Talk:Shizuoka oden

Shizuoka oden, being itself a proper noun, does not need any italicization, and oden needs to be italicized only on first mention. Meanwhile, the article contained some other inaccuracies that needed to be fixed:

• Oden is made with a broth, not soup stock. Perhaps this is a minor technical difference, but it is one that should be observed for accuracy's sake.
• Oden slightly different in preparation from a stew, hence "stew-like" in the first sentence. (Maybe this is a subjective interpretation of my own; correction welcome.)

The Wikipedia article on culinary mustard makes passing mention of Japanese and Chinese mustards but isn't specific about them. Maybe someone who knows more about them, or at least about karashi, could write something about karashi, since it is a distinct type.

HTH, Jim_Lockhart 06:49, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Italicization

Why do you think oden should only be italicized once? I've made it a point thus far to italicize throughout, as long as it's not a link.   freshgavin TALK    21:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

To reduce too much italicization in an article that's likely to contain more than its usual share. When a foreign word is the subject of an document, one editorial practice is to italicize it only on first mention, then set it in roman once its meaning has been established. The idea is that too much italicization tends to be distracting after while. But it's only an editorial convention, and a case can be made for either practice (italicize on first mention only, or italicize consistently throughout). See Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. 7.55 (p. 292). HTH, Jim_Lockhart 05:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree it can be distracting, and it may not be ideal, but I still support the use of italics throughout articles. Especially with some of my articles in Japanese, I have to consistantly use about 3 or 4 foreign words, and if they are not italicized throughout it becomes quite confusing because the reader stops realizing them as Japanese words. If the article is about one item (e.g. mawashi, which is a horrible article btw and I plan on editing it when my queue shortens), then I would probably agree with you that mawashi doesn't have to be continuously italicized, but when there's other words being italicized as well, I feel this convention should be dropped, for the purpose of reading-ease.   freshgavin TALK    03:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It's just an editing convention, so it really doesn't matter to me which we it's done. I would actually have to look at the Wikipedia Style Manual once again to see if either practice is given preference. If you think the italicization is more appropriate here, that's fine with me too. Jim_Lockhart 05:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

While the MoS doesn't explicitly state how many times italics should be used, it does say that words of non-English origin should be italicized. Regardless the MoS is somewhat lacking on this point, and similar ones, or at the very least it is badly worded, which is why there's so many people using single quotes, double quotes, and italics in the wrong place. I'll do my best to be a good example and stop the flow of ugly articles anyways : ).   freshgavin TALK    06:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think italicization calls can be made on an article-by-article basis. The single quotation mark–double quotation mark issue is similar to that concerning placement of commas and periods inside vs outside quotation marks or spaces before and after en dashes vs em dashes with none: they reflect different national conventions and field-specific conventions. I generally try to respect whatever conventions are already in place when I work on an article, though I see a lot of people come back and change, e.g. AmE spelling to BrE spelling and vice-versa. Happy editing! :) Jim_Lockhart 10:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)