Talk:Tongue cleaner

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A tag has been placed on Tongue cleaner, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the article and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Edikraft (talk) 22:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Edikraft (talk) 22:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Edikraft (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC) This is new page about a well known dental product named "tongue cleaner". In the past years it has become increasingly popular, as an essential oral hygiene instrument, near the toothbrush, toothpaste and dental floss. There are several different models available, each of them shaped differently. This page intends to discuss and document the importance of tongue cleaning, and how the shape of a tongue cleaner influences its efficiency during use. Tongue cleaning is meant to clean millions of bacteria (up to 500 different types), decaying food debris, fungi (such as Candida), and dead cells, off the surface of the tongue, mainly from its rear area. There are claims that tongue cleaning is a recommended solution against bad breath, also called halitosis (for which there is already a page here) There are many scientific researches of which results talk about the importance of tongue cleaning: It is estimated that approximately 70% of the bacteria in the oral cavity thrives on the surface of the human tongue. Also that in a majority of approximately 85-95% the bad breath is originated in the mouth, due to the coating of the tongue.

[edit] Merge / redirect

This should probably be merged with Tongue scraper. They are the same instrument. --Versageek 23:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Definitely merge/redirect --ukexpat (talk) 23:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Edikraft (talk) 00:07, 14 January 2008 (UTC) Dear friends, I appreciate your suggestion. I am quite new here and a dental hygiene freak. So how do you recommend to do that merging? I have the impression that the most used name for this dental instrument is actually "Tongue Cleaner". Would like to add more relevant information on that page. Also feel that the image is also very relevant to the field and a good contribution to this page. There may be more images of how the product actually works that would be useful for understanding the concept of tongue cleaning.

I would merge this article into Tongue scraper. They are obviously the same thing, and I believe the instrument is more frequently referred to as a tongue scraper. - Dozenist talk 11:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I would actually opt for a merged page called Tongue cleaner. Following my arguments... I agree that we associate the two names, Tongue cleaner and Tongue scraper, to the same instrument and possibly the same operation. In my experience, most references in the leading dental organisations, such as ADA and BDA, are to an instrument called a "tongue cleaner", and in their articles they refer to "cleaning the tongue" rather than "scraping the tongue". The semantics of the two words are quite different. I think that people associate "tongue cleaning" with the healthy and benefic effect of having a clean tongue, with no bacteria, food debris, fungi, dead cells, and eventually a clean mouth, cleaned of plaque and infectious germs. On the other hand, one would associate scraping with a possibly painful operation, taking in account the available different scraping tools are mainly sharp objects and in use against hard surfaces, but none of them against human organs (tissue), see page Scrape (e.g. bottle scraper, kitchen scraper, ice scraper, archaeological scraper, wheel tractor scraper). If I would be a new patient with no background at the dentist, and he would suggest to either "clean" my tongue OR "scrape" my tongue, I would definitely choose the first option, since I could easily associate the second operation with a tongue removal, or at least a painful thing and for an unclear purpose. Last but not the least, if we do a search on google for both terms, there are over 11 times more results for the "Tongue cleaner" rather than for a "Tongue scraper", a fact that speaks for itself when talking about what people say when they refer to a such device. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22tongue+cleaner%22&btnG=Search Results 1 - 10 of about 530,000 for "tongue cleaner". (0.20 seconds) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22tongue+scraper%22 Results 1 - 10 of about 46,600 for "tongue scraper". (0.19 seconds) Thank you Edikraft (talk) 16:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Edikraft. The merge makes sense. Tongue cleaner sounds like the better name. If it needs to be changed later, that is easy. Redirects should help readers find the article. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sigmund, should I consider begining to merge the two pages in the one Tongue Cleaner version that would contain all relevant info? thanks Edikraft (talk) 22:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I would allow at least a week since some editors don't edit every day and some may be on vacation. To proceed, put a note at the bottom of this discussion with a tally of the opinions and the decision. Indicate that the discussion is closed. Perform the merge and delete the merge tags from the beginning of both pages. Please see WP:MERGE for a detailed discussion of the process. Walter Siegmund (talk) 06:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Will read through the merge instructions. Not sure regarding the week to wait... Meaning I should do the merging in a week from now? Thanks, Edikraft (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Waiting a week from the time that the merge tags were added to the articles is a good interval in my opinion. I'm not sure there is a consensus for the move to Tongue cleaner, but I didn't see any vigorous objections to it. Your search with google was helpful. Walter Siegmund (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Siegmund, I have performed the merging and structured the Tongue Cleaner article. More arguments and links to scientific articles to be added. Still have to replace the ergonomic tongue cleaner image with a photos of mine. Soon it will be ready. BestEdikraft (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Edikraft; it is a pleasure to see the progress on the article. One small problem I noticed is the presence of inline external links. Those should be footnotes instead. When a reader selects a link within the article, the destination should be another WP article, not an external site. External links should appear only in the "External links" or "References" sections. Please review WP:GTL. I think single-paragraph sections are discouraged, but I may be mistaken. I see abbreviations and jargon that is not defined in the article, e.g., VSC. Spell out the first occurrences with the abbreviation given parenthetically. You may find the WP:MOS helpful. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Siegmund thanks. I understand what you say. Will go through the necesarry edits the following days. Did not forget about the image. Many thanks, Edikraft (talk) 07:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

Hi. I think the article could use some references in the 'Importance of tongue cleaning' section, specifically the first three subsections - especially such claims as this, seem pretty obvious to have a reference for "Scientific studies have shown that in approximately 80-90% of cases, bad breath originates in the oral cavity, mainly from material on the rear of the tongue. Research shows that only about 10-20% of cases originate in the stomach or the tonsils." I didn't place a tag on it yet, but I'd appreciate input from others. Thanks! Stefan Jensen (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, same goes for the last section; 'Who recommends tongue cleaning'. Unfortunately I have no knowledge in the field myself, or I'd do it. Stefan Jensen (talk) 18:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Stefan, I will do my best to bring relevant references, some scientific research as you recommend, in the coming days. Thank you, Edikraft (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)