User talk:Allens/Archives/2011/October

Barrack

Wikipedia has the concept of National varieties of English. We also have a project called Simple English Wikipedia "It is suggested that articles be simplified using only the 1000 most common and basic words in English and fewer complex grammatical structures" (Simple Main Page).

Barrack is a perfectly useful Commonwealth English word, which conveys the meaning of what the soldiers were doing. From the Oxford English Dictionary "To shout jocular or derisive remarks or words of advice as partisans against a person, esp. a person, or side collectively, engaged in a contest". If ever you listen to the House of Commons Prime Minister's question time you will hear barracking. Basically it is mass heckling combined with trying to shout down the opposition. Back in the eighties one of the pro-European Tories said of his European-sceptical colleagues "The have mastered joined up shouting, but haven't mastered joined up thinking." -- PBS (talk) 22:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you actually sure it's Commonwealth English and not UK English, which is what Wiktionary says? It doesn't matter all that much.... except that apparently in Australian English it means to shout in support (of a team). To a speaker of US English, it's simply an unknown word (except for a possible connection to barracks - my first thought on reading it was that it was a word for "taking someone out back of the barracks and beating them up"...); to a speaker of Australian English, it actually means the opposite of what the article needs it to mean. Allens (talk) 01:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Back to the specific point you ask "Am I not allowed to express this viewpoint on an article and ask for clarification?"

Of course you are. But usually this is used to ask a question about something which is not clear in the sense of syntax. For example "John Smith's father was Peter Smith. He was a well known and widely published biologist". One can not tell from that sentence who was the biologist and it would be reasonable to ask for clarification. But I do not think it reasonable to ask for clarification for the word biologist. Or suppose he was a thespian should one expect a person to know what that word means?

The other area where one is justified in asking for clarification is when people use words that are jargon inside a specialist field which a person with a well rounded eduction who is not a specialist is unlikely to know.

In the examples above one can not fix the text without access to the sources. In the first case they may not be on line so one would have to go to a library and perhaps a specialised one. If on the other-hand the sources was available then, then rather than asking the question just fix it. In the second case there is a reasonable chance that the jargon is impenetrable unless one is an expert, so again it is reasonable to ask the question. But in the case of a dictionary word then why not look it up?

Your placing of the template into the article because of the word leaves us with four options:

1. Leave the template there semi-indefinitely;
2. Remove template as the word is a standard English word and invoke National varieties of English (which is what I am doing); -- PBS (talk) 22:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

   I understand, although I do note commonality is also a policy, indicating that the word should be changed to a more-commonly-understood term (e.g., "shout down" in this case, if they were shouting so loud that Charles couldn't be heard (which I suspect was the case)). Actually, I may ask on the Talk:Regicide page if someone with ready access to the historical sources can confirm whether they actually succeeded in full-scale shouted him down; if so, then "shout down" is actually more accurate (barrack means that they tried, as I understand it, not that they succeeded?). Allens (talk) 01:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

3. Remove the template and change the word for another word or phrase;
4. Remove the template and link the word to Wiktionary like this: barrack.

I personally think that barrack is a perfectly usual word that most educated readers ought to know, hence my removal of the template. If you do not then how about linking it to Wikidict? I do it for words I do not think most would know but ought to know because they will come across it in other general sources about similar subjects; eg "wikt:cousin-german", which can be replaced with "first cousin", but if it is then people will not lean from a suitable Wikipedia article what cousin-german means (in several places in Wikipedia editors had capitalised "cousin german" to "cousin German" showing that they did not know what it meant and guessed incorrectly). -- PBS (talk) 22:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

(I'm surprised they didn't "correct" it to "German cousin"...) I'm also willing to go with linking to Wikidict (I trust it's possible to link to the particular meaning of the term in Wikidict?), if the above substitution for accuracy isn't right (or if people want to place priority on reading learning new vocabulary). I have to say that I have a rather large vocabulary - including words gotten from reading Victorian English history - and am quite educated (Ph.D., with my bachelor's being from a Liberal Arts school); this is the first time I've ever run across on Wikipedia a non-jargon/technical word I haven't already known the meaning of. Thank you for the courtesy of a quick reply, BTW. Allens (talk) 00:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"She married her cousin german Frederick of Hanover" becomes "She married her cousin German Frederick of Hanover" :-)

Yes we can link to a specific section: wikt:barrack#Etymology 2 and hide it behind a pipe barrack

In the UK barrack has only a negative meaning the last example in the OED is

1963 Times 11 May 5/1 When Miss Truman led 4–1 in the first set, the crowd began to barrack every point she scored and to encourage the Italian girl with prolonged cheering.

In Australia it can mean either (which was a surprises to me) I did a search on the website of www.smh.com.au (Sydney Morning Herald) and it seems that Australians still use it as a neutral word (barracking for or against). In the context of civil war guards and a prisoner Australians will understand the meaning. Notice it is a word used in newspapers so it is in no way a specialist word -- people who read the Times or the SMH are assumed to know what it means by the journalists of those papers.

"Shout down" is not really accurate (but then "He would say that wouldn't he" as it was I who put in the word barracked into the article (in 2005). Perhaps this will help Brown vs. Cameron during Queen's Speech debate The point is not to stop Brown speaking but to make him sound foolish, by stuttering and repeating himself etc. King Charles I had a speech impediment and he was not used to being interrupted. This is from the treason trial of Daniel Axtell

I saw him the most activest person there; and during the time that the King was urging to be heard, he was then laughing, entertaining his Souldiers, scoffing aloud, whilst some of the Souldiers by his suffering, and (I believe) procurement, did fire powder in the palms of their hands, that they did not onely offend his Majesties smell, but enforced him to rise up out of his Chair, and with his hand to turn away the smoke ; and after this he turned about to the people and smiled upon them, and those Souldiers that so rudely treated him : ...[at the end of the trial] Mr. Axtell, Prisoner at the Bar, commanded his Souldiers to cry out, Justice, which the Souldiers not readily obeying of him, I saw him beat four or five of them with his Cane , until they cried out, (with himself) Justice, Justice, Execution, Execution,"

So I don't think that "shouted down" is the best description when we have a word like barracked, and I think that is an brief accurate summation of what Axtell was found guilty of doing.

--PBS (talk) 09:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good, then - linking to the appropriate definition. It also sounds like wikidict may need a bit of correction on the UK meaning also extending to at least part of the Commonwealth, and possibly all of it. Allens (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)