Portal talk:Montreal/Discussions/English Names/Draft policy

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Please refer to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Montreal/Discussions/English Names, a discussion on the use of English names in Montreal, as a background for this article before commenting.

[edit] Small Details

Montrealais, let me first say how glad and grateful we all are for your huge effort in creating this draft policy. It is an extremely solid policy, and very fair to the demands of everyone involved, and in accordance with WP:UE.

Responding indented and boldfaced. - Montréalais 01:17, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

As I'm sure everyone who participated in the discussion on English names in Montreal will have a few comments and suggestions and minor points, I invite them to post them here, so we may all work on making this foundation for Montreal-related articles as strong, solid, and fair as possible.

I will begin with my own comments. Firstly, as I stated, I find the plan very fair and solid. I only have a few minor points.

Let me say that the section on street names (the most contested issue) is very well-though out. It covers any scenario. However, the section about streets with Proper Nouns or multiple words as names could be split. I think that even proper nouns tend to keep the particles, but multiple words do not. For example, Cote des Neiges Road and not de la Cote des Neiges, but:

"boul. de l'Assomption: Assomption Blvd. (the Assumption is a specific religious reference)

rue de la Visitation: Visitation St.

rue de Paris: Paris Street (not De Paris)"

These are more difficult. It really varies from street to street. One would say "I'm parked on L'Asspomtion (said the French way)", but "My new office is on De la Visitation". As for De Paris, I don't know where that is, but if I were to say it, I would say De Paris (pronounced as in French, not "Paris" (the English way). You see, it depends. For small streets that no one has heard of, you could say "Paris", as in English, "Paris", as in French, "De Paris", for example.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that these names don't have a set rule. It's "L'Assomption", "De la Visitation", "De Paris"... it's just natural.

In the end, I had to tranche to prevent eternal combat, and provide rules based on what it's my experience people say in English and based on how the official names are structured. Otherwise we'll have people making things up higgledy-piggledy... which, if I may say, was my original objection to using unofficial names ;)

All the rest of this section is perfect. I especially like your rules about bolding, etc... and your rules for mentioning the official version in brackets to ease geopraphical confusion.

As for the Saint-named articles, I agree with your rules for the most part. It is good not to be too up-tight about which name to use in these cases, since "Sainte Catherine" and "Saint Catherine" (or "Doctor Penfield" and "Docteur Penfield"), for example, are so similar. But, I think that for the titles of articles, we should use only the English names for these. In the bodies of articles, I would say we should have a laisser-faire attitude.

For example, I don't mind if someone uses "Sainte Catherine" in an article body, but as a title, we should stick to the English name for the sake of cohesiveness. The same, in my opinion, with Park Avenue. We should just have a Park Avenue, Montreal article and add it to the disambiguation page for Park Avenue.

I don't feel strongly about this, except to say that we should use parentheses, not commas, so as to make the pipe trick available.

I appreciate your sensitivity to the importance of old names like Dorchester and especially Saint James. Your treatment of these issues is superior.

Your rule of "translating" (i.e. moving to after the specific) Square is very good, however I would say that Victoria Square should not be an exception (by the way, that article has really grown).

I've never heard anyone say Victoria Square. Everyone I know says Square Victoria (pronounced Englishly) -- I suppose through the influence of the metro station.

I guess it is fine to leave the International District and Latin Quarter articles where they are (I reluctantly acquiesce).

Your rules for islands are great, but I haven't ever heard "Notre-Dame Island". If it is used, however, then we should feel free to move that article.

I have also never heard anyone use it, but I wrote the rule with analogy to Saint Helen's Island. Of course Île Notre-Dame didn't exist forty years ago. It would seem weird to me to say "Saint Helen's Island and Île Notre-Dame"; in such a case I guess I would have to advocate leaving Île Sainte-Hélène in the official form.

The last thing that I thought was that Hospitals and religious institutions should keep the name, but the English generic should be used- Hotel-Dieu Hospital, Sacre-Coeur Hospital, Notre-Dame-du-Bonsecours Church... Also, those like the Jewish General and Montreal General, with official English names/translations or names that are overwhelmingly common in English, should use the English, so "The Jewish General Hospital, Montreal", and not "Hopital Generale Juif de Montreal". Anyway, this is again a minor point. As for Learning institutions, they should be in the language that they teach in, so McGill College but Université de Montréal.

That's what I meant the policy to say: use the official form for French-language institutions. I have clarified this. I would also prefer to use the French generic with French names, as in my experience this is more common, especially with local institutions such as parish churches and non-major hospitals. (For what it's worth, Hôtel-Dieu would just be Hôtel-Dieu; its name doesn't have the word "Hôpital" in French, since hôtel-dieu means hospital.)

The rest of your plan is exceptional. I hope that we (everyone involved) can hammer out the final version as a Montreal Manual of Style.--Larineso 18:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

1. First, I am highly impressed with your work, Montréalais. Thank you for taking the time to put this page together.
2. I agree with Larineso's comments. I live on rue de la Visitation and I never call it "Visitation Street". I think we should keep the "de la" in most street names.

You see what I meant about never hearing the end of it? *weary smile*

1. I actually think you've gone a bit too English. In the cases where the French pronunciation is much more common, I think we should keep it as "rue XXX" instead of changing to "XXX street" since English speakers say neither "rue" or "street" and it's better to stick to official names. Thus, I would prefer "boulevard Saint-Laurent". Nevertheless, I certainly won't object to "Saint Laurent Boulevard" since this is acceptable to me as well and it seems to have created a true consensus.

In any case, well done!

Acegikmo1 01:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Reading over your latest edits, I have to say that, besides Victoria Square (note that I am fully for Square Victoria Street, but Victoria Square) and the name of this hypothetical Park Avenue article, I agree with everything. I don't know whether to feel happy or sad..

Anyway, those two tiny issues we can reach a concensus on later. Once again, Montrealais, thank you for graciously solving this problem. Now, I think we will soon have a Manual of Style for Montreal-related articles!

Maybe after that's done, we can concentrate on building the Montreal Wikiportal past an intro and angry discussion... I hope we can all collaborate on making that a success.--Larineso 03:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

On the subject of streets with proper names, I agree with Montréalais. I don't know about Visitation, but in my experiance it's Assomption Boulevard. The same goes for streets with geographic names like Iberville Street or Vimy Avenue. I don't feel to stongly about Victoria Square. I think it's one that would be fine either way, like Île-Sainte-Hélène/Saint Helen's Island.

FWIW, it's D'Iberville, since it's named for the sieur D'Iberville, not the town of Iberville.

I do feel it's inappropiate to use french generics for institutions like hospitals or churchs. Maybe there are some anglos who use forms like this, but deffinatly the majority, including the media, refer to them in English. I suppose I could see using french name for insignificant local churchs, but certainly not for Bon-Secours Chapel (or, of course, the basilicas). - Farquard 01:45, 4 August 2005 (UTC)