Talk:Nancy Bird Walton

Requested move

My reference books tell me her name is Nancy-Bird Walton, not Nancy Bird-Walton. Can we get the title changed..? Alan Baskin 09:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Further to that.. the references I'm quoting from are "Who's Who in Australia" (1998 and 2001 - the only editions I have available), and "Debrett's Handbook of Australia and New Zealand". All three call her Nancy-Bird Walton. The Australian Women Pilots Association website also refers to her this way:

Nancy Bird Trophy, Donated by Nancy-Bird Walton. This trophy for the most noteworthy contribution to aviation by a woman of Australasia. Nancy was one of the founders of the association in 1950.

It could be that she styles herself Nancy-Bird Walton, but popular usage has assumed she kept her maiden surname of "Bird" after marriage, and added a hyphenated "Walton". Alan Baskin 04:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I can assure you, looking my 2002 second reprint autographed copy of her autobiography, "My God! It's a Woman" (ISBN 0-7322-7370-6), that the publication data inside the cover lists her name as "Nancy Bird Walton" without any hyphenation at all, and the library catalogue information says "Walton, Nancy Bird, 1915-". In some other places, the book refers to her as simply "Nancy Bird", and that's how she signed her name inside the front cover. Australian library catalogues, e.g. State Library of NSW, are in agreement on this, so I think it's fair for Wikipedia to follow their lead .OZ_Rhett (talk) 00:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's get this done. I think it will need an admin as the other version already exists and redirects here. Paul Beardsell (talk) 06:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Authors getting ahead of themselves

I notice that someone has already updated the page to include the naming of Qantas' first A380, even though that event is still 10 days into the future (and I wonder if they've got the correct date ?) OZ_Rhett (talk) 00:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Err - that was me - the naming ceremony has not yet taken place, but will take place on 30 Sep 2008, this is a low-volume article so I was counting on the eleven days passing for it to be actually correct. Will fix it now. :) Jtact (talk) 18:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

And now? Paul Beardsell (talk) 08:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

She died. :-( Ajayvius (talk) 06:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Correct name?

As alluded to above, there are variations on her name: Nancy Bird Walton, Nancy Bird-Walton and Nancy-Bird Walton. Likewise, should her surname be Walton, Bird-Walton or Bird Walton? Can we try to get some agreement here rather then engaging in potential edit disputes? WWGB (talk) 10:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Referring to the Sydney Morning Herald web site concerning her death here it looks as if I was mistaken, and Nancy-Bird Walton is the way she preferred. Maybe by references to her book were driven by conventions used by librarians ? OZ_Rhett (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Birth certificate Nancy Bird. Married a Walton, so Nancy Bird-Walton. Husband called her Nancy-Bird, so preferred Nancy-Bird Walton. I think Nancy Bird-Walton is most accurate, but as with other people's preferred vs actual names on Wikipedia, why not have "Nancy Bird-Walton, often known as Nancy-Bird Walton" or similar? Tim Bennett (talk) 23:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

There must be a WP guideline on this. Where is it? Paul Beardsell (talk) 04:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

In Australia, married women who take their husband's surname don't generally append their maiden name. E.g. Mary Jones who marries Bert Bloggs doesn't become Mary Jones-Bloggs or Mary Bloggs-Jones (with or without hyphens). There have been some exceptions, admittedly. This practice is much more common in the USA. Afaik, the only reason "Bird" appears in her name at all is because her husband, instead of calling her "Nancy", preferred to call her "Nancy-Bird", and the name stuck. That means her first name is "Nancy-Bird", and that makes her "Nancy-Bird Walton", in my book. If he'd just called her "Nancy", she'd almost certainly be referred to as just "Nancy Walton". We can compare this with Margaret Smith, who first became famous under her maiden name, then married and became Margaret Court. She's sometimes referred to as "Margaret Smith Court", but that's not her actual name, and our article is "Margaret Court". The only real issue here is whether there's a hyphen at all, but if there is, where it goes. We see both "Nancy-Bird Walton" and "Nancy Bird-Walton" in the media (not to mention "Nancy Bird Walton"). For the reasons I stated earlier, I vote for "Nancy-Bird Walton", with the unhyphenated version as my second choice. The "Bird-Walton" version is not in accordance with the facts as I understand them. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Nancy-Bird Walton, based on her husband's "pet" name, was her preference. In other sources, the National Treasures site [1] uses Nancy Bird-Walton, but then alphabetises it under "W"! The Australian Government honours website favours the other two forms [2] and [3], preferring the "N-B" version most recently. How about tossing a (three-sided) coin? WWGB (talk) 04:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can do better than that. It seems the preponderance of evidence points to her surname being Walton, so let's go with that. I'll make a change to the Defaultsort key. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

"female aviator" / "female aviatrix"

I have reverted the change from "female aviator" to "female aviatrix" back to "female aviator". In many right-on PC circles the female version of job titles or profession names is now disparaged. So be it. That is the fashion. And I have some sympathy with the fashion. So, just as it is considered bad form to refer to someone as a manageress or a waitress (in NZ and perhaps elsewhere sometimes gender-less term "waitron" is now used) we should avoid aviatrix. But, furthermore, to change from aviator to aviatrix and without removing "female" is illiterate. Paul Beardsell (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting to see how The Times copes with this issue: Obituary of Nancy Bird-Walton Paul Beardsell (talk) 21:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The Academy, the AFI, the BAFTA, and other film institutions still have separate awards for "Best Actor" and "Best Actress", although outside those contexts, they all refer to themselves as "actors". Not sure what that proves, apart from inconsistency. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The English language is odd but entirely consistent in that "actor" is either male or neutral, and "actress" is only female. There are many, many examples. Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I understand that. I was just making the point that the female versions are not entirely deprecated by the PC police. They still get trotted out when it suits the occasion. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You think that the PC police approve of awards?!?!? Paul Beardsell (talk) 07:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll let that go. Back to the topic, it's redundant to use the word "female", given that Nancy (with or without (-)Bird) is a female name. You made that point above, but still chose to revert it to "female aviator". That's easily rectified, however. That leaves us with a choice of either "aviator" or "aviatrix". I can't see much wrong with either, and am not fussed which one we use. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

—Charlton Heston

Nancy is not normally a male name, so "female" is redundant

Although I am myself male, I sure hope that female is not, was not nor will ever be redundant.Nancy Bird Walton was of the female sex, but it is not at all obvious to people who do not know anybody who goes by the name "Nancy" that "Nancy " is an exclusively female name."Nancy=boy no more". /polyglotconspiracy. 2009-01-14. Retrieved 2009-01-16. I don't really hear people using the term "nancy boy" anymore, like, ever, so I wasn't sure….At the time she made her first flight

“ the state defence leader H.V.C Thorby, stated that flying was not "biologically suited" to women ”

"Nancy Bird-Walton, O.B.E (1915-)". Aviatrix Nancy Bird and her new plane. 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2009-01-16..How about making such a statement like in her obituary

“ Nancy Bird-Walton was the founder of the Australian Women Pilots' Association, which was the starting block for a proud generation of female pilots, who now fly alongside men in Australia's skies ”

[4] ... but try to avoid playing on the double meaning of Nancy being generally a name given to girls and "Nancy Boy" being a term given to effeminate males .This URL is a permanent link to this version of Nancy Bird Walton's page:[5].Propose reverting to this text:
Nancy Bird Walton, AO, OBE, DStJ (16 October 1915 – 13 January 2009) was a pioneering female Australian aviator, and was the founder and patron of the Australian Women Pilots' Association.
Please revert to using the term "female",because the term "female" is not redundant !
--Stadt (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to follow what you're saying, Stadtpark, except for your very clear last statement, to which I must express my disagreement. I also thought of "nancy boy", but didn't mention it because it has no relevance to this case. Anyone who is described as a "nancy boy" is a male. In any other context, Nancy applies exclusively to females (or the French town, but that's also irrelevant here). We don't need to say that "Cate Blanchett is a female Australian actor", or "Margaret Thatcher was a female UK politician", so why is there a need to say "Nancy-Bird Walton was a female Australian aviator"? Describing her as "an Australian aviatrix" would remove the issue entirely; but there's still nothing ambiguous about "Australian aviator".

I think you may be confusing 2 issues: the use of words like "aviator", "Speaker", "doctor" etc were once assumed to apply to males, because only males did those jobs, and thus the pronoun "he" was assumed to apply. Females do them nowadays as well, so it is no longer necessarily "he". If the context were "X was a doctor. <Pronoun> lived from 1903 to 1994", putting "he" in would not necessarily be correct, and people should not assume that X was a male, where there's no other information about who X was. But here, we have tons of information about N-B W, including photos of her. Even without photos, the name Nancy tells the story: this was a woman, not a man. We don't need to insult our readers' intelligences by labouring the point. Quentin Bryce, on the other hand, would be a completely different story, because it's normally quite safe to assume Quentin is a male name. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree ,there is nothing ambiguous about descibing her as an "Australian aviator" ,except in her exceptional case a claim that she is notable is because she..." was Australia's first woman commercial pilot".However ,on giving the article a second glance the caption to the photo

which states :

“ Nancy Bird Walton (right) with another pioneering Australian female aviator, Jean Burns ”

makes her sex clear enough.Her claim to fame is that she was "one-time youngest licensed female pilot in Australia" "Walton a pioneer for female pilots". canberratimes.com.au. 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2009-01-16..
No, you don't need to insult the general readers' intelligences by labouring the point that just because a person has a girls name like Nancy, that this person needs their sex explicitly stated as female ,but as that Canberra Times article points out that in the "1930s (when Walton learned to fly) was a time when women's career choices were heavily circumscribed by the prevailing view that they, as the weaker vessels, were best fitted, temperamentally and otherwise, to domestic rather than intellectual or manly pursuits".Maybe the photo-caption is enough, but I would prefer to read that she is not just famous for being an aviator (or pilot) but being a woman aviator or pilot--Stadt (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

And we do make that very clear. She was primarily famous because of her sex. Had she been a man, her pioneering activities would have taken their place among the Kingsford Smiths, Charles Ulms and the rest. She was, however, the first female to do various things, which makes her special. But that's all explained in the text. When we start at article, it's "<Name> <dates> was a <nationality> <occupation> ...". We cannot hope to encapsulate all of the reasons for their notability in the first sentence, and we shouldn't try to. It's mainly to tell readers that this person was the Australian aviator of this name - as opposed to a hypothetical Albanian cheese-maker of this name. After we identify who we're talking about, then we get into why we're talking about them. If there had been 2 pioneer Australian aviators known as "Pat Smith", one a man (Patrick) and one a woman (Patricia), then, yes, it would be appropriate to say that the one we're talking about here is the female one (or, indeed, the male one). But since there's only one Nancy-Bird Walton, no such description is necessary. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

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