Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 28

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Quotation marks and punctuation

Concerning the following from this style guide:

When punctuating quoted passages include the mark of punctuation inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the mark of punctuation is part of the quotation. This is the style used in Australia, New Zealand, and Britain, for example. (A fuller treatment of the recommendations given here can be found in Fowler's Modern English Usage and other style guides for these countries, some of which vary in fine details.) "Stop!", for example, has the punctuation inside the quotation marks because the word "stop" is said with emphasis. When using "scare quotes", however, the comma goes outside.
Other examples:
Arthur said the situation was "deplorable". (The full stop (period) is not part of the quotation.)
Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable." (The full sentence is quoted; the period is part of the quotation.)
Arthur said that the situation "was the most deplorable he had seen in years." (Although the full sentence is not quoted, the sense of finality conveyed by the period is part of the quotation.)

Please note that the above rules reflect British conventions and are generally not followed by American publishers. For example, the Associated Press Stylebook has the following under its guidelines about "quotation marks":

PLACEMENT WITH OTHER PUNCTUATION: Follow these long-established printers' rules:
  • The period and the comma always within the quotation marks.
  • The dash, the semicolon, the question mark and the exclamation point go within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

Date Format - is this explained somewhere? should it be?

In some articles, it's hard to tell whether the date is in DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY format. If this isn't already set out, I propose that we add a guideline for the spelling out all dates, ie. June 3, 2005 or 3 June, 2005. Comments?

It's already in the MoS. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting. —Wayward 22:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Jahs389, suggesting that the terms BCE for before common era and CE for common era be used when referring to dates rather than BC and AD, because they are more secular and politicaly correct in nature. Also as a side note they are used by my Advanced Placement Class, and is used in our textbook.

Brackets or parentheses?

In my opinion, the term "parenthesis" is preferable to "bracket" when formally discussing punctuation. Parenthesis is less ambiguous (bracket can refer to physical objects, for example), and refers specifically to the function of the punctuation, whereas bracket seems to refer to the written shape of the punctuation mark. It's a lot like calling a period a "dot".

I'd like to revise with this in mind, any objections? Direvus 19:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Anon, "Bracket" is hardly ambiguous - when discussing punctuation, you're not suddenly going to digress into talking about wall brackets! On the other hand "Parenthesis" is ambiguous. Parenthesis is a concept rather than a punctuation mark - and can be shown by using brackets, by using commas, or by using dashes. So I would strongly object to changing anything. By the way, a "period" is something a fertile woman has once each month - isn't that ambiguous too!?!?!? :) jguk 20:15, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Brackets is correct, and best. Just go read that article. Note that parentheses (the plural form of your parenthesis), to me and to most other people, is a more specific term, referring only to rounded brackets. But there are also square brackets, curly brackets (aka braces), angle brackets, etc. The discussion on the MoS page here applies to any of them, not just specifically to rounded parentheses. Gene Nygaard 20:20, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Points taken, suggestion dropped. Direvus 20:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I have alwasy taken "Bracket", unqualified, to refer to square brackets, and "Braces" to refer to curly brackets. I would never understand "brackets" to refer to parentheses unles that was made quite explicit, and even then i would think it a rather odd usage. perhaps I am unsual, but I don't think so. This may be a US/UK difference in nomenclature, of course. -DES sorry It seesm i failed to sign this before. DES (talk) 14:35, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I concur. The use of "bracket" to describe ( and ) strikes me as quite eccentric. They are parentheses. To me, and I imagine in the minds of most Americans, brackets and parentheses form disjoint sets of punctuation. This is clearly a dialectical variation, and should be recognized as such. Nohat 02:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary, "brackets" without any qualification refers to round brackets:) jguk 11:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Around here, that's quite incorrect. I've just asked several coworkers of mine and they all told me, without any prompting, that (a) they would consider the phrase "round brackets" to be extremely odd--something that someone would only say if they forgot the word "parentheses" and (b) the word "brackets" without qualification refers to [ and ]. So, the assertion that "brackets" without qualification means parentheses is not always true (in fact quite possibly often false), and if you make that assumption you may be misleading to many people. Nohat 21:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the unsigned one above. So does Websters 3rd, which lists in defn 4 in a-b-c-d order:
  • a one of a pair of marks [] used . . .
  • b one of a pair of marks <> used . . . — called also angle bracket, broken bracket, pointed bracket
  • c one of a pair of curves () — called also parenthesis, round bracket
  • d BRACE 6b
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4/e confirms the cross-pond confusion. Definition 4 of "bracket" is: a) A square bracket, b) An angle bracket, and c) Mathematics. {}. Then definition 5 tells us: Chiefly British. One of a pair of parentheses. [Incidentally, Webster's use of <> (U+003c, U+003e) in their web definition is disappointing; Unicode makes it clear that those characters are not angle brackets, 〈〉 (U+2329 〈, U+232a 〉), no more than a hyphen (24-7) is a minus sign (24−7) nor a solidus (24/7) is a fraction slash (24⁄7).] We sometimes need a generic term, for example to describe Greibach's curious result that there is a hardest-to-parse context-free language, a language of nested brackets/parentheses of two kinds, with strings like "[()()](([])())". --KSmrqT 16:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
You seem unaware that not all pages are written in Unicode.
Those Unicode angle brackets look totally awful in my browser (Firefox) and font, whatever it is. They appear all grayed-out, in dotted lines. Just to be sure it wasn't a substitution problem, I added the numbered rather than named html representations to your text above, and they look the same.
That in itself would be sufficient reason for a web page designer to avoid using those poorly supported Unicode characters, and to stick to the angle brackets used with old code pages, the ones that appear on the keyboards of many users. Gene Nygaard 11:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
P.S. It's even worse in my IE6. 〈Those angle brackets in which I have enclosed this sentence aren't represented at all, merely showing up as boxes, which would likely be totally confusing to someone not familiar enough with this problem to realize that the box stands for an unrepresented character.〉 66.97.254.171 11:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC) [This anonymous posting was also me, forgetting to log in when I switched browsers. Gene Nygaard 11:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)]
I am disappointed that I seem something I am not. What does "pages written in Unicode" have to do with anything? Regardless of the character encoding of a page the &lang; and &rang; entities are part of the HTML 4.01 specification, dated 1999, Christmas Eve. I understand all too well that the existence of a standard is not the same as the existence of universal free fonts supporting that standard. Why? Because much of what I write is mathematics, where fonts have been a major obstacle (though help is on the way). For example, Unicode defines two completely different angle brackets for mathematics use, ⟨⟩ (U+27e8 and U+27e9), which are even more poorly supported though they have been part of Unicode for almost four years. It doesn't help that other angle brackets also exist: 〈〉(U+3008 and U+3009). But perhaps those complaining of missing characters are unfamiliar with coverage that is freely available, for example in the Code2000 fonts or free UCS outline fonts. --KSmrqT 21:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

My original suggestion was founded on my belief that whilst unqualified "bracket" referred specifically to one type thereof (the round bracket), "parentheses" referred to the general concept of enclosing a subsidiary idea within some kind of marking to segregate it from the main sentence.

According to the WP article Brackets, and at least two major dictionaries, I was completely ass-backwards in this regard.

The section is talking about punctuation in and around brackets; the correct term in the context is indeed "brackets". Hence, I am happy to drop the suggestion.

Am embarrassing affair, but at least I learned something new. =/ Direvus 17:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with this conclusion. The title of the section is indeed confusing to many Americans, who will not assume that the word "brackets" refers to parentheses. I am going to change the title so it is unambiguous (if perhaps a bit redundant). Better to be redundant than misleading. Nohat 22:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
This is simply an issue where US and UK usage differ to the point of conflicting (I'm not sure about the other English-speaking countries). I suspect that the only universally comprehensible wordings will be along the lines of "…parentheses (US) / brackets (UK)". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
A few editing suggestions:
  1. Use of punctuation in presence of bracketing characters
    • Cross-pond détente?
  2. Punctuation goes where it belongs.
    • Duh. This is unhelpful tautology.
  3. Bracketed clauses at the end of sentences do not include a full stop (as shown here). (A sentence wholly inside brackets will have its full stop within those brackets.)
    • Slight rearrangement works (though "full stop" is less familiar to Americans).
  4. ▶Bracketing characters include: (parentheses), [square brackets], and so on.◀
    • Clarifies parentheses and generalizes.
Are paired quotation marks, especially ‹these› and «these», bracketing characters? Hmm. --KSmrqT 08:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Few comments:

  • It probably doesn't matter which type of brackets we are talking about in that section, since the style rule should probably apply to all of them. In fact, the rule parallels that used for quotation marks. The same rule would apply to (), [], {}, <>, ‹› and «», although we really only use the first two types in Wikipedia.
  • I think the section as it currently stands is fine. If someone runs a text search for parenthesis or brackets, it will show up. If anyone is confused, they merely have to look at the body text to understand its referring to round brackets.
  • I don't think this needs to be explicitly added to the style manual, but in general, we should probably just try to be specific and use the terms square brackets, round brackets, angle brackets, curly brackets, etc. In the actual manual, if discussing round brackets we should also use the word parenthesis, so it shows up in a search (like we did here).
  • I don't think "like shown here" is grammatically incorrect, since "like" and "as" are effectively interchangeable. However, sometimes one sounds better than the other and in this case I agree that "as shown here" just sounds better.

Chuck 15:51, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I should have said that like is used as a preposition in formal writing. Colloquially, like is also used as a conjunction. Why doesn't "like shown here" sound right? Perhaps you're used to like being used as a preposition and expect it to be followed by an object to form a prepositional phrase. —Wayward 16:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I have no idea why "as" sounds better than "like" in that instance. It just does to my ear. Note I didn't say one sounds "right" and the other sounds "wrong", just that the one with "as" sounds "better". Sometimes one construction sounds better than another even when the meanings are the same and both are grammatically and syntactically correct. Its probably just a personal preference thing; its certainly not anything I would really get worked up about if people wanted to go back to "like". Chuck 19:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Words used and defined in the same article

Apart from the first appearance of the title in the text being made bold, there seems to be little use for it; at least as described by this article. I have since started using bold words for those where the definition may not be clear and for which the definition can be found elsewhere in the same article. This also suggests for some type of inter-article linkage, similar to the toc heading links. POds 08:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree there's a missing section in this MoS page, entitled "Bold," which should point the user to specific cases of bold use (Article titles, Sections, and Guide to layout), but also needs to explain a general house style for when to make other words within articles bold (if any), and explain the rare cases (if any) in which one would use bold versus italics or just regular text -- for words other than the specific cases referenced above. It sounds like you might be overusing bold. Use-mention distinction indicates first mention (only if very special) would optionally be in italics, not each use in bold. However, this feature isn't required and should be used sparingly, and often not at all. Good writing uses italics very sparingly, and rarely or never uses bold (except in headings). Regarding your comment on "inter-article linkage," wikilinks already provide that capability and should be set in nonbold. --Simian, 2005-09-25, 15:48 Z


Italics guidance too narrow

Loan words

....Foreign words or phrases that have passed into the English language, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—should not be italicized. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary. As per the guide to writing better Wikipedia articles, foreign words should be used sparingly, and native spellings in non-Latin scripts may be included in parentheses.[italics,emphasis added]

Arguendo, I've italicised in the above quote those words which I believe, contrary to the asserted policy, should be italicised. The rule-of-thumb, reset in bold, is much too broad, and contrary (IMHO) to best usage. The non-italicised forms of the above would be apropriate for more casual or allusory usage, e.g.,

"The film star arrived, barely visible in the midst of his praetorian guard", but
"In 193 C.E., Maximus was named praetor."
"The gestapo-like response to the incident...", but
"Now a captain in the Gestapo, he..."

Generally, legal, historical, and cultural phrases from Latin, Greek, Old French, Italian, Russian, or from most any other language should remain italicised where any of the following is needed,

  • contrast to colloquial usage (or abuse)
  • continued resonance with the original borrowing (don't abuse!)
  • emphasis as a term of art (legal, military, historical, bureaucratic)
  • highbrow irony with any of the above
  • inclusion in a set of foreign words found passim in a passage
  • rhetorical or citational use, e.g., i.e.,supra, florit,
  • certain indigestibles, ad hoc, nom de plume

This description is not complete— my actual usage criteria is more nuanced, but would take longer to describe than is really useful— but I believe it suffices to raise the question. My apologies if this has been argued (to death) elsewhere and resolved, I did not check all the archives. -SM 11:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I think this suggestion is too many italics. Italics should only be used to denote words that are in English dictionaries when those words are being used as words. Overuse of italics, as suggested here, will make writing seem ostentatious. In fact, uses of the types described in the above points should be avoided altogether because they are antithetical to plain and easily-understood writing. Truly foreign words should be used only when necessary. Nohat 17:04, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
To be avoided altogether in a world where one speaks only of native things, perhaps, but a global, collaborative encyclopedia in dozens of languages is not such a world. To write of fin de siècle attitudes, or ad hoc provisions, or the origins of détente is neither pretentious nor unplain, it is just good style.
Also, even a standard collegiate dictionary, like Webster's, would contain in its main lexicon (not its Foreign words and phrases section), foreign words in various stages of digestion, with varying degrees of tension between original and common meaning, my original point in characterising the "words that are in English dictionaries" standard as overbroad, and suggesting the amended guidance above.
"...when those words are being used as words", what does that mean, actually? -SM 03:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
All of fin de siecle, ad hoc, and detente are unnecessarily pompous and obscure terms. What benefit is there to not being more accessible and saying simply "attitudes from the end of the 19th century", or "provisions created especially for this purpose" or "causes leading to the relaxation of relations"? Why use a French or Latin phrase that only college-educated adults are likely to know when plain English that even high school students can understand can convey the same meaning, but to many more people? The purpose of Wikipedia is to inform, not to impress. Sure, they're in English dictionaries, but they're five-dollar words whose only purpose is to show that the author is smart and knows them.
"Words being used as words" refers to words that are being discussed, as in the word the is an determiner, or the word detente is unnecessarily showy. Nohat 03:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I presume you refer to the Use-mention distinction. DES (talk) 18:13, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I chose these examples because they are common (even in high-school). Before banning them, and suggesting alternatives (not to mention assigning motives to those who would use them), you should look them up and make sure you are clear on what they mean, and how they are typically used (hint: start with détente). -SM
"detente" becoame the standard name for a specific set of international discussions and the process that followed from them, it is not merely the generic meaning "causes leading to the relaxation of relations" As such it ought to be used in Cold war and other related articles. However IMo it has been sufficiently assim,ilated to English to lsoe its diacritics and its italics in such use. Similarly to say soemthing as in ad hoc argument calls on a long tradition in logic and debate, and calls up many specific associations that are not implied by "provisions created especially for this purpose". It is, in effect a technical term. But here again (although i am less sure her) i think the phrase has been sued enough in english to lose the italics. Argumets agaisnt the use of a spcific and corect term on the grounds that it id "pretentiopus" or "showy" usually fail to impress me -- I call them reverse snobism in many cases, or at best misplaced egalitarinaism. DES (talk) 18:13, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
detente should be italicized, because it is pronounced "day-tahnt," showing that we still think of it as a French word. Fifty years from now, it will probably be pronounced the same way as "detent" and will no longer need to be italicized. "envoy" has made the transition from being pronounced "ahn-voy" to being more frequently pronounced "ehn-voy" and should not be italicized. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Pronunciation isn't a good guide. In the U.S., at least, most people pronounce croissant in an approximation of the French -- ending with a nasalized n and not sounding the t. Nevertheless, it's in such common use that it shouldn't be italicized. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen it italicized as a foreign word. JamesMLane 22:23, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Pronunciation obviously is not a good guide. It would be foolish to italicize Goethe or Chevrolet, as it would to assume that most people don't pronounce the t in croissant (I do), because italicizing tells you nothing about them except that they are italicized. Typically a person's unfamiliarity with a word is all it needs to be foreign to them, and italicizing it won't help that any. Familiarity is the only factor here, and that is something only the reader can do something about.

What decade/year are we in? Twenty "aught-five?"

I've never been able to figure out how to "say" the decade we're in now. The twenties, the thirties, that's easy. What about the zero years in the first decade of a century? I do love the old-timey way of saying "aught five," but I'm sure few people are into old-timey anymore. What about the teens? (Is it "teens"?)

You have any thoughts? paul klenk talk 09:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is an elegant way to describe it other than "the first decade of the 21st century." The same holds true for the second decade of a century. —Wayward 19:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
The second decade is sometimes called "the teens" informally. This has been applied to the decade 1910-1919 I think. Some people might informally cal the current decade "the two thousands" although this is abigious (It could also mean 2000-2099, or 2000-2999) but usually the context will make the meaning clear. DES (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
One common suggestion, probably not really appropriate for Wikipedia articles, but worthy of note, is "the noughties" (with its additional pun on nought and naughty). And following my own link, I see it redirects to a page for the decade at 2000s, with a note explaining that it covers 10 years, not 100 or 1000 - IMSoP 21:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

My two cents,

  • We are in Two Thousand Five
  • The Noughties is as good as I've heard for it— though a bit strange, I think it's respectable.

Good question, anyway. -SM 18:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Discographies - do we have a style?

It would be nice to have an agreed style (or styles as may be necessary) for discographies. The List of discographies leads to a number of pages that suggest we're currently making it up as we gho along. Personally I like David Bowie discography but I'd understand that some bands attract people who desire more detail. --bodnotbod 01:25, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I recommend bringing this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
OK, will do. --bodnotbod 05:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Non-sexist language

Is there a Wikipedia policy on non-sexist language? If not, may I suggest the following:

Editors should avoid language that may be interpreted as carrying gender bias. For example, do not write, "A CEO usually earns 100 times as much money as his secretary," as this assumes that CEOs are all men. Instead, replace "his" with "his or her," or make the whole sentence plural ("CEOs usually earn 100 times as much as their secretaries").

Non-sexist language does not mean eliminating every trace of gender from language. The sentence, "A company chairman should always listen to the opinions of his staff," could be considered sexist. "Chairman" should be replaced with "chairman or chairwoman" or with a gender-neutral term, such as "chair." However, referring to Bill Gates as the "chairman of Microsoft" is not inherently sexist, since Gates is a man.

Avoid using the awkward suffix "-person" to make gender-neutral words. If you are uncomfortable with a word like "ombudsman," replace it with a synonym such as "public advocate" rather than with a neologism such as "ombuds" or "ombudsperson."

It's generally best to use the terms that people use for themselves or the people within their organization. Thus, use "councilman" or "councilwoman" for a member of an American city council but "councillor" for a Canadian city-council member.

Mwalcoff 17:48, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

WP does not adopt a politically correct stance, so such a requirement would be inappropriate. Let's just try to use the right word for whatever we're trying to say, jguk 18:27, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Actually, my point here was to head off excessive political correctness. Someone had made a rant on the Reference Desk against the use of the term "sister project" as sexist. Perhaps a balanced policy would derail some similar objections.Mwalcoff 20:49, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
That someone was probably just trying something on. Why don't we all just stop worrying about offending people with the English language? Let the PC fools rant all they like. Kelisi 02:46, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
There are plenty of organisations around the English-speaking world that have no problem whatsoever with these words, I include women's organisations like Ladies Circle, the sister organisation of Round Table who quite happily cope with having a chairman.
The specific example of "ombudsman" would be wrong in the UK, the term has specific legal meaning. "Public advocate" is meaningless in the UK and would be an Americanism - is it more offensive to have American Imperialism over sexism?!. It would be incorrect to change because of the illusion of sexism.
If there were a statement, I'd rather one that said that the issue was one of POV and as the usages were correct, then they should stay (only much more elegantly worded). To allow such a policy is something many people would find as offensive, impuning the honour of people who use the language correctly, without bias or malice. Spenny 12:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Agree with jguk and Kelisi. There's no need to go into a poltical correctness rant, debate or policy — we're just an encyclopedia, nothing else. That's all we are. Neonumbers 07:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with the english language using masculine or feminine tenses for certain words. Most languages give objects gender and it is not considered politically incorrect. It is neutral inherently in the usage of language. For instance, mankind is defined as "the totality of human beings." It's not incorrect usage to use this word. Latin languages have more prominent gender specific words/phrases where, in fact, no gender is implied. For example, la porte is feminine, but is simply a door.
Gender in the dictionry (catagory: grammar) says this:

A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.

The word animacy means "living" or "possessing life." Words are categorized into animate and inanimate. The animate category includes people, animals, plants, spirits, things of spiritual nature, the sun, moon, and stars, as well as most things in the natural world. The inanimate category includes (mostly) everything else. Which animacy isn't as prevelent in english, it does exist and isn't something we need to concern ourselves with, especially not in the context of an encyclopedia.glocks out 17:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

It is just over a year since this topic was discussed here. See:

Various styleguides deal with this issue. For example:

  • Chicago Manual of Style apparently says Using he, his, and him as common-sex pronouns is now widely considered sexist, if not misleading
  • The British Psychological Society style guide Singular personal pronouns (he, she and their cognates) often cause problems. There are various possible strategies for coping with this: <rephrasing examples given>

I sometimes rephrase article text to remove assumption of a particular sex. In almost every case it is very easy. Bobblewik 21:00, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a basic problem with so-called "non-sexist language": it is inherently sexist! Writing « his or her secretary » implies the male secretaries are in a distinct category from the female secretaries; it creates a ghetto, it is divisive. Isn't it much better to simply assume, as the language itself does, that the masculine form is inclusive (i.e. it is the "default", neutral form)?
Urhixidur 15:49, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
In almost all cases, rephrasing solves the problem (see links above to styleguides). It is usually very easy. If anyone thinks rephrasing is difficult in Wikipedia, feel free to provide the quote and the article title. Bobblewik 13:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)