Talk:Simon Target

A Real Person?

Andrew Hansen's character in CNNNN was called "Simon Target". Does Simon Target actually exist, or is this just a pseudonym for Andrew? Compare the photo on the following page:

• http://www.cnnnn.com/cnnnn/about/s713018.htm

--James 08:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a real Simon Target, whose career stretches back at least a decade before the founding of The Chaser. (There's a picture of him at the top of this page: http://www.abc.net.au/documentaries/adfa/behind/simon.htm)

I am not sufficiently familiar with CNNNN to say for sure, but I suspect that Hansen's Simon Target is a parody of the real one. --Paul A 00:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Even better photo - this (linked to from Wikipedia's own Andrew Hansen article) shows the two of them in the same place at the same time: http://www.greenleft.org.au/1997/296/15583 --Paul A 00:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

(Moved from user-talk space.)

@AmazingJus: I changed your pronuncation for reasons stated in that edit summary. But if there is some style guide that says that we should rigorously use the diaphonemic scheme even in the case of personal names, then please point me to it as I am willing to be corrected on this. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S. admittedly right now I am not using a computer with working audio so I can't double-check the video which I linked to, but I recall from listening to it at the time when I transcribed the pronuncation that he has an RP (i.e. non-rhotic) accent. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:05, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Bringing @Nardog: into this conversation, if I may, given that he has now reverted my change.

Nardog, I am aware that the transcription scheme is diaphonemic (see my comment above). Nonetheless, my point remains that we are talking about the pronunciation of an individual's name - and particularly one that is probably not famous enough to be regularly pronounced by people with a wide variety of accents. If the individual has a non-rhotic accent, then the START and PALM vowels are merged in any case. So why do we have to show it as the START vowel? Why not show it as the PALM vowel, given that this also happens to be represented using symbols /ɑː/ which more accurately reflect the phonetic value [ɑː]? Absent any actual source regarding how the name is pronounced in a rhotic accent, how do we know which of the two (non-merged) /ɑːr/ or /ɑː/ vowels would be chosen by a rhotic speaker? One could speculate that they would be influenced by the <r> in the orthography to choose /ɑːr/, but it is just as plausible that they would be influenced to choose /ɑː/ by listening to how Mr Target pronounces it. I certainly don't find it self-evident that /ɑːr/ is the only correct possibility. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:41, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I would also add that a rhotic speaker who has the orthography as their only source of information would be liable to guess /ˈtɑːrgɪt/ in any case. Such a pronunciation should obviously be ignored for these purposes, but the point is, it is not self-evident to say it should be /ˈtɑːrʒeɪ/ because of the orthography. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 06:54, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

To transcribe it as /ɑːr/ is indeed to speculate that it is a realization of START, but to transcribe it as /ɑː/ is also to speculate that it is a realization of PALM. And the spelling suggests it is the former. Since the Help:IPA/English key, which {{IPAc-en}} links to, is diaphonemic, the template has no way of indicating "/ɑː/ that is both START and PALM". So as long as IPAc-en is used and if we want to stick to the way that is instructed by MOS:PRON and H:IPAE and is already practiced in many articles, we are left with nothing but ⟨ɑːr⟩ to transcribe the vowel. To write "UK: /ˈtɑːʒeɪ/" would exclude rhotic British accents; e.g. "RP: [ˈtɑːʒeɪ]" would be within what is sanctioned by MOS:PRON, but would lose the convenience of the key and tooltips. Nardog (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

We should definitely presume that words spelled with ⟨ar⟩ and pronounced in non-Rhotic dialects like RP with [ɑː] are, indeed, members of the START vowel. This is such a common cross-dialectal occurrence that it's basically a rule. There is, to my knowledge, no example of a word spelled with ⟨ar⟩ that is pronounced with the PALM vowel in rhotic dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, our habit of prescribing a “diaphonemic” transcription will eventually turn out to be untenable because nobody else uses such a transcription. Turning over this habit will take an incredible amount of perseverance, though. I think that the points in favour of dropping the /r/ in this particular case are perfectly sound and solid, but you are unlikely to succeed unless you are willing to invest weeks if not months into this fight. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:03, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Well I am certainly not going to "invest weeks if not months", and in any case I don't think it helps collaboration to refer to it as a "fight". To be honest, I would favour RP: [ˈtɑːʒeɪ] even at the expense of losing the tooltips. I didn't realise that it is even an option, but frankly, the only source we have relates to how it is pronounced in RP (by one particular speaker, namely the subject), so if we are to give a diaphonemic transcription at all then we are forced to speculate on essentially unsourced material (i.e. how a rhotic speaker would pronounce it). I accept that it is plausible that a rhotic speaker would use the START vowel. However, it is also plausible that they would not, if they hear it from the subject (or from another non-rhotic speaker, e.g. on Australian TV?) and don't know the orthography (or don't put much weight on the orthography because in any case the pronunciation isn't /ˈtɑːrgɪt/). The big advantage of just giving a transcription for RP is that we stick to what is sourced and do not need to resolve this question. Are people okay with that option? --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Money, but you're wrong. It's not "also plausible" that it would be anything but the START vowel. There's no reason to believe it to be the PALM vowel. There's also no real reason to deviate from the diaphonemic transcription system without getting a consensus to change Wikpedia's conventions at Help talk:IPA/English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:05, 8 February 2019 (UTC)