Talk:John Richard Clark Hall/GA1

GA Review

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I'll have a go at this one. Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:09, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

A most welcome improvement to what had been a very stubby article on this famous scholar.

the Custom House. Maybe say it's in London.

Removed the pipe, so it's now "the principal clerk in the Custom House, City of London."

Golcar Hill. Seems to be Golcar, West Yorkshire.

Looks like it. Linked.

Is he "Clark Hall, J. R." or "Hall, J. R. Clark"? Google gives 10k hits for the former, 6k for the latter, which doesn't prove anything; nor does his father's using Hall as surname. The 1895 Guardian clipping styles him "John R. CLARK HALL" which might be decisive. I've always written him as Clark Hall but happy to be set straight on this.

By birth, "John" appears to be his first name, "Richard Clark" his middle names, and "Hall" his last name. His father was simply "James John Hall" (no "Clark") and while one of his children was named "Irene Clark Hall," the others—Cecil Symes Hall, and Wilfrid John Hall—did not have the name "Clark." Many of the earlier sources (which are related to his legal, not literary, work) refer to him as "J. R. C. Hall" or "Hall, J. R. C."). But especially in the literary world, he is referred to as "Clark Hall," as you say. Likewise, he referred to himself as "John R. Clark Hall" on pretty much all of his writings. It's pure speculation, but perhaps this was an effort to avoid confusion with his contemporary John Lesslie Hall, another Beowulf translator. Or perhaps he just liked the way it sounded; one philologist whose article I worked on, Caroline Agnes Brady, appears to have taken to calling herself "Caroline Agnes Von Egmont Brady" for a time, even though it almost certainly didn't appear that way on her birth certificate.

All right. What I suggest is that we title the Infobox "J. R. Clark Hall", at least, and we should consider moving the article to that name also, on the "F. R. Leavis" and "C. S. Lewis" model.

"Hall placed fourth" - would be "Hall was placed fourth" in British English, which I should have thought mandatory in his case?

Done. The article should indeed be in British English, I just didn't realize there was a variation there.

Yes, it took me several visits to the US before I realized that "dirt" meant "earth" and "back yard" didn't mean a paved courtyard...

"44 spots" - more British might be "44 posts" or "44 places".

Changed to "places".

I think it was The Manchester Guardian in 1895.

This is actually a different paper (i.e., not The Guardian). I did a fair amount of digging but couldn't find much more about other than that it's a different work.

No, The Guardian was called The Manchester Guardian at that time. "On 24 August 1959, The Manchester Guardian changed its name to The Guardian." -- see the article.

Right. What I mean is that in 1895, there was both The Manchester Guardian and another (regional?) paper, called The Guardian. According to the last page of the latter paper, it was "Printed by William Odhams, and Published by James Bailey, at the Office, 5, Burleigh-street, Strand, in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster."

Ok. Presumably the earlier Guardian had died long before 1959 so the name was free.

Maybe you'd best gloss or footnote "crib" as the term has multiple meanings (including cheating).

It could probably be linked to cheat sheet or reference card, which both claim it as a redirect (whoops). It's probably closer to the former, although I'm not sure this would help to dispel the association with cheating.

Yes, reference card is perfect.

Done.

Not sure that "List" is quite the right heading. "Works" is conventional; "Bibliography" would do fine too. I understand you might not want to have "2. Publications / 2.4 Works". I guess the real issue here is that you are not discussing his Dictionary and Beowulf quite as what would usually be a list of Publications: the theme is actually his life's work and mission, so personally I'd move the Dictionary, Beowulf, and Christianity subsections straight into "Career", which is, ah, missing ..., and we'd have resolved the matter. At the moment, "Publications" is standing in for "Career". So I suggest "1. Early life 2. Career 2.1 Dictionary 2.2 Beowulf 2.3 Christianity 3. Works 4. Personal life". Other solutions are possible but I've set it to something more typical with as few changes as possible.

A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is redlinked. Extraordinary. Needs fixed, and a boldface redirect target in the lead section, unless you fancy writing another article on the dictionary!

Done. It probably could take it's own article, though that's not something for now.

Many thanks.

"Hall's later works were Christian themed, including two published by the SPCK." Probably needs a (non-primary) source.

We could perhaps use this. It's not perfect, but it has the utility of tying together the "John R. Clark Hall" who wrote about Beowulf and Old English, and the "John R. Clark Hall" who wrote about the church, birth control, and his childhood friend Herbert Tingle.

OK, do that.

Done.

"[i]ts" - ok, ok, I know, but I'm not sure I'd not drop the brackets for something so minor, very clunky.

Changed to "its" and moved outside of the quotation marks (according to Frederick Klaeber, its "outward make-up is almost an ideal one."))

"both a "decidedly better" translation than any in current use, as wrote The Manchester Guardian," -- perhaps "The MG called it 'both a "decidedly better ..." would be less surprising.

Yeah, that was a bit clunky. Changed to It was praised at its outset, including by The Manchester Guardian for containing a "decidedly better" translation than any in current use, and by Chauncey Brewster Tinker for providing "a useful compendium of Beowulf material". Also open to other wordings.

Not sure that Edward Thurlow Leeds needs to be quoted at such length, as he's not saying a lot really (he likes it). Maybe paraphrase some of it. Or perhaps he said something more substantial elsewhere in his review.

Trimmed to Previously written in Swedish and published in a medley of obscure journals and Festschrifts before Stjerna's early death, Hall's translation gave them much a much broader audience—which E. Thurlow Leeds called "a great service"—and added what Klaeber termed "the function of a conscientious and skilful editor besides".

And btw he was usually styled "E. Thurlow Leeds".

Changed.

Part of the Tingle review is in both text and box. I'm not convinced the box is justified, as the cut-down quote in the text says what's needed. If I was going to go into anything in a box, it'd either be to take one entry from the Dictionary, or a few lines from Beowulf in both the original and in Clark Hall's version (side by side) ... in fact, I think I'd do both really, and cut the Tingle box which is after all not even Clark Hall's work. Wouldn't that be more informative for the general reader?

Yeah, the box was added more because the review was fun (paraphrased, "I'm still not sure what the point of the book is, but I'm glad I read it") than anything else. Given that it's already bumped down a bit by the Beowulf manuscript image, I'm not sure it's worth adding another box related to Beowulf. Maybe the cover of one of his Christian-themed works would work instead?

No thanks. I can't see that the Tingle box adds anything useful to the article. Not sure about "bumped down" (the window has to be extremely wide for that, not an issue) but have formatted the image as plainly "upright". In any case, a centred table of side-by-side Beowulf OE/MnE texts would not affect image flow, but that would probably be best for book articles.

Formatting: why don't we use an author-mask parameter to suppress "Hall, John Richard Clark" from appearing 18 times in uninformatively stupefying succession? There is no doubt who the author is, after all.

Added for the various editions, which I agree looks cleaner. I tried adding it for the rest as well (see this version) although didn't like the way it looked as much.

Already an improvement.

3 sources for death details is overkill, and Probate is a primary historical source (WP:OR). We don't normally list all the details of probate either: I've cut that.

Much the same goes for the London Gazette really, it's basically primary research. I suggest we lose ref 11 but it's a borderline case: it's a reliable source.

Also, why do we need to tell the world about passing the prelim. exams for the Civil Service? I suggest we cut that sentence and ref 9 altogether. In fact, since he came first in Aug. 1873, the stuff about 44 places is irrelevant, the reader will take it that he got a place. Even if not primary, it smells of hagiography, which we must avoid at all costs.

One other formatting thing: Roman numerals. Again, I understand the tradition, but even Respected Libraries use 'Arabic' numerals for (for example) volumes of Notes and Queries, and plenty of Wikipedia articles do likewise: in fact, it's a shock to see all this CXLVIX (and I did Latin at school, more than most of our readers nowadays). (Actually, now I look, what number does CXLVIX represent?) So I humbly suggest we ditch it, really, please.

CXLVIX... Whoops! The "V" was a stray. You have a point, although the rule I follow is to use whatever format is on the cover of the original work. Here, Notes and Queries used Roman numerals, so I've followed suit, but if they used Arabic numerals, I would have done so also.

Well I suppose policy permits that, but the fact is that they're hard to read, even for GA nominators as we've seen, and prone to error in both writing and reading. We'd be better off without, honestly. Nobody is ever going to object because the citations are too legible.

Would he fit in Category:English lexicographers?

Yes, good idea.

Well that seems to be everything so passing it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, Chiswick Chap. There are a few comments that I still intend to consider and address, but I will simply take a bit of time to think how they are best acted upon. At any rate, thanks for taking on the review—it's quite fitting, given that I frequently get alerts saying that another article has linked to this one, and more often than not it's due to your work on a Tolkien-related article. It was a fun article to write; it took me quite a bit of digging to find out the various bits of information, and it took some time to be convinced that the John Richard Clark Hall who was a well-regarded scholar of Old English was the same John Richard Clark Hall who was a barrister, let alone the same John Richard Clark Hall who wrote on the church, his childhood friend, and birth control. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:38, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]