Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Jguk's changes

Does anyone mind if discussion of the following is moved to a separate page?

The quote at the beginning of style guide.
Fowler's "good" guidelines.
The expressions "period" and "full stop."
The serial comma.
"U.S."

Maurreen 06:20, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have moved all of the discussion related to the above toWikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes). Maurreen 07:34, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have filed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment about jguk's behavior. Maurreen 09:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Reopening discussion

In case anyone is interested, I wanted to let you know that I have reopened the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes). Maurreen 06:57, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My guess is that other Wikipedians would prefer this sleeping dog to lie. jguk 22:19, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Don't take my occasional silences for complacency or disinterest. I was off the 'Net for a week or so (including the brief Request for comments period on these changes). Now that I'm back, I'm rather weary of seeing people deliberately misconstrue each others' arguments which are already largely based on personal opinions and anecdotal experiences. Since I'm not getting sufficient action on my call for authoritative sources, I'm slowly working on my own research on leading authoritative sources in the various dialects of English. I expect it will take me at least another month, maybe significantly more. (American sources are relatively easy; British, Canadian, et al. are more challenging from my location. But I'd rather do it right than quickly.) If I find that the constant repetition of opinions, unscientific, biased polls, Google searches, and general bickering still haven't produced adequate research on global English publishing practices by then, I'll publish my results. Where and if warranted by the multi-national results, moderated by Wikipedia philosophy, I'm liable to do some jguk-style major editing and page moving, then challenge everyone to prove me wrong for doing so. Editing the Manual of Style and its associated elements should not be done as casually as it's been for the past few months, and I plan to raise the level of this debate even if it kills me. ☺ — Jeff Q 04:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Possessives of words ending in 's'

There is currently a bit of controversy over whether Wikipedia writers should follow AP conventions or Strunk and White's conventions for dealing with possessives of words that end in 's'. For example, is it "Texas' Law" or "Texas's Law"? It would be nice if the Wikipedia Manual of Style could provide some guidance on this. Some articles have been reverted back and forth many times due to this controversy.

AP Style Guidelines: SINGULAR PROPER NAMES ENDING IN S: Use only an apostrophe: Achilles’ heel, Agnes’ book, Ceres’ rites, Descartes’ theories, Dickens’ novels, Euripides’ dramas, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life, Jules’ seat, Kansas’ schools, Moses’ law, Socrates’ life, Tennessee Williams’ plays, Xerxes’ armies.
Strunk and White's Elements of Style (used by US Government and others): Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write, Charles's friend, Burns's poems, the witch's malice.

Using either "s's" or "s'" is standard English - there's no reason for us to prefer one form over another. I don't see why there should be a controversy - unless those who prefer one form over another seek to impose their views on those who prefer the other form. Use whatever seems sensible at the time. jguk 23:51, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that AP style is always the best. The AP guide also says don't use a comma before the 'and' in a series while the Elements of Style and Oxford's guide do. —Mike 00:25, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

Be careful on the Oxford comma. Its use (except where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity) is generally considered optional - with some style guides recommending its usage and others recommending using it only where necessary to avoid ambiguity, jguk 00:49, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since AP is a style guide for newspapers, where space is at a premium, it often chooses rules which result in fewer characters. It's not necessarily a good guide to use for books, or for Wikipedia, where space is less of an issue. - Nunh-huh 00:58, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If both are acceptable, it would be nice if the Wikipedia Manual of Style stated that both are acceptable, as there are definitely those out there seeking to impose their views on those who prefer the other form regardless of what is sensible. Kaldari 00:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Style guides don't determine "correctness": they represent sometimes arbitrary choices between correct usages to obtain unifomity of style. This is probably unattainable at Wikipedia, where there's no authority to make such arbitrary choices. - Nunh-huh 00:58, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If that's true then why does WIkipedia have a style guide at all? You presumption that it is only possible for "authorities" to make decisions about style seems a bit rash to me. Surely we can reach a reasonable decision that will help those seeking clarification, even if the decision is only to declare both styles acceptable. Otherwise this argument will continue to be played out over and over again across many separate articles with no resolution. Let's hash it out here so that people will have something to refer to at least. Kaldari 01:08, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Standards fall into three categories: (1) Things where the clearly is a "right" and "wrong" and where it is important that things be "right" (e.g. spelling of words where there is only one standard spelling). (2) Things where there is legitimate disagreement about a consequential matter, and where we probably need to tolerate diversity (e.g. U.S. vs. UK English). (3) Things that are so trivial that almost any sane standard is better than no standard, because uniformity is more important than any particular resolution of the matter. This is an example of the last. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:29, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely - but I fear that here are at least some users who will refuse to recognize class (3)<g>. - Nunh-huh 02:19, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

BTW, it looks like this issue was already discussed here back in July, but nothing came of it: Talk Archive 6. Kaldari 02:20, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It looks like it was already mentioned in the previous discussion, but let me add what my personal favorite style guide has to say about it:

The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition): "The possessive of most singular nouns is formed by adding an s, and the possessive of plural nouns (except for a few irregular plurals that do not end in s) by adding an apostrophe only...The general rule covers most proper nouns, including names ending in s, x, or z, in both their singular and plural forms, as well as letters and numbers" (emphasis theirs). They give examples such as "Kansas's legislature", "Burns's poems", "Marx's theories", and so on. They also mention the alternative style, for those that do not like this method.

Aside from Chicago's support, there are other reasons I think this is appropriate. Why should "Texas's law" be any different from "Nebraska's law"? They are both pronounced equivalently. Texas is not a plural, and there is no need to use plural possessive forms with it. Nor would just adding an apostrophe avoid ambuguity; rather, it can actually further it (is Roberts' work the work of one Roberts [Julia Roberts] or the work of multiple Roberts?). Using just an apostrophe when words end in s, regardless of why they end in s, seems a bit artificial to me. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 18:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Most people pronounce "Texas' Law" differently than "Texas's Law". In fact, it is considered orthodox practice to pronounce them differently [1]. I suspect this is why the exception for words that end in s was created in the first place -- to eliminate awkward pronunciations. Take for example, "goodness' sake". That phrase is almost universally pronounced without the extra s sound regardless of whether the extra s is written. Otherwise it would sound quite awkward. "Olbers' paradox" is certainly easier to pronounce than "Olbers's paradox". The former sounds much more natural, thus the tradition of spelling it without the extra s. Whatever standard we decide on, I think we should make consideration for established exceptions, i.e. phrases that have always been spelled a certain way by convention regardless of standards. Kaldari 19:42, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fowler's Modern English Usage (a standard for British English) suggests dropping the post-apostriphal s if it is unvoiced. This still leaves something of a chicken and egg problem -- is it spelled because of how it's pronounced, or is it pronounced because of how it's spelled? Kaldari 19:57, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is a problem. The writer would spell it the way he pronounces it, and the reader would pronounce it the way the writer spelled it. Simple! —Mike 20:12, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

I started that earlier discussion (the one now in Talk Archive 6). The Strunk and White style still seems better to me. Olbers's paradox is preferable because hearing Olbers' paradox (pronounced "Olbers" instead of "Olberses") will lead some people to think that it's Olber's paradox. Nevertheless, that particular example, like for goodness' sake, might be a candidate for an exception, something like: "Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Exception: Omit the s after the apostrophe if a particular possessive has become generally known without the final s." One argument advanced at Wikipedia:Requested moves#Olbers's paradox → Olbers' paradox is that this particular phrase, which dates back to Olbers's work in 1823, is more often written as Olbers' paradox. I admit that making such an exception would lead to sentences like "Olbers's students were initially confused by his explanation of Olbers' paradox." JamesMLane 22:30, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It looks like all the main style guides, with the exception of the AP's, recommend using the s. Also I should mention that I did not quote Chicago's entire recommendation; in particular, they mention, "To avoid an awkward appearance, an apostrophe without an s may be used for the possessive of singular words and names ending in an unpronounced s. Opt for this practice only if you are comfortable with it and are certain that the s is indeed unpronounced." Examples: "Descartes' three dreams", "the marquis' mother". Also, "For...sake expressions traditionally omit the s when the noun ends in an s or an s sound." Examples: "for righteousness' sake", "for goodness' sake". James, your proposal sounds quite reasonable to me. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 23:45, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to be prescriptive on this point. Besides, any instructions would largely be ignored by those who prefer the opposite approach. Burchfield in Fowler's Modern English Usage recommends just using an apostrophe in classical names, eg Herodotus', Socrates', Themistocles', etc. Note also that the official names of various institutions/places adopt differing approaches - for instance, it's not too difficult to find some institutions starting with "St James's" and others with "St James'", jguk 08:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How does this sound:
Possessives ending in s
Authoritative sources differ on how to handle possessive nouns that end with the letter s. Some say to add an apostrophe and an s at the end. Other say to just add an apostrophe. Still others say it depends on whether the word is a proper noun, the s is pronounced a certain way, or a variety of other conditions are met. Because there does not seem to be a widespread consensus on how to handle possessives ending in s, both usages are considered acceptable in Wikipedia. In general, whichever usage of a particular word or phrase is most common should be used. For example, Olbers' paradox is more commonly used than Olbers's paradox.
Kaldari 17:27, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Too many "somes" - and I don't like the use of the word authoritative. Maybe we could lift something from The Times and adapt it, for example (the bit not in italics is my addition, and I have redacted a small bit) jguk 19:15, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC):

with proper names/nouns ending in s that are singular, follow the rule of writing what is voiced, eg, Keats's poetry, Sobers's batting, The Times's style (or Times style); and with names where the final "s" is soft, use the "s" apostrophe, eg, Rabelais' writings, Delors' presidency. Note that with Greek names of more than one syllable that end in "s", do not use the apostrophe "s", eg, Aristophanes' plays, Achilles' heel, Socrates' life, Archimedes' principle. Beware that some people voice "s" that others don't, and this will change how they write the words. Some write "Jesus'" others "Jesus's". Also beware of organisations that have variations as their house style, eg, St Thomas' Hospital, where we must respect their whim. Also, take care with apostrophes with plural nouns, eg, women's, not womens'; children's, not childrens'; people's, not peoples'. Use the apostrophe in expressions such as two years' time, several hours' delay etc. An apostrophe should be used to indicate the plural of single letters - p's and q's

How about this:
Possessives
To form the possessive of a singular noun that ends in s, the general rule is to add an apostrophe and an s, for example, Charles's book. Exceptions to this rule are as follows:

When the final s of the noun is soft or unpronounced: Descartes' theories, Rabelais' writing
When there is a long-established tradition of adding only an apostrophe to form the possessive: Achilles' heel, goodness' sake
When the possessive is part of an organization's name and they choose to only use an apostrophe: St Thomas' Hospital

For plural nouns that do not end in s, add an apostrophe-s, for example, children's, not childrens'.
Kaldari 20:33, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nearly there, methinks. Three points:

1. Reword to say "the general rule is that where the s is pronounced separately, add an apostrophe and as s". Then the first bullet point of exceptions to the rule becomes a further example of the general rule.

2. "Proper name" would be better than "organisation" as "organisation" is too specific.

3. Sake tends to be treated differently. In Fowler's Modern English Usage Burchfield writes, "For appearances' sake, for Christ's sake, for God's sake, for Heaven's sake, for Pete's sake, for old times' sake illustrate the obligatory use of the possessive apostrpohe in such phrases, Practice varies widely in for conscience' sake and for goodness' sake, and the use of an apostrophe in them must be regarded as optional." Burchfield goes on to say that in American English sakes is sometimes used in place of sake, jguk 22:12, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

1. Are you talking about the s of the original noun or the possessive s? If you're talking about the possissive s, I don't like instructing people to rely on whether the extra s is pronounced or not, as whether or not the extra s is pronounced often depends on how the possessive is spelled [2]. Thus we would be sending the writer in a circle: how it's written depends on how it's pronounced and how it's pronounced depends on how it's written. That's too confusing. If you're talking about the s of the original noun, then your wording is just incorporating the initial exception into the rule itself, and I'm not sure why that would be any better than listing it as an explicit exception and keeping the rule itself simplified.

2. Agreed.

3. That seems to fall into my 2nd exception. Ideally, I'd like to refrain from starting a long list of specific exceptions like greek names, something's sake, etc. and just create a general exception for traditional spellings. Kaldari 23:05, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How about a more concise way, such as this:

"Possessives of words ending in 's' may be formed with or without an additional 's'." Maurreen 05:07, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like the conciseness, but I do think there are definite cases where writers should use one or the other and it would be nice if we could provide them some guidance on that. Kaldari 15:33, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's so concise it is useless. You might as well just say, "Possessives: no standard". Or just don't say anything at all. —Mike 01:00, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I actually think it's useful in some cases to point out that we have no standard. This provides an authoritative resource to cite if there is a dispute. (I.e. "no, we don't need to standardize all references to plural possessives; Wikipedia permits either usage".) -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:31, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If we are to explicitly state we have no preference, we need to be more explicit than Maurreen. Perhaps something along the lines of, "Where, a standard form of English permits possessives of words ending in 's' to be formed with or without an additional 's', we have no preference between those styles", jguk 01:44, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, how does this sound:
Possessives
Opinions differ on how to form the possessive of singular nouns that end with the letter s. Some sources say to add an apostrophe and an s at the end. Others say to just add an apostrophe. Because there does not seem to be a widespread consensus on how to handle possessives of this form, both usages are considered acceptable in Wikipedia. In general, whichever usage of a particular word or phrase is most common should be used. For example, Achilles' heel is more commonly used than Achilles's heel.
For plural nouns that do not end in s, add an apostrophe and an s to form the possessive, for example, children's, not childrens'.
Kaldari 03:19, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How about getting to the point more quickly, like this:

"Possessives of words ending in 's' may be formed with or without an additional 's'." Either is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. But if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with 'Achilles' heel'." Maurreen 22:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I added your suggested guideline to the Usage and Spelling section. Kaldari 07:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fictional characters

I've seen a bunch of articles that italicize fictional characters, for example, "Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs." I've never seen this before. Is there any precedent for this? I've also seen character names placed in quotes instead of italics. Should something about this be placed in the style guide? – flamurai^TM 08:00, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

A completely undesirable development. I agree with banning it in the style guide asap and then enforcing that ban before the custom becomes too widespread to stop, jguk 08:16, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Certainly it can't be banned, but the style guide should remind editors to use formatting sparingly. If it's used too much, it loses its meaning. --Sean Kelly 22:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Ban" is a strong word here. I also agree that that style shouldn't be used. Peter O. (Talk) 19:22, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the names of fictional characters shouldn't be italicized, but I don't see the need to add it to the style guide. Maurreen 05:23, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ellipses

Do we have a standard form for writing ellipses? It seems to me that most style guides use "x . . . y", with spaces before and after each dot. Many people seem to use "x...y" or "x ... y", however. A standard would be nice. --Simetrical 01:18, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The spacing effect may just be a by-product of text justification, I would say. The ellipsis (…) is not written with spaces in between the dots. I would use the style "x... y". Peter O. (Talk) 06:04, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

It's definitely acceptable to put spaces in between the dots of an ellipse, it's just not that common in the USA. It's more common in fine book typography than in periodicals, as well. – flamurai^TM 18:37, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

In HTML and XML with an XHTML profile, use … which causes …. Choose a font which has the amount of spacing in the ellipses you like. x… y, bla bla blah….

Ellipses look better (to me) if there are no spaces between the dots. I suppose it all comes down to aesthetics in the end, jguk 19:07, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely that it's a matter of taste, because mine is the other way (I prefer a space before and after each dot, including the first and last). I think this is another item that people should handle as they please and not waste time fiddling with what other editors have written. JamesMLane 08:48, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I lean toward agreement with James on this. Maurreen 07:11, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just type … when you want an ellips: then font preference can decide if there is a lot or very little spacing between the dots. This has the advantage that it will remain one character instead of three or six. User:Anárion/sig 07:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The common solution among typesetters and graphic designers is right in the middle:

Comparison of Ellipsis methods

-- an ellipses character (which separates the three periods slightly, but not as much as a full space), preceded and followed by a "thin space." This solution isn't really available outside of typesetting situations, but that's the ideal from a publisher's point of view. KJCampbell 14:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If everyone used Firefox, we could do that, but IE doesn't like abnormal spaces. It only accepts the basic space ( ), the non-breaking space ( ), the zero-width space (), and the ideographic space (　). Firefox, however ƒ is different. :) You IE users see that as a frigging enormous space, but we Firefoxers get a thin space, just as intended. —Simetrical (talk) 00:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what you're on about. I'm using Firefox and ~~( ) looks wider than ( )~~. OK, that's weird. I began by wanting to say that the spaced around the ellipses above looked pretty wide. Then in preview, the space actually looked wider than a normal space--I swear I thought it did. But after saving, I could see a difference. older≠wiser 02:58, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Article structuring

I tried to find some good advice on structuring articles in wikipedia namespaces. All I found were some pages in the Style and How-to Directory, some pages in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and some links on template:FAPath. They mostly deal with the issue from a general stylistic and aesthetic viewpoint, and only touch on the underlying reasons for giving a logical and fairly standardized structure to encyclopedia articles.

I've therefore written up a draft guideline for writing articles in a "pyramid structure". Being mostly based on common sense, it is in part a description of what we already do, but its goal is also to explain why structuring articles in this way is good. It's at User:Zocky/Pyramid structure. Please feel free to improve and comment.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Proper structure should obviously be a FA requirement, and this should probably also be in the how-to series. But since structure is a fundamental editorial issue which heavily affects both quality and NPOV, it could also be a part of the Manual of Style. Zocky 19:45, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Massive lost information

A massive chunk of information seems to have been carelessly lost in this edit. I am talking about the section on External Links in particular. This is referenced as [[WP:MOS#External Links]] from a number of places. E.g., the editing help, the external links page and so on. Given the amount of editing that has gone on, I'm not going to do an immediate revert to the version from November 24 before that edit, but I think it might be a good idea, at least until the material is moved elsewhere and/or correctly linked. Comments anyone? Mozzerati 10:01, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

The edit was to replace the Manual of Style with a shorter version that had been discussed beforehand. The references to that discussion should be somewhere in the archives (though, I'm afraid, I don't know where). From memory, I think the material on links got moved to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) on Maurreen's suggestion, though I stand to be corrected.

However, this Manual of Style is a living document, feel free to propose any changes you think are appropriate, jguk 19:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The earlier discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Draft trim (November 2004). Maurreen 22:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Numbers as words

I can't see any guide to when to write numbers as words. Am I missing something?

The style that I picked up somewhere is to always use numerals when a number is being referred to, such as he lived at No. 3, or It is at entry 8, but to use words otherwise, if the value is less than 13. Thus He had eight children, and She is 23 years old.

Comments? Philip J. Rayment 12:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Number names. older≠wiser 13:46, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

I tend to follow AP and CP style, which is to write out anything less than 10, but to use numerals for 10 and upwards: three dogs, 10 children, but to use numerals when numbers are referred to, as you said: "He lived at No. 3". SlimVirgin 19:22, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I tend to prefer writing almost everything out as words. Since the style guide doesn't say we shouldn't write out "six million", I'll continue to do so. —Simetrical 20:21, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)