Talk:Bangor-on-Dee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Original Discussion on Name and 2 Moves

I moved this page because articles are not capitalised in place names in Welsh (or any other language I know).

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley 16:29, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Same applies to prepositions, so should be Bangor-is-y-Coed. Bangor-Is-y-Coed looks very odd. There's also the form Bangor Iscoed. But surely this should be given at Bangor-on-Dee since that's the usual English name. Flapdragon 00:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Welsh Name: Syntatically Correct Case:

Good point; prepositions usually begin with a lower-case letter in titles and proper names and this seems to hold true for all the place names I can think of in English and Welsh. I think I didn't change the is to lower case too, because I was new to Wikipedia at the time, so too timid to do so.

Welsh Name: Popularity of forms:

A (case-insensitive—unfortunately) search on Google seems to reveal that Bangor-is-y-coed is probably most common, followed by Bangor is y coed (which is just people being too lazy to find their hyphen-dash key), followed by about every other capitalisation and hyphenation combination imaginable.

Anglicised name:

According to the article, it is usually called Bangor-on-Dee in English, so, logically the article should have that title. Also, I have never heard anyone refer to it as Bangor-is-y-Coed when they are speaking in English but have heard Bangor-on-Dee.

I do understand that the Welsh name probably predates the English, and that there is a drive (which I am all in favour of) to use traditional names for places (especially in Wales); but, in this case, Bangor-on-Dee seems to be more common.

Also Bangor-On-Dee should be Bangor-on-Dee. See discussion on capitalisation of Welsh name.

Conclusion:

• Moving article to Bangor-on-Dee making sure redirects are in place from all the forms of the Welsh name.
• Changing all references to Welsh name on English Wikipedia to Bangor-is-y-Coed form and English name to Bangor-on-Dee form.

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 20:14, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Good stuff. Only thing I might take issue with is that Bangor on Dee is just "people being too lazy to find their hyphen-dash key"; a purist might say that those hyphens have no historical validity in Welsh placenames, so it might be deliberate. But that's by the by... Flapdragon 01:04, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think you meant Bangor is y Coed as opposed to Bangor on Dee. Anyway, FTR, the hyphenated form seems to be quite a bit more common anyway making this oot, and people also seem too lazy to put hyphens in English common and proper nouns including calling it Bangor on Dee. Although—ironically from your POV—Welsh/Wales seems like its hypenated place names unlike places in England were you get them rarely. Also, the purists' argument is silly, because back when Welsh had no hyphens, punctuation had not been invented (or at least it hadn't for long and the hyphen hadn't been invented), so Welsh, English and all other languages didn't have any punctuation at all. Actually, traditionally, Welsh was not written with a Latin script but a phonetic Ogham one and scratched onto the sides of rocks with sharp pointy objects--seems to be a slippery slope to me.

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 15:38, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)

I fully support the move. Warofdreams 12:23, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. -- Necrothesp 17:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. violet/riga (t) 19:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. I wouldn't get too hung up on Ogham - that was a very long time ago and I think was mostly used for Irish-language inscriptions anyway. Hyphens seem to be going out of style in many English language usages - it used to be common to hyphenate street names (High-street), etc., and the Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent's (oops!) evening paper) still did it until about ten years ago; when I first moved to the area I used to think it was very odd. -- Arwel 13:58, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Moved to Bangor-on-Dee. violet/riga (t) 22:23, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name Discussion: Part 2

I think Flapdragon might be wrong to say that is shouldn't be capitalized on the grounds that it's a preposition – it's actually an adjective (the irregular comparative form of isel 'low') which is being used as a preposition here. Is can be used that way in place-names – but I don't think it happens much outside of placenames (although my Welsh is getting pretty rusty). Are there any Cymry Cymraeg about who can settle this? QuartierLatin1968 05:28, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not that I claim to be a Welsh speaker (dipyn bach maybe), but this is usually translated as below the wood not lower than the wood and my dictionary says that is can be a preposition; it is also only two letters (which would usually automatically make it lower case).

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 13:54, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

OK; scratch that. I have just spoken to an expert on the Welsh language who says that it is properly and originally Bangor Is-Coed meaning Bangor of Is-coed. Is-Coed refers to the area of Wales to the East of Wrexham and probably literally means this side of the wood (an obsolete usage of is), although some consider it to mean the lower side of the wood due to the modern usage of is. Anyway, it definitely does not mean Bangor below the wood which is a recent back-formation. Now how do I explain that in the article...

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 14:02, 2005 May 8 (UTC)