Talk:Battle of May Island

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[edit] Title of the article

This title is blatantly wrong, it is always known as "The Isle of May", not "May island"! MacRusgail

The dead will not be in the slightest worried about the nomenclature - common usage is correct.

The most common name for the incident, and thus the correct one for the article, is the Battle of May Island. The island is misnamed in this title, but the article is about the incident and not the island. Google finds about 60 hits for "Battle of May Island" (excluding Wikipedia ones), but only 4 hits (excluding Wikipedia) for the "Battle of the Isle of May". i.e. "Battle of May Island" is over ten times more common. Many historical events are misnamed but that does not prevent them from being used. e.g. battle of Hastings, battle of Bunker Hill are the most common names for battles which didn't take place at those locations. This wasn't a battle, and it didn't happen near anywhere called May Island, but that doesn't stop it from being the most common name. Jll 20:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

It is never, ever referred to as May Island. Certainly not in the surrounding area. Isle of X tends to be a commoner form in Scotland than X island, e.g. Isle of Skye, Isle of Mull, but not Skye island, Mull island etc. The Battle of Hastings is named for a nearby town, but it is certainly not an incorrect form of that town's name, unlike "May Island". --MacRusgail 20:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Your argument is that the title should incorporate the correct geographical name, whereas mine is that the title should be the one most commonly used for the subject of the article. I believe that if it was most commonly called "Battle of Fuzzy Island" or the "Battle of Mayyye Island" then that would be its name irrespective of what the island was really called. I appreciate that the Isle of May is the correct name for the location (although ("may island" scotland) does still get about 25 pages of hits compared to "Isle of May"'s 86), and I grew up just across the water from the Isle of Wight, which is similarly not called Wight Island. However if the incident had occurred a few miles from Portsmouth then it might have become widely and internationally known after it ceased to be secret as the Battle of Wight Island, even though the local population may have cringed. Jll 23:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I have added a link to this page at RFC to encourage other people to join the discussion. Jll 23:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure "AdolPH Hitler" and maybe even "Aydolf" get a number of hits too. I realise the "Battle" is called so ironically, but "May Island" still jars as much as "Wight Island" or "Isles of the Channel"! It's possible that it was so dubbed by some bureaucrat/journalist who had little clue about Scotland, and seeing "May" on the map thought it was "May Island" --MacRusgail 17:07, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

There just four hits on Google apart from Wikipedia for "Battle of the Isle of May" excluding Wikipedia ones. Contrast this with 47 hits with "Battle of May Island" (again excluding Wikipedia ones). This name for the incident is over ten times more popular. I expect "Adolf Hitler" gets vastly more hits than "AdolfPH Hitler" for the same reason.

I agree with you that the phrase probably came from someone not familiar with the area, possibly an ill-informed journalist, or perhaps an editor who cared more for a snappy headline than factual accuracy. But isn't this situation analogous to Krakatoa - this name was probably a spelling mistake for Krakatau in an initial report of the 1883 eruption. But "Krakatoa" is now such a widely used name that it cannot be considered wrong - in the same way as the "Battle of May Island" is by far the most common name for this incident in literature and on the Web. At present the article doesn't even contain the phrase. Jll 15:03, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I also agree. For the same reason the article "Krakatoa, East of Java" should not be renamed "Krakatoa, West of Java"! Thincat 15:55, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

rfc comment - this article is about the battle, and should use the common name for it, even if it's wrong - this is standard Wikipedia naming convention (see eg the perennial Talk:East Germany debate). A note in the intro on the island's correct name suffices. Rd232 11:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)