Talk:The Signal-Man

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I did a search: Google returned 12,500 hits for "The Signal-Man" Dickens I then tried: "The Signalman" Dickens and got 21,000 hits. So, by popular opinion, the title should have "Signalman" as one word, not two. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.82.16.50 (talkcontribs) 18:40, 18 April 2006

Whatever one may think of a Google search as the mirror of "popular opinion", I think it would be fair to say that the story was first published with the (all caps) title of "THE SIGNAL-MAN" -- which I have reason to believe would probably have been "The Signal-man" in mixed case (see here) (cf. such Victorian usages as "Fleet-street") -- but it is undoubtedly also true that it has since been republished many times as "The Signalman", reflecting the more modern spelling of the common noun "signalman". -- Picapica 14:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Surely, in the interest of accuracy, the page's title should follow the title of the story as Dickens published it. Those who follow the contemporary spelling will find a link at the beginning of the Wikipedia entry "signalman" that will lead them here. It may be the case that "The Signal-man" reflects more appropriate capitalization. I doubt it, but let it be changed if anyone feels strongly enough to do so. -- Talented Mr Miller 14 August 2006
That's fine by me, TMM. -- Picapica 22:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)