Talk:Inanimate whose/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 02:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

What a brilliant topic. I can't pass up the chance to review this, though my comments may come in dribs and drabs. Josh Milburn (talk) 02:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• "pronoun hwæt ('what')" Why the single quotes? Is there something the the MOS about this?

  SMcCandlish did that. He's pushed to have that included in the MoS, and it now says "Simple glosses that translate or define unfamiliar terms usually take single quotes". I disagree with it, and voiced that objection with examples here. I'm not aware of where a consensus was formed to include this in the MoS, and would prefer he didn't unilaterally change an established style. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:48, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  MOS:SINGLE has said linguistic glosses go in single quotes since 2015 , after repeated discussions .... If someone disagrees that MoS should say this, they can open yet another discussion about it at WT:MOS. We don't resist guidelines we personally quibble with by writing non-compliant material or opposing others editing it to be compliant. [Original, longer comment refactored to below the collapse box.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Off-topic arguments that belong at WT:MOS or user talk

MOS:SINGLE has said linguistic glosses go in single quotes since 2015 , after repeated discussions in which there was a preponderance of evidence of this usage being standardized in the field, and little opposition but "IDONTLIKEIT" and "IDONTKNOWIT" arguments. It's been the practice in linguistic materials, on both sides of the Atlantic, and in multiple languages, for generations. It's a useful one, distinguishing glosses from examples and quotations using double quotation marks.

If someone disagrees that MoS should say this, they can open yet another discussion about it at WT:MOS. We don't resist guidelines we personally quibble with by writing non-compliant material or opposing others editing it to be compliant. No one is ever going to personally be a fan of every single line-item in MoS. It's our built-by-years-of-compromise house style, and we deal with it. PS: The style has also long been built into our language templates, e.g. {{lang-de}}. MoS including it was not a "new change", it was updating the guideline to account for actual practice, on and off WP.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: "on ... WP" is fantastically untrue, as you're well aware (and J Milburn can attest). You have an annoying habit of declaring disagreement WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is a non-argument. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:14, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the essay section WP:IDONTLIKEIT, so I'm not sure what you mean. I don't know why you think it's "fantastically untrue"; our language templates had standardized on [naturally] what linguistics had standardized on, before MoS got around to it, and this is clearly demonstrable in page history. If you just mean "not every single editor knows about or goes along with it", that is true of every single line-item in every guideline and policy, so I don't see what your point is. Again, this isn't the place for an MoS debate; WT:MOS is. My purpose here was pointing out that, in answer the reviewer's question, the MOS does in fact call for this style; and to redirect any "challenge the MoS" stuff to the place where that belongs, which isn't a GA review.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: "I strongly agree with ..." I didn't say you disagreed with IDONTLIKEIT; I said you have an anoying habit of labelling disagreement as IDONTLIKEIT. Your edit did nothing to improve the page, but only enforced your preferred choice of formatting, because YOUDONTLIKE the formatting that's there, which is not prescribed against in the MoS. It's hard to see how you've "improved" the article by doing so, and it certainly came as a surprise to J Milburn after his 400+ GAN reviews (and who knows how many FAC reviews). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:41, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

"Curly Turkey is angry with SMcCandlish again for no apparent reason" isn't relevant for this page either. I don't know why you're turning this into a personalized matter, but I'm not interested in continuing in that vein. You invited my observation and participation here; it makes no sense to me for you to react with hostility when I make the simplest copyedits that don't even alter the meaning of the wording. Let's get through this quickly:

• Editing to comply with guidelines has nothing to do with my preferences. There are at least 50 things in MoS I don't personally agree with, yet I still ensure our articles do them; that's part of WP editorial diligence. This improves our articles by making them consistent with the guidelines; we would not have guidelines if following them was not expected and not considered an improvement.
• You're not reading or absorbing the actual arguments I'm making. When A has sources and standards and B has preferences and handwaving, A is not making an ILIKEIT argument, B is. I mention ILIKEIT if and only if that kind of pseudo-argument is being presented. It's just presented frequently when it comes to style matters (it's the nature of the beast).
• J Milburn's awareness or lack thereof about one MoS line item among zillions is irrelevant trivia. It's in there, so it gets done, we move on. MoS's primary purpose is after-creation cleanup edits by gnomes; no one is required to absorb it before they write, only to not disrupt later editors doing compliance passes. Fist-shaking about minor bits of guideline wording and whether one likes it has nothing to do with GAN (or FAC). Attempting to drag J Milburn into a tedious and futile "fight the guidelines!" windmill tilt is apt to discourage him from reviewing any more articles like this.

Can we be done with this now? Or take it to user talk? Or something other that continuing this here?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:56, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "The first recorded instance of inanimate whose occurs in 1479" Worth quoting?

  It appears to be somewhere in one of these letters, but it's not quoted and I'm not having luck finding it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:21, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Attested usage increased from the Elizabethan era onward, appearing repeatedly" Attested usage didn't appear repeatedly; the inanimate whose did.

  That's what I thought. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  Easy fix: "...onward, with the style appearing...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish: But what was the issue with the original wording? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:17, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Edit summary had it already, but to repeat: the material was out of chron. order and had no contextual info about what historical era the works were from. In more detail: It matters because it was a period of intense and compressed change in English usage, due to both the KJB and Shakespeare's works in particular, respectively the most and the second most frequent sources of exactly-worded, then-novel expressions that became everyday English usage, many of them still current. The two bodies of work had a tremendous influence on how English eventually standardized, though this isn't article in which to get into the details. It's important for a similar reason to be clear that the Webster we mention was the author of a particular dictionary (and not be confused with some other random Webster like Daniel Webster from the same era and region). Noah Webster's work solidified the fork (intentionally, as a political and patriotism matter) between American and British English, and actually helped create it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Actually Elizabethan English is better than Elizabethan era as the link to use here. I tried a re-edit that used this; hopefully it will be satisfactory.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "of what was referred to" Would "of that which was referred to" be preferable?

  Makes me wonder if it can be reworded to use an inanimate whose. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "wīf ('wife') was neuter and referred to with the pronoun hit ('it'), and wīfmann ('woman')" Again with the single quotes- I'm not saying it's wrong, but I thought it worth flagging

  MOS:SINGLE  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "In some dialects, thats has developed as a colloquial genitive relative pronoun for non-personal antecedents" Could you perhaps provide some examples of the dialects in which this is common?
  • I'm not having any luck here ... Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

    It's unlikely to be specific dialects; rather, it's a low-register usage, of informal speech. We'd need a reliable source to tie it to a particular region, and even then there may be an error of omission (e.g., a source saying it's common in Texas or whatever isn't a source that it's not use in Massachusetts or South Africa). Barring more sources on it, we're probably saying all we can about it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• grammarian is a dablink
  • I'm assuming it should be Philology. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

    Nah, that's an academic discipline; we're using "grammarian" in the least precise usage (one that wasn't even in the DAB page until I added it just now) to refer to writers of prescriptive grammar works – some of them predating the emergence of philology. So, the informative link would be Linguistic prescription or its more clearly related redirect Prescriptive grammar.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "The English James Buchanan in his Regular English syntax of 1767" Could this be massaged a little?

  I thought that one looked funny, too, but "James Buchanan, of England, in his" wasn't any better. Maybe "Writing in England in 1767, James"? The concept of "British" had not really arisen yet, so we shouldn't use an anachronism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  "English" isn't an anachronism. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:18, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, that's my point; we can't replace it with "British", so some rewording that keeps "English" or "England" is needed, one that reads well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Henry Bradley in the Oxford English Dictionary asserted "usually replaced by of which, except where the latter would produce an intolerably clumsy form"." "...asserted that the inanimate whose is..." or "...asserted that the inanimate whose should "usually" be...", perhaps?
• "he cited a number of cases of its use and of those who prescribe against it and their rationales, and concluded" I'm struggling with this sentence.

  "he cited a number of cases of its use, and discussed the rationales of those who prescribe against it. He concluded"  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Thomas Lounsbury asserted the inanimate" that?
  • Sure. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
• "found that respondents considered it disputable" It's not completely obvious to me what this means; especially given your "however" in the following line.

  "found that respondents to the survey considered the prohibition disputable"? The "However" is marker of transition, between the two preceding sentences about opinion in favor of i-whose, to discussion of actual [1970s] practice to enforce against it. Without something like that, the 1970s sentence is a confusing non sequitur.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  You've misparsed the paragraph. The sentence before your "however" establishes that feelings against inanimate whose incresed between the 1930s and 1970s; what follows "however" quantifies that. "However" makes gibberish of this. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:44, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Ah! Yes, I see. Others will not make the mistake if "it disputable" is changed to "inanimate whose disputable". The "it" doesn't have a very clear referent. I agree that the "However," doesn't belong.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:01, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "It asserts that "notion that whose may not properly be used of anything except persons is a superstition" and such use is "entirely standard as an alternative to of which in all varieties of discourse"." How about "It asserts that the "notion that whose may not properly be used of anything except persons is a superstition" and that such use is "entirely standard as an alternative to of which in all varieties of discourse"."?
• "states the construction is" that?
  • Okay. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
• I feel the lead could better reflect what appears to be the story being told in the final section; once upon a time, people didn't like it, but now, style guides are open to it and even claim that its unacceptability is a myth.
• Also, I think it might be nice to lead (in place of a picture) with a passage from Shakespeare or similar in which it is used; or even a photo of it appearing on a page (I know that's use in some other more "literary" articles).

  I've added an image from the KJV. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:12, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

That's what jumps out at me on a first read-through. Great topic and article. Josh Milburn (talk) 02:35, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry things haven't quite worked out here. I'm closing the review at this time at the nominator's request; perhaps it's something that could be renominated in a few weeks' time when things have simmered down a little. It's a great topic and a great article, and I commend you both for taking it on. Josh Milburn (talk) 00:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

To be clear here, like I was in user talk: I fully support this being a GA; none of my minor twiddles and quibbles should affect that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:51, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I would also like to see this article as a GA; the article can be renominated when ready, and I encourage it! Josh Milburn (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: Renom time? I'm not going to nit-pick at a thing in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I just recently had another GAN pulled because I didn't have the time to deal with it. Too busy for content these days. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:27, 17 December 2017 (UTC)