Talk:Mary Ann Cotton

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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Removed content

I've reverted to remove material that appears to be a copyright violation from this website. Brendan Moody 08:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the last section of this article is an almost verbatim lift from 'Horrible Histories: The Vile Victorians'... (79.68.80.116 (talk) 23:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Edited

My God, who wrote this article? Somebody who doesn't speak English? I just edited the article, it was full of spelling and punctuation errors, words missing, half sentences and the like.

It also has a couple of sentences which are confusing but I feel too tired to research this now ... This article needs more cleaning up! Regards, 61.17.205.209 20:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edited again

Still full of holes and solecisms. Have tided up to death of husband no4; then new characters are introduced by surname and without description. Much more work needed. One of the names of the husbands was wrong, too... --Cunningham 12:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And there's more...

Have updated with info from contemporary reports. Now looking a bit more respectable --Cunningham 14:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Factual problem

Under Husband 1, she has 5 children, 4 of whom die, and then 3 more, all of whom die. This should add up to 8 children, 7 dead, 1 living. In the next section, however, there's a reference to 1 of her 2 children dying, and that she had 9 in total. This needs fixed. Sleepsong 02:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still errors

I have noticed a few issues, but no time to go back and fix. Will try tomorrow.

1) "defence" should be "defense"; (or is "defence" old English?)

2) there is a period inserted where there should not be one some ways down the page. It breaks up a sentence that shouldn't be broken.

3). FOR DISCUSSION PLEASE: I'm aware that "gaol" is old English for "jail" but "gaol" is used at the end of this article whereas the rest of the article uses modern day English. Should the modern day spelling, therefore, be used for consistency since it doesn't appear it is being used as a quote? 68.28.147.112 (talk) 01:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "old English"? "Defence" and "gaol" are perfectly good modern British English. ("Gaol" is a little dated, but "defence" is entirely current.) Marnanel (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Method

The lead says "She chiefly used arsenic poisoning ...". But the article makes no suggestion that she used any other method. Did her trial reveal, or perhaps just suggest, any other methods? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:19, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Added Theoretical Explanation

I'm adding to this article as an assignment to add a theoretical explanation to this woman's behavior. Ckuil (talk) 14:57, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think we may need to make it clear where the use of the term "Black Widow" type of murder, as you have used it here, originates, to avoid confusion with the existing Wikipedia article Black Widow Murders. In fact, it sees that a number of female killers have been given this nickname - see Black widow. Also, I'm not sure that a blog column at Psychology Today qualifies as a WP:RS. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That’s my nanny 2A00:23C6:9113:3D01:8DF1:F996:CB99:DC04 (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]