Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 38

Recently, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason has been working on a new software footnote^[1] system.

There may still be some bugs to be worked out, so it can't yet replace all other styles of footnoting. And since there doesn't appear to be a page dedicated to this footnote style, I'm not sure where to post. I'm trying to find a way/place to generate discussion.

Please see Wikipedia:Root page for info on this proposed policy.

I've actually listed it on MfD since I feel it is instruction/confusion creep. A discussion is also on going at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Root pages.... Thanks/wangi 01:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed that quite a lot of articles, such as EBay, start some of their sentences with lowercase, allegedly because it starts with a proper noun. The problem is, if you put that through any grammar checker, it'll be flagged as incorrect, and it doesn't look right anyway. I've tried changing the sentences, but I've been reverted several times, so I really think someone should add a section to the manual of style which states that the first word of a sentence is always capitalized, proper noun or not. --82.7.125.142 15:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It comes down to two problems. First, should we rely on the Microsoft Word grammar checker as infallible. That is easily answered with a resounding no. Grammar checkers are sometimes a useful tool to catch sloppy writing, but should by no means be trusted in assembling our style guide.

Second, should words like eBay or iPod be capitalized at the start of a sentence?

eBay is the world's preeminent online auction site. vs.

EBay is the world's preeminent online auction site.

iPods are a popular Christmas gift. vs.

IPods are a popular Christmas gift.

The obvious solution is to hunt down and beat severely the marketing idiots who thought that the bizarre capitalization was a good idea. For Wikipedia, I would also suggest that the starting lowercase should be preserved, and that it does look appropriate. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

"... hunt down and beat" is too good for them. And for Word's "tools", while we're at it. Roasting over a slow spit would be better :) Puffball 16:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Hate to think what you'd do to Jerry terHorst… who I see lacks an article. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• Give the poor guy a voucher for psychotherapy -- he suffers enough (a) every time he has to spell out his name on the phone and (b) by being always at the bottom of ASCII-sorted lists ... Puffball 08:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, but what about these examples?

6 Cats were sitting alone. 3 times now have I told you.

These sentences also use odd capitalisation, as the number cannot be capitalised. In some languages the capital is still used, but moved forward (as in the first example), while other languages prefer to leave out the capital (considering the number capitalised). I generally prefer using capitals, so I would follow the first example. But which is correct? -- Ec5618 16:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Both are wrong, since those particular numbers should be spelled out. For use with numbers > 10 (or 100, according to some), type 1 looks wrong to me (e.g. "3,456 people voted" rather than "3,456 People voted"). Puffball 16:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The MOS already recommends simply avoiding starting sentences with numbers:"It is considered awkward for a numeral to be the first word of a sentence: either recast the sentence or spell the number out." —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Thing is: there is no such thing as "EBay". There is no such thing as an "IPod". "eBay", "iPod", and such are the proper names for these things, and should be presented as such. Certainly the companies in question consistantly present their names that way (though I have seen occasional peculiar circumlocutions to avoid starting a sentence with those names). As far as I can tell, the only correct capitalizing would be, "'EBay' is an incorrect representation of 'eBay'." --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• As with a numeral, you can always rephrase. For example, instead of "eBay is the world's preeminent online auction site" one could write "The online auction site eBay is the world's preeminent auction site." or something that does not have "eBay" as the first word. DES ^(talk) 20:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Yeah. It's only really an issue for the introductory sentence of the relevant article, where the term is expected to be the first word. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I see no reason why it must be the first word. EBay could well start "The web site eBay is...". DES ^(talk) 20:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

We looked at this not too long ago, in fact, not even a month. It is in /Archive 36. I've reproduced part of my post here:

It is true that both these examples are very strange; I don't think you'd expect them to pop up in a manual of style, to be honest. If there is really such a war on beginning a sentence with eBay, find a way to reword the sentence so that a normal word starts it; in other cases eBay should be spelt like so (I believe that is its most common usage). Remember that the manual is not intended to be concrete; exceptions will arise from time to time. Neonumbers 05:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

In summary, I think the sentence should be reworded to avoid the problem at all.

With numbers, unless it is a very wordy number (3,456 is wordy but "three thousand" is not), if a number begins a sentence it should always be spelt out. Otherwise, no capital is used at all. Neonumbers 09:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I prefer headings with only first letter capitalized (except for proper nouns, etc.), as does the current Manual of Style. For example, "External links" should be used instead of "External Links". However, I've increasingly come across capitalized headings. For a while I started "correcting" them to conform to MoS, but I gave up as I kept coming across too many. (It's strange, whenever I find a particular pet peeve on Wikipedia, I'm confronted with it more and more...) So I'm wondering if this MoS guideline should stay as-is or not, and what I should do when I come across the nonstandard capitalization. - furrykef (Talk at me) 01:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, found discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (headings). - furrykef (Talk at me) 02:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

According to both Skrunk & White's Elements of Style (http://orwell.ru/library/others/style/e/estyle_1.htm) and the Chicago Manual of Style s always follows the apostrophe after a name. In other words, it's

1. Rawls's not Rawls'
2. Dawkins's not Dawkins'
3. Jones's not Jones'
4. Charles's not Charles'

Given that the error of omitting the s is so common I was wondering if anyone would object particularly strongly if I include a section on possessives? Mikkerpikker 15:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have never heard this before, and I don't think I like it. In fact, I don't believe this is an error at all. I have never seen such spelling, and much prefer the less bothersome way. More to the point, even if these sources suggest adding an s, they refer only to American English spelling. A section on style should probably not be limited to a single form of English. -- Ec5618 16:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about it being an American convention, reputable publications in South Africa (where I'm from) such as the Mail & Guardian use the prescribed form of possessives, as does Britain's The Economist (and its sister publication, Financial Times). Maybe this is an example of only seeing what you want to see, but in my experience reputable publications and publishers always use the form I'm advocating. Besides, aren't The Elements of Style and the Chicago Manual of Style regarded as canonical throughout the English speaking world? (I may be wrong, but I always thought they were) Mikkerpikker 16:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Associated Press style is to omit the second "s" on possessives from proper nouns ending in an "s." -- Mwalcoff 16:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Mikkerpikker is right (except it's Strunk :)). The commonest worldwide usage is just as he says. Hart's Rules (Oxford University Press, 37th edn) says: "Use 's for the possessive case in English names and surnames whenever possible; i.e. in all monosyllables and disyllables, and in longer words accented on the penult as:

"Charles's

"Cousins's

...

"Zacharias's

"In longer names not accented on the penult, 's is also preferable, though ' is here admissible, e.g. Theophilus'.

"But poets in all these cases sometimes use s' only; and Jesus' is an accepted litugical archaism. ...

"In ancient classical names use s' (not s's): Mars', Venus', Herodotus'." (Hart goes on a bit longer, but is this crux of it.) Puffball 16:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Wow! Never noticed it's Strunk before and I've read that book about 10 times! :) Anyway, if Mwalcoff is correct then it seems quite unlikely we'll get consensus about possessives. So what about this compromise: we can have a section mentioning both forms of usage (if I write it maybe with a tit bit of bias towards including the s!) and also an exhortation that editors need to be consistent (i.e. use one or the other, never both)? Does that seem reasonable to everyone or shall we try to get consensus? Mikkerpikker 16:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This issue has already been discussed here. Perhaps a perusal through the archives would be useful. There is already a section on possessives in the Manual of Style. It says:
"Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with Achilles' heel."
If my memory serves correctly, this guideline was chosen since there was no consensus among style guides as to how to treat possessives of words ending in 's'. I believe several other wordings were prososed and that is the one that gained consensus. Please refer to the archived discussions before making any changes. Thanks. Kaldari 17:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, the UK Guardian's style guide says, "The possessive in words and names ending in s normally takes an apostrophe followed by a second s (Jones's, James's), but be guided by pronunciation and use the plural apostrophe where it helps: Mephistopheles' rather than Mephistopheles's". Mark¹ 18:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I've clearly raised a dead issue then... sorry, Mikkerpikker 16:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. It's quite a common occurance here since it's not humanly possible for anyone to actually read all the archives. Kaldari 16:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I was taught that quotation marks were always outside punctuation, even if the words were "quoted" for emphasis. For example,

My son told me my hairstyle looks "fat," whatever that means.

If something is quoted for "emphasis," I feel the comma goes inside the closing quotation mark.

This goes against what I now read as wikipedia "style." Am I out in left field? I was about to change some of the many examples I'm running across, but, apparently, I have been "out voted." Or, is it because of my American grammar text? JJ 22:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Americans (for the most part) still follow the outdated typographic quoting style that was replaced by "logical quoting" during the 1940s and 50s (everywhere except in the US). Wikipedia uses logical quoting. Kaldari 23:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm old, but I'm not that old! I asked, and received no reply, for Kaldari to define "logical quoting." Can anyone do this? JJ 23:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I too was taught that quotes are to go outside of punctuation, but this has always seemed very illogical to me. So I assume Kaldari means: be logical, quotes should only surround what they mean to emphasize. I'm happy to move this American "style" to a more logical one. - Marshman 00:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a discussion and poll at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories. We are discussion the future of separate disambig subcategories (e.g. TLAdisambig, geodis, ...), or if everything should just be tagged with {{disambig}}. Thanks/wangi 22:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Poll results are in!

The result of the debate was remove all *LAdisambig templates, with no consensus on several related templates, and remove for templates 5LA through 9LA.

The overwhelming consensus is to eliminate all disambiguation subcategories.

Several different types are already required to be maintained as lists to prevent "orphan" pages. These lists are currently:

• Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages,
• Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages,
• Wikipedia:Multiple-place names, and
• Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name.

Presumably more lists will be added to comply with the separate poll results for {{TLAdisambig}}. There are already:

• List of all two-letter combinations
• List of TLAs

--William Allen Simpson 15:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed that articles, when displaying an amount of currency, will frequently use both the dollar sign and the word dollar, at the same time. For example: "I have $1 dollar." This is clearly wrong, as one of the indicators of currency is redundant - there should only be one indicator per reference. The sentence I used previously should be written either as "I have $1," or "I have 1 dollar." Does everybody agree with me? If nobody disagrees, can someone please add something like this to the style guides (either this one, or other ones, or both/multiple)? Thanks.

I don't think this needs to be in the style guides—"I have $1 dollar" is just flat out wrong. I suspect that it is usually the result of sloppy writing rather than a deliberate 'style' decision by an editor. Banish it to the same pit as the 'ATM machine', and fix it when you come across it. The Manual of Style is meant to address issues that are genuine matters of style: British versus American versus Canadian English, serial commas, section headings, etc. It's not really designed to be a primer on straightforward English construction. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 07:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Lol, or "PIN Number"... PizzaMargherita 10:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For a single occurrence in running text I would usually use all words: one dollar. If it's mixed with larger amounts, then switch to numbers: 1 dollar for me, 250 dollars for you, or $1, $340, $1,526, etc. —Michael Z. 2006-01-3 17:43 Z

MoS would suggest (and I would generally agree) that symbols are used with numbers, words with words. So one million dollars, $1,000,000 (US) or similar. Common sense and style should of course prevail. (As per, I hasten to add, Michael's examples.) Rich Farmbrough. 18:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find anything in the MoS about the practice of using apostrophes to indicate decades: is it "the 1960s" or "the 1960's"? The only guidance I can find on my bookshelf is in my out-of-date copy of Collins's Author's and Printers' Dictionary, which says the apostrophe should not be used. Many years ago I used the apostrophized form without really thinking, till I was told in no uncertain terms by a newspaper editor that "it's wrong". There is no logical reason for such an apostrophe. Nothing is omitted, and no possessive is involved. However, I keep coming across it in WP. Any thoughts? Puffball 17:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a straightforward plural—no apostrophe: the 1960s, the ’60s. Apostrophes are only used to form plurals when the result would be confusing, such as with single letters: mind your p’s and q’s. —Michael Z. 2006-01-3 17:36 Z

According to Lynne Truss's book, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, if I recall correctly, the apostophe in this instance ahs fallen out of favour in the UK, but is still widely used in the US. Canadian usage is mixed, although I think it leans toward omitting the apostrophe. The argument for omitting it is that the apostrophe is normally used for contractions (it is > it's) and to indicate possession (Jane's book). Introducing a third usage, i.e., pluralization of numbers and acronyms, confuses people, and leads to the greengrocer's apostrophe. In short, neither usage is incorrect. It is a matter a preference. Ground Zero | t 17:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Lynne Truss's book, but this usage has always been considered incorrect in the U.S. as far as I am aware. older≠wiser 17:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Good riddance to it! Puffball 20:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

"Commonwealth English uses capitals more widely than American English does." says the MoS. I don't think I agree, "creeping capitlisation" seems more prevelaqnt in US text than UK text. Rich Farmbrough. 18:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For many, many months there has been a {{dubious}} on the "look of quotation marks" section, but no corresponding section on the talk page that the template links to. Yes, I know there's a Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes), but it's had little activity in the past few months and weeks, and yet the dispute tag remains.

Let me be clear: I do not want to discuss the issue of straight versus curly quotes right here. Go back to that subpage for that. What I do want to discuss is:

1. It appears that on 26 September Crissov modified this MoS to change the exhortation to use straight quotes into a statement that no consensus exists. I have scrutinized the page history of this page and the subpage fairly carefully, and can find no reason that, on or about 26 September, one might surmise that a consensus to change this section to say no consensus had emerged. Lacking a new consensus, status quo ante, which was to forbid curly quotes, should apply, so I would appreciate a pointer to what, if anything, happened on 26 September to allow this section to change.
2. At some point, it seems to me that this section needs to stop being disputed, especially if it's going to be stable. It was stable for over a year with the straight quote exhortation, and now it's been stable for over three months with the no consensus statement, but the dispute tag has survived. Can a section be "permanently disputed"?

Please don't change the heading of this section — it's what the tag points at, and it's false advertising to have a link inviting readers to discuss "there" when there's no "there" there :-) --TreyHarris 22:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

While I don't necessarily agree with it, the current version seems inoffensive enough. If anyone disagrees, please replace the removed tag! Xxxxxxxx 16:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)