Talk:Unimog

G-Wagen similarity?

The article claims without citing any reference that "The Mercedes-Benz G-Class shares some features of the Unimog..." The Steyr-designed G-Wagen has none of the configuration or component features of any generation or size of Unimog. What was intended here, and where is the justification? Brian_abp —Preceding undated comment added 01:21, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

An or a

Hi all

Having a little problem with grammar.

I have changed all the "an unimog" to "a unimog" as all the people I have talked to in Britain use it in this way.

Google searches:

News

"an unimog" = 92 results

"a unimog" = 875

All

"an unimog" = 10,800

"a unimog" = 116,000

To me, it is fairly clear.

My own experience of discussing unimogs with people and google search both agree it should be "a unimog"; however, there is a German editor who keeps reverting me.

Any comments? Chaosdruid (talk) 10:54, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any German editors. Google searches are not realiable sources. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 11:15, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Google searches are commonly used to show grammatical use.

You are promoting the German pronunciation, apologies for assuming that you and your name are German (I did note that you only list German and English at a level 4 which is why I assumed you were German)

However, you state "near native" for English, yet when told by a native English speaker that your assumption about this matter is wrong, you decide to argue about it instead of thanking me for correcting you?

Then, you tell me Google is not an appropriate source? Of course it is not a "source", it is a search for how the term is used in English.

Can you think of a better way to resolve this? Chaosdruid (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank your for your reply. No offence, but it is my personal experience that native English speakers pronounce German names very "interestingly". (And I obviously know how Anglophone speaking people pronounce certain words, but that is not the point). We've got an audio file on Commons titled De-Unimog.ogg. Best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 12:04, 30 May 2019 (UTC) .

Unfortunately that is the EXACT point. The pronunciation is KEY to whether it is "a" or "an".

In this case, we say "a unimog". Same as "a union jack", or "it is a union of X and Y", or "a unique"

As this is the en wikipedia, it will obviously use english grammar.

We are only just getting the poorshu/porsh/pourshe/pourshu mess sorted out now, and trying to explain that "j" is mostly "y" in Europe is also problematic for us native english speakers.

Here, we have to accept that the word is being incorrectly pronounced, but we have to go with it because we have evidence (the google search) which shows that, gramatically, there are 10 times more "a unimog" than "an unimog" Chaosdruid (talk) 17:22, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I understand how English grammar works. We know how to correctly pronounce the word Unimog, or how it is intended to be pronounced, so why not make use of that? Adapting to "how the reader pronounces the word" does not work, simply because there is no such thing as a "generic reader". We write Wikipedia in English, not for people whose native language is English. "Google results" are hardly any evidence though. Best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 19:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

You know how to correctly pronounce the word Unimog IN GERMAN. News flash, we aren't writing in German. And that is NOT how it is pronounced in English. --Khajidha (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I wonder how you know a uniform English pronounciation, because I don't. Even English words that aren't names aren't pronounced the same across all English-speaking countries, for instance, either is sometimes pronounced as E-ther, and sometimes as I-ther. The pronounciation of names though typically doesn't depend upon languages. Names are typically names (I'm ignoring titles here). Id est, you cannot pronounce a name in, for instance, English. You can pronounce names correctly, somewhat correctly, or wrongly. It is nothing new that native English speakers tend to struggle with motor vehicle manufacturers' names, but we don't actively have to encourage these mistakes, especially in cases where it is relatively easy to avoid them – I reckon that, saying Uhn-E-mock is not difficult for most people who have a decent knowledge of the English language. Maybe, one day, people in English-speaking countries start saying BAY-EMM-VAY, DIME-lah-BENTS, FOLKS-vahg-N, EMMA-N, PORSCH-huh, Vann-dar-R, E-fah, Vahd-bourk, Trah-BANNT, Shkodd-dah, See-trouh-N, Jee-gouh-lee, Za-porr-roh-jayts… Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:59, 22 October 2021 (UTC) Post Scriptum: I'm a person whose name is typically pronounced incorrectly "in English", and it is a nuisance.

Why in the world would we pronounce them that way? We aren't speaking German.--Khajidha (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Because that is how you pronounce these names. I have met native English speakers who would ask how to pronounce certain names they weren't sure about, which is an expresseion of politeness. There are those who unknowingly make mistakes, which is ignorance, and then there are those don't care at all. Guess what that is. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 07:25, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

It's called speaking one's own language. Names of companies are not like names of people.--Khajidha (talk) 11:41, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Altitude record

The Suzuki Jimny#High altitude world record article includes:

On December 13th, 2019, Jeschke reclaimed the record with a Mercedes Benz Unimog.

I believe to add this to the article we'd need independent verification via WP:RS. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:10, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

References

This should be part of the Unimog 437.4 article. Actually, only few Unimogs could operate normally under "mountain conditions": Most Unimogs are fitted with naturally aspirated engines, which means that they lose power at high altitudes. Under the conditions as described in the source, an Unimog 435's engine would possibly have like 40 kW of power, which I believe is insufficient for driving off-road in an Unimog 435. Placing the "altitude record information" into this article would possibly make the reader believe that any Unimog model could drive up mountains that high, while actually only few Unimog models can. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 11:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Motorsport/Dakar wins

The Motorsport section had the following passage, which I have since modified due to several issues:

Unimogs have won the truck class of the Dakar several times in the 1980s, often by accident, as their main purpose is usually to provide support for cars and motorbikes. High-powered factory-sponsored entries of truck companies aiming for the overall win have since taken the laurels, with Unimogs used mainly for service purposes.

First, Unimogs won twice, 1982 and 1986. This may be sufficient for "several times", but it makes the subsequent "often by accident" unsuitable: Either this happened once (not enough for "often"), or twice (and thus always, too much for "often"). Further, disregarding the semantics of "often", the winners of 1982 were regarded as a main competitor in the truck class (https://web.archive.org/web/20110515053140/http://www.dakar.com/2009/DAK/presentation/docs/histo_1979_2007_us.pdf), so their victory was hardly accidental. Only the 1986 winners were entered as a supporting vehicle, and their win was seen as "unexpected" (same link as above). I still feel "by accident" is a bit much, as they were registered the regular way and drove competitively - this was not a case of "ha, you truck racers, this support crew was actually faster than all of you, so they get the gold!"

Images

Something like 53 images far surpasses what is needed in the article. A point of jumping off the proverbial cliff into a large collection of images that strays from "encyclopedic context" seems self-evident. -- Otr500 (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

"The... is a range of..."

I don't know what it *should* say, but "The Unimog (pronunciation in American English: YOU-nuh-mog; British English: YOU-knee-mog; German: [ˈʊnɪmɔk], listenⓘ) is a range of multi-purpose tractors, trucks and lorries that has been..." doesn't look or sound right to me. "The" implies singular, but "a range of" suggests plural.

How about "Unimog" is a brand name...? or "A Unimog is any one of a range of"? Polar Apposite (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

The pronounciation of Unimog is as in underwater, underwhelming, undisclosed, and so on, and so forth. The problem with Unimog is that all different types of Unimog follow sort-of the same principle, but the differences between Unimog types are too pronounced. Nontheless, the term Unimog is usually treated as singular, and easily understood when discussing off-road capable multi-purpose vehicles, and the history behind the Unimog's development makes it plausible to discuss it in its own right. The comparision might seem a bit weird at first, but I reckon Unimog compares well with iPhone in this regard. Thus, one could write: "Unimog is a line of multi-purpose tractors (…) that has been produced by Boehringer and Daimler Truck Holding AG". Maybe that's better? Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:14, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello Johannes. Yes that does sound better, I think. I have read so little about lines of cars, tractors, etcetera, that I don't trust my "ear" to tell me what is right, especially since commercial English seems to change very fast.

I'll change it to line, as it must surely be a step in the right direction, at the very least. Cheers. Polar Apposite (talk) 18:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)