applications. Arguments in favour of the use of hyphens include accessibility on keyboards. It is easy to search for strings containing hyphens as the hypen key is readily available.
Gregkaye ✍♪ 12:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC) updating with Google scholar results Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

@Gregkaye: if you search the archives you'll find that this issue has been the repeated subject of debates, all of which have ended in support for the status quo. It's not worth discussing all over again. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I have seen the archives. It seemed to me that there was no clear consensus. It seems to me that Wikipedia holds to conventions that clearly smack against regular use of punctuation, at least as it appears on the web and in books. Gregkaye ✍♪ 13:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, there was no consensus for change and I'm sure there won't be now. In the absence of such a consensus, the status quo rules. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

How can you be sure? Every form of usage checked supports the use of hyphens in place of dashes. Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Not really. For one thing, a general Google search doesn't differentiate between the two. If you search "books" for "boyfriend—girlfriend problems" (emdash), "boyfriend–girlfriend problems" (endash) or "boyfriend-girlfriend problems" (hyphen) you get the same results (actually you also get "boyfriend/girlfriend problems" too). We really have been over all of this – read the archives! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:12, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate that the non alphabetic characters don't influence the search and only put them in for the sake of readers that may have considered the inclusion of hyphens or dashes into searches to have been relevant. As I've said, I've taken a look at the archives and still don't see how we can fly in the face of common use of grammar. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Greg, there's a difference between common practice on the free-for-all web, and best practice in published sources. I'd be looking at Googlebooks and Google scholar. You might also account for Google's erratic transmission of hyphens and dashes (you have to check the actual sources), and on encyclopedic versus general usage. In 2011, under ArbCom supervision no less, all of these issues inter alia were dealt with rationally and thoroughly by consultation of unprecedented duration and breadth for any style issue on Wikipedia. Tony (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The trouble is TONY that someone has decided to use dashes in a whole range of situations even when no-one else does the same. I have been through scholar and there are still only a few formats in which dashes are used. The Wikipedia use of dashes is the typographic equivalent of someone choosing to speak in Shakespearean English so as to appear more educated. Its nonsense. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:02, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

It is indeed annoying that when Bill Gates copied the Mac he decided the skip the part about making nice typography available easily on the keyboard, resulting in so much modern amateur online content being dashless. That's not really a good reason for WP to give up on doing it better. By following best practices as articulated by grammar and style guides, we aim to make a high-quality encyclopedia. Many amateurs will use slashes, spaced hyphens, double hyphens, and other constructs when they realize that the hyphen sends the wrong signal; if they were aware of the en dash and how to type it they might do a better job following best practice; but they don't; sad. Dicklyon (talk) 03:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Microsoft's keyboard is really stupid—a profound disservice to proper writing: they include guff that would be rarely or never used by most people (^), and exclude basic (not "nice", Dick) typography. You can't even access a dash using alt or opt, but the now almost obsolete underscore and circumflex, among several others, are readily available. It's almost wilful. Then they put this half-assed auto fix-it thing in their Word program for interruptor dashes that – can you believe it - does this to a nested phrase. It's ignorant. WP goes to some lengths to make dashes available to editors, not least through buttons under the edit box. Any Windows user is well-advised to make a work-around macro for both en and em dashes. Tony (talk) 07:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, the MOS clearly states, "The guidance contained elsewhere in the MoS, particularly in the section below on punctuation, applies to all parts of an article, including the title. (Wikipedia:Article titles does not contain detailed rules about punctuation.)" As the other editors said, there are substantive reasons to prefer a dash to a hyphen. Whether hyphens or dashes are more common is pretty much irrelevant. AgnosticAphid talk 23:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The MOS guideline may state that, but it has never been accepted as part of the AT policy which has its own methods and procedures on deciding article titles. If you think there is a consensus for that sentence please show me the place in the talk pages of the MOS guideline and the AT policy prior to its insertion into the MOS where there was consensus for the inclusion. -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass... -sche (talk) 05:52, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
• Yes, this is perennial rehash. Short version: Google is useless here because it mostly reports website results, which mostly use hyphens whether they're correct or not, because they're right on the keyboard, and convenient, and most websites are written by amateurs who don't even know dashes aren't hyphens. MOS is not the Manual of Whatever Is Most Popular on Google anyway; it's based on more than one sort of source, and most of all based on what best serves our readers. Yhe clarity differeniating between using dashes for what they're for instead of operator-overloading hyphens to serve the same purposes is worth the very minor editorial hassle (click on the dash character in the toolbox below the editing window) to use them correctly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

And it's perhaps worth adding the OCR used in digitizing books almost invariably doesn't distinguish between the different lengths of dashes and hyphens, so nothing can be deduced about the original text unless you know it came directly from a digital source. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

• Have any of you petitioned Google, Microsoft and/or Mozilla to as them to facilitate in page searches for dashes that use hyphens as the operator? If not then this is one additional reason why the perennial question will continue to be raised. Google books show an overwhelming trend for the use of the hyphen. An equivalent to WP:UCRN should apply. Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:13, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Google books show an overwhelming trend for the use of the hyphen – please see what I wrote above. You simply don't know what characters are being used in books unless you have access to the paper or original digital source. (However, I suspect that you're right that there is a trend away from the correct use of dashes as typesetters and trained typists are replaced by authors being expected to prepare text themselves. Whether this is an trend that Wikipedia should follow is another matter.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:17, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I found that, having checked through several searches through several book, in the vast majority of cases Google books got it spot on. In some cases the application of the dash rule is pretty ridiculous. When searches are done on certain terms and Wikipedia is the only result, even amongst RS type sites, that uses a dash we end up looking pretty stupid. Gregkaye ✍♪ 16:15, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Except no one bases their judgement of the intelligence of third parties on the nearly indistinguishable typographic results of some Google searches. Let's not be melodramatic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish you write "based on what best serves our readers". Which best serves our reader "Comet Hale–Bopp" or "Comet Hale-Bopp"? Do you base best on usage in reliable sources or on the rules in the MOS? -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

That's putting the cart before the horse, and you're quoting me out of context, and inverting the very meaning of the point I was making. Reliable sources differ in their approach, so MOS has to pick one solution or another. Reliable sources about writing mostly recommend using dashes for what MOS uses dashes for, and hyphens for what MOS uses hyphens for. Reliable sources on every other topic – comets, cities, gun, dogs, poker, whatever – which we can observe as to what they do rather than what they advise (since they don't advise anything to do with these glyphs) are all over the map, but of little to any use in telling us anything about hyphens vs. dashes. This is because a) we can't be sure what they're using in many cases (see Peter's point above, which is one I've made many times too, every time this WP:PERENNIAL issue comes up; the glyphs are indistinguishable in many fonts), and b) because specialists in rocket engines or marine biology or Serbian history or Pokemon are not experts on English language writing to begin with. See the essay WP:Specialist style fallacy for reasons we cannot reasonably rely on specialist publications for stylistic decisions when writing encyclopedic material for a general audience. Because works that are at least arguably authoritative on style do recommend dashes for particular cases, and do so on logical bases that clearly distinguish names that use dashes from those that use hyphens, in a predictable, meaningful, information-conveying way, the consensus at WT:MOS (which is all of Wikipedia that cares to weigh in on style matters, no some secret club) has been that using dashes for what dashes are advised be be used for is the most reader-helpful approach, vs. using hyphens for everything, the most editor-expedient approach. MOS almost never favors editorial expedience over reader benefit, and even when it does it's because the technical problems inherent in providing the reader benefit have not been solved (e.g. we still "ban" curly quotes because they mess with searches and have other negative side effects, even if they look better to our readers. We don't favor straight quotes because they're editorially expedient; that's just a coincidence.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate that we are both writing for a wider audience than each other, so some of the points that you make I assume are made for third parties as I assume that you already know that I must be aware of both pages to which you link. There are some real structural problems with WP:PERENNIAL and as such it needs radical surgery before it is fit for purpose (you will find my comment on that in the talk page and archive of perennial). Comments like "even if they look better to our readers" is a matter of opinion not a fact. The purpose of following usage in reliable sources for article titles is to make sure that Wikipedia articles are found when searches are put into a search engine, I think it is wrong to imply that such a policy exists as "the most editor-expedient approach". I have commented on the essay WP:Specialist style fallacy--which by and large is your own work presenting a point of view that you favour--on the talk page of the essay, I am disappointed that you did not consider it appropriate to include any of the points I raised in "your" essay. -- PBS (talk) 13:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a discussion on my talk page about whether the goal of transcription should be "a literal word-by-word accuracy". This discussion came out of a post on Jimbo's talk page about a transcript of his civility speech at Wikimania 2014 that has just been posted by Cirt at Wikisource.

I despair of spending what's left of my weekend in a fruitless discussion there, and hope to move the question here, for wider input. A related question: Is it time to add some transcription guidelines to the MOS? FYI, there is a short list of online guides in my user space at Standards for editing transcripts. —Neotarf (talk) 16:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

No, removing false starts from a transcript is not akin to lying. That's not what I said. Please don't misconstrue what I actually said. I said you had literally the wrong words for things in your transcript, and then wholesale reverted all my changes, not just little minor ones you may have disagreed with, but everything. That's your prerogative, it's your userspace, but it's wrong, because I found words that were wrong. Not "false starts" but other actual wrong words. — Cirt (talk) 16:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Several examples of things that are simply wrong with the transcript: DIFF. Thanks. — Cirt (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

In that case, my second question still pertains, as I have spent the better part of a weekend, which I hoped to spend doing a second pass on my own transcription, trying to answer endless objections from someone who wants to use my user space to work on their own transcription project. It would really really help to have some useful MOS statement about standards for editing transcriptions, so one can just give them a link. —Neotarf (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The user has apparently ignored my suggestions at DIFF, even refusing to fix the date of the speech itself, which is still wrong. — Cirt (talk) 00:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether this has been brought up before (I did a quick search in the talk page archive and didn't spot it), but the pluralization example "the boss's wife" may appear to reinforce the notion that bosses are generally male, which could be "an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes" per WP:GENDER. We could, e.g., substitute 'spouse' or 'car' or 'desk' instead of 'wife' to avoid that. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Quite so. I've changed "wife" to "partner". Tony (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I may have been guilty of some gender stereotyping myself by assuming that having a wife implied being male. Personally, I might have sidestepped the question and used "desk", as I think it is a simpler-to-understand phrase (e.g., I'm not sure whether "partner" has MOS:COMMONALITY across different varieties of English). —BarrelProof (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

An object would better. How about "penis"? Wait no, that's no good. "Desk" is. "Partner" could mean business partner, and if the boss has a partner, (s)he's not really the boss, is (s)he? InedibleHulk (talk) 17:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead with "boss's office". Sounds "official" and rolls off the tongue better than "boss's desk". I'm still going to carry on dropping the S after an apostrophe elsewhere, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Even people who like to drop them wouldn't do it here, because it's pronounced "boss-ez desk" not "boss desk".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:47, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The topic of this section is ranges in compound modifiers.

• According to MOS:ENDASH, en dashes are used "[i]n ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through": "20–30".
• According to WP:HYPHEN, sub-subsection, point 8, "[v]alues and units used as compound modifiers are hyphenated only where the unit is given as a whole word": "a 30-day journey".
• Those guidelines indicate that, when a range of values occurs with a unit in a compound modifier, then an en dash occurs with a hyphen in the same expression: "a 20–30-day journey". Is this construction supported by the Manual of Style?
  

—Wavelength (talk) 01:42, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Too awkward; just rewrite it in plain English: "a 20- to 30-day journey". Doing so highlights the fact that this is actually a contraction of a "a 20-day to 30-day journey", so "a 20–30-day journey" is arguably incorrect as well as awkward. It's not "a 20-to-30-day journey". Breaking the construction down, it has this structure: "count range( value-[unit] to value-unit ) referent", not "count range( compoundValue-unit ) referent".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish ☺, thank you for your reply. Even before I posted my question, I had already decided that the best alternative to a version with a punctuation mark for "to" was "a 20-to-30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, noun]. Your version, "a 20-day to 30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, preposition, compound adjective, noun], is inconsistent with standard English syntax.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Not true, or we couldn't say "a 40-minute to two-hour nap", or "a blue-green to yellow-green hue", which we certainly can. The fact that the construction is redundant when the unit is the same is why we collapse it, but that doesn't somehow transmute the underlying "value-[unit] to value-unit" into "compoundValue-unit"; the optional [unit] is simply omitted, leaving "value- to value-unit". A "compoundValue-unit" construction is simply coincidentally similar but for its spacing, and the rationale behind it is different: A compound value is one that cannot be separated, as in "a forty-seven-day journey", "a two-thirds-day journey", "a two-percent increase". In any "value-[unit] to value-unit" construction, the value can be compound: "a forty-six- to forty-seven-day journey" and "a forty-six-day to two-month journey". Would anyone write "a 40-minute-to-two-hour nap", "a blue-green-to-yellow-green hue", and "a forty-six-to-forty-seven-day journey"? That's the case you're making. I'm unaware of any style guide that would recommend this. PS: If you'd already made up your mind, there was no point in asking the question, especially if you won't take the answer. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I would write "a 40-minute-to-two-hour nap", "a blue-green-to-yellow-green hue", and "a forty-six-to-forty-seven-day journey", although I would prefer "a nap of 40 minutes to two hours", "a hue of blue-green to yellow-green", and "a journey of forty-six to forty-seven days". My question was about using an en dash and a hyphen in "a 20–30-day journey", and the question is not pointless. I had already decided that the best alternative to a version with a punctuation mark for "to" was "a 20-to-30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, noun]. There can be more than one correct version. (I vaguely sensed that someone might be confused by this, but I hoped that careful reading of my post would prevent such confusion.)

—Wavelength (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Best of all, avoid all of these ugly compound modifiers whenever possible and write instead "a journey of of 20 to 30 days", "a nap of 40 minutes to two hours", "a hue from blue-green to yellow-green" (or "between blue-green and yellow-green" depending on the meaning intended). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

Please see WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 22#Glossary templates (and the related WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 20#Template:Gbq), as the outcome will strongly affect MOS:GLOSSARIES.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

The guidelines currently say "Proper names (such as place names) in other languages, however, are not usually italicized, nor are terms in non-Latin scripts." But does this apply to book titles? I don't think the restriction should apply to them. Say I am quoting (for what-ever strange reason) someone in Korean who is referring to a Korean book or translation. Doesn't it make sense to have 해커스 토익은 좋다 rather than 해커스 토익은 좋다 ? Kdammers (talk) 09:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

No. Many writing systems, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic, do not have an italic style. Attempting to force italics on these writing systems can render them unintelligible. In Korean, the equivalent to italics was to put dots over the characters, but this has fallen out of fashion and would not be appropriate for the English Wikipedia. The more current practice would be to use quotation marks 「」 but again this is not appropriate here. There are other writing systems where the equivalent would be indicated in a larger font, but again not appropriate here.

So we currently recommend that you do not modify these writing systems. The Citation Style 1 templates now have |script-title= to include these writing systems without modification. --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Having a problem on this article. It is about a German pilot who fought in action exclusively against the British in WW2. He shot down 83 RAF bombers at night, the 3rd highest in history. The original editor spelt the article in American English. In the interests of having "strong national ties", I argue that it should be in British English - for obvious reasons. There is no American connection whatsoever. At least three editors won't listen, and their defence centres on the right (or whim) of original writer to do as he pleases. This maybe a violation of WP:Own (which would be ironic as he added template warning of that on the talk page Please advise. Dapi89 (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The arrogance of Dapi's post is staggering, as is the misrepresentation of the situation. It's not that five other editors won't listen to you, it's that your argument is based on a fundamentally flawed misunderstanding of what WP:TIES means. And his assertion that following WP:RETAIN amounts to ownership is ridiculous.

Dapi, you already have been advised, by five other editors, all but one of whom had nothing to do with writing the article. Drop the stick. Parsecboy (talk) 22:18, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

1. It is possible for five guys to be wrong and one guy to be right.

2. Dapi, if by you mean "right (or whim) of the original writer to do as he pleases" you really mean "follow the precedent set by the first major contributor," then your opponents have a good point. That's a longstanding default rule on Wikipedia.

3. If the subject of the article is a German pilot, then the article doesn't have a direct national tie to either the U.S. or Britain. You could say that he was an enemy of Britain but he was active until 1944, so he was an enemy of the U.S. too. There might be a tie to Britain but—based solely on what you've told me here—it's only a little stronger than the tie to the U.S. In that case, we go back to the default rule which is to use whichever style of English the first major contributor to the article happened to use.

However this third point of mine is debatable. There is a tie to England and to the U.S.; the question is whether it is strong. Since, for whatever reason, you don't find the other five participants in this debate convincing, consider writing an RfC and publicizing it so that more than just your current participants give their thoughts. However, it would have to be worded neutrally (which means it should be very different from the post you'd left here, saying something like "Should the article on Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein be written in American English or British English? The first major contributor used American English, but there is a case for a strong national tie to Britain (see below)" and then you write your own position in your own words below the RfC header). Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I am going to ignore Parky since discourse with him has proven rather pointless. It isn't that he can't see, it is that he won't.

I think you've misunderstood slightly. Please explain why you think there is a tie to the United States. This man fought exclusively against the British. He did not engage American forces at any point regardless of the 'grander' scheme of things. That is the issue. So to dispute that is doesn't have a direct national tie to the British is something seems to be illogical. At least I suppose you concede the stronger tie lies with the British connection which is something. Advice is appreciated. Dapi89 (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

• WP:Ties refers to "strong national ties to a topic" -- the examples it lists are people of a certainly nationality, events that took place in a specific country, or cities in a specific countries. When the tie exists but is not to this obvious strong extent, it is better to just follow the ENGVAR standards and use the original style. We don't pick the policy down to smaller points, where we judge the relative strength of ties -- it's really an all or nothing issue.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

• Or pretty much, in other words -- is the topic Australian? Australian English. British? British English. Irish? Irish English? Romanian but has lived and worked only in New Zealand? Probably New Zealand English. Beyond that, WP:RETAIN the original style.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, Dapi, making up diminutive nicknames for people only insults them. If you actually want to make progress, don't call Parsec "Parky." He's not a puppy.

The article does not have to have a tie to the United States. I'd say that this article has no strong tie to either the U.S. or Britain. In that case, we leave it the way it is. The default setting for any article is the status quo. If it were in British English and I wanted to change it to American English, then I'd have to prove a connection to the U.S. The first person to do a large amount of work on the article is the one one who gets to choose the arbitrary things about it. "Well it's a little bit closer to British than to American or Irish or Australian" isn't enough. You have to show that it has a strong tie to one country or the other. The tie you've listed is weak, not strong: The British were not his only opponents, just the only ones who spoke English. However, because strong-vs-weak is a subjective matter, consider using an RfC. That could give you some closure on this issue and maybe bring in some new voices with new points to make. But write it carefully and invite your other participants to work out text with you ahead of time. A biased RfC will not resolve your conflict because your opponents might not accept its results as valid. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I've called him Parky before. No complaints. Now we're in the midst of a dispute, all of a sudden its offensive. That's that.

The tie you've listed is weak, not strong: The British were not his only opponents, just the only ones who spoke English - What I didn't get from your first point is whether you have read through the article. Have you? Because they were. Dapi89 (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I ignored it before, but you kept needling me - certainly everyone has a point at which their patience is exhausted. My earlier silence does not mean your condescension was acceptable behavior.

There's absolutely no reason for an RFC, Darkfrog - there is no strong tie to an English-speaking nation as prescribed by WP:TIES, and in the absence of said tie, the default is to WP:RETAIN the existing variety, as pointed out by Yaksar above. Parsecboy (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

For the record, the choice of English variant, right or wrong, was established at the WikiProject A-class review. If the community decides that it should be the British variant, I would expect this change to be implemented through proper procedures to maintain the quality level. And for those who have actually read the article, or claim to have read the article, as night fighter pilot, Sayn-Wittgenstein claimed 83 aerial victories in total, 23 of which on the Eastern Front of World War II over Russian and 60 on the Western Front over British opponents. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

There is every need for rfc.

Last time I checked, the Russians did/do not speak a variant of English. Dapi89 (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

No, there isn't. That you have a fundamentally flawed understanding of what WP:TIES means is your problem, not anyone else's. There are now at least seven editors who disagree with your interpretation. Here's a bit of advice you really ought to take to heart: when you're alone in your position and everyone else who has commented on a topic disagrees with you, it's rather unlikely that everyone else is a pack of idiots.

I'll ask you an easy question: TIES gives several categories that constitute strong national ties to a given country - what category does zu Sayn-Wittgenstein fall under? Now, keep in mind that the line of reasoning you're advancing – that a subject from a non-English speaking country that only interacted with one English-speaking country ought to be written in that version of English – has been raised specifically in the past and overruled (which is why, an example I have pointed out before, Japanese battleship Musashi is written in Canadian English despite never having even come within eyesight of a Canadian warship or aircraft).

As to what language was spoken in the Soviet Union, you said above that the British were his only opponents (in response to Darkfrog's comment about the British being his only English-speaking opponents, which was in turn a response to your assertion that he only fought British aircrews) - MisterBee was simply correcting you. Parsecboy (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

"A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities." Does this apply to Franconia–Springfield (WMATA station), named after the communities of Franconia and Springfield? --NE2 08:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Punctuation styles are being discussed at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Punctuation (version of 21:55, 5 November 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 22:20, 5 November 2014 (UTC) and 22:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality Article Improvement/Infobox for an initiative regarding this recommended remedy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)