Talk:The Hague

"The" Hague?

Is "the" actually a part of the city's formal name? If so, might not a line or two of explanation be in order?

After all, we don't say "The London", or "The Paris", or "The Philadelphia".

True, we do have things like "The Vatican", but that's kind of a special case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 01:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

The city's official website in English lists the name as The Hague, and "The Hague" gets 50 mil Google hits vs "Hague" -The Hague getting 12 mil, most of which seem unrelated. {{ping|ClydeFranklin}} (t/c) 04:51, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes "the" is essential part of the name. The official (somewhat archaic) Dutch name is 's Gravenhage but Den Haag (double capital) is also officially used and that is where the English name comes from ('s Gravenhage which means something like "the hedges/forest of the count". Which makes sense considering that the origin of the city was a hunting lodge of the counts of Holland.). Other towns and cities have similar situations e.g. La Haye and Den Bosch - which is similarly as with The Hague derived from 's Hertogenbosch the forest of the Duke (of Brabant) - indeed another hunting lodge. Arnoutf (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

First sentence

@IvanScrooge98: Are you actually claiming that this is "much more elegant and sensible" than this? It looks like a total mess, and is exactly the sort of thing that MOS:LEADCLUTTER was intended to prevent. Zacwill (talk) 02:25, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely yes. Having two notes with pronunciations, one of which separates them from their spelling, just because you want the IPA in a note but not the rest of the text is weird. An alternative is having three notes, one after each different spelling to keep them close, but three separate notes seem to me more cluttering than moving everything to one unified note. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 09:17, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

The native names of the city are primary information. The IPA transcriptions of those names are secondary information. I really don't see what's "weird" about displaying them accordingly. Zacwill (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I’ve tried my second option per above. See how it has less information scattered around, with each pronunciation being provided right next to the corresponding spelling? (Even though that requires using three notes, which is why I’d rather keep everything in one note.) Let me know your thoughts. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

(And, by the way, I don’t consider pronunciations to be “secondary”. They’re also part of the name alongside their spelling. The pronunciation is all that the name is when the name is spoken and not written.) ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

It's preferable to your other options. But I also don't see what's wrong with grouping the two Dutch pronunciations in a single note. Zacwill (talk) 16:31, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

What is “wrong” (or rather off) to me is that you are separating each of them from its spelling. That’s what I was saying. I probably wasn’t clear. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 16:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)