Talk:God Is Not Great/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Use of "the" in the intro

Regarding this edit, the lack of an article in this intro reads more like news style-writing than that of an encyclopedia. Despite noting this, my edit has been reverted twice now without explanation (indeed, FreeKnowledgeCreator even retraced my contributions, removing a similarly placed article from a much larger edit I made a few hours ago to Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now). Apart from a slight case of ownership here, was there a reason this edit was reverted? As in, one that should have been included in one of the two edit summaries? Jg2904 (talk) 07:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no point in pursuing this matter if other editors simply do not agree that the inclusion of a definite article in that sentence is an improvement. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Reads much better without "the" and it certainly isn't more encyclopedic to add it as it is a grammar error. "Do not use the with people's names." Lipsquid (talk) 17:54, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

You're certainly right, Lipsquid: one shouldn't use the before people's names ("the Christopher Hitchens" indeed sounds ridiculous). But as "author and journalist Christopher Hitchens" is not a name alone, but rather a noun phrase, it is perfectly acceptable and even preferable to use a definitive article before it. The user SMcCandlish has been something of champion on this point, and I tend to agree with him (as with the critic John Simon, who would surely bring some much needed wit to this conversation). A quick thumbing-through of some of my own library seems only to bolster this claim. For example:

• "The jailbird and tax evader Sun Myung Moon [...] is one of the patrons of the 'intelligent design' racket." — Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 249
• "The writer Aldous Huxley brought this idea into prominence by publishing an anthology by that title. [...] Like Huxley, anyone determined to find a happy synthesis among spiritual traditions will notice that the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–ca. 1327) often sounded very much like a Buddhist..." — Sam Harris, Waking Up, pp. 20–22
• "The discovery of the antielectron was one of the great triumphs of theoretical physics, for its existence had been predicted just a few years earlier by the British-born physicist Paul A. M. Dirac." — Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Antimatter Matters," Death by Black Hole, p. 103

[italics are all my own]

The relative ease with which I was able to find these passages speaks something to their ubiquity in similarly high-minded literature. Though none of these writers is considered an expert on the English language, they are all known for being especially articulate communicators. And it strikes me as particularly arrogant that my edit would be removed without explanation (both here and now subsequently in other articles to which I've contributed), that my objection would be summarily dismissed by FreeKnowledgeCreator after only two editors disagreed (including himself, and still without proper explanation), and that evidently users on this talk page think they know more about the written English language than the three writers cited above. Normally I wouldn't raise such a fuss over so minor a detail, but I'm swiftly growing tired of thinly-veiled condescension from puppy-guarding editors who feel they don't need to sufficiently explain their reductive edits.

Ergo, I would like an explanation for the article's removal in the intro (preferably citing Manual of Style), if it's not so inconvenient for you. Jg2904 (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, so much of English grammar is really based on how it sounds, rather than proper grammar rules so finding exceptions in literature doesn't prove much as they both sound acceptable. It is a question of what is grammatically correct. Rather than prove a negative, I assume it would be easier to prove the positive in that there is a grammar rule that says "don't use "the" with people's names unless it is a noun phrase" or "The use of the definitive "the" is always acceptable in front of noun phrases". I certainly didn't mean to be condescending, I would very much suspect that you are more familiar with English grammar than I am. This one just seemed obvious to me because one of the few rules I do remember is don't use "the" with people's names. I am sure you can find an authority for using "the" in a noun phrase, this isn't the first time it has ever been questioned. Lipsquid (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not really a "champion" for the in this kind of case, I just agree that it's "headline-ese" in tone. This isn't a grammar matter at all; that word doesn't really mean what you seem to think it means (overuse of "grammatical" as if to mean "having something to do with style of language use" is a common error, but still an error), and there is no rule for or against either construction (nor is there any entity capable of issuing such rules, not for English anyway; we have no equivalent of the Académie française). It is, rather, a matter of sociolinguistic register. The longer usage is semi-formal to formal, the shorter much more casual, and characteristic of marketing and journalism style. If I were beginning a conference presentation that started off mentioning this book, I would write, and say out loud, "In God Is Not Great by the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens ...". I know for a fact I would do this, since I did exactly this, except the reference was "In The Mass Psychology of Fascism by the ironically named but brilliant political scientist – and quack actual scientist – Wilhelm Reich ...", to start off a very tense subject with a laugh to put people more at ease about the rest of the content. If I were a breathless newscaster with only 30 seconds to make my point before being cut off by the weatherman, I would instead say "In God Is Not Great by writer Christopher Hitchens ...". It has a distinctly "newsy" feel; I want use a fake newscaster voice when I say it.

If we were to use an informal compression of this sort, desperate for brevity, then the lead section is probably where to do it. A case could also be made for using it when the person(s) being referred to is/are non-notable ("Among those wounded in the mass-shooting were cashier Betty Garcia, and café patrons Jim McSnorkel and April N'gomo."), but people might oppose even in those cases, as also being too newsy. The thing is, though, this lead is not wanting for space; it is not like the four-paragraph monsters at Barack Obama and Electronic cigarette. So, the need does not appear to arise for any kind of heavy-handed textual compression like dropping this use of the. Such clipped constructions can become very awkward, especially when a proper name appears in them. E.g., let's mangle the Harris prose quoted above: "Anyone will notice Christian mystic Meister Eckhart often sounded very much like a Buddhist". That's almost unparseable without reading twice and would be even worse in a screen reader, since "Christian Mystic" would sound like someone's stage name. It reads like something Hunter S. Thompson would write after two joints and half a bottle of whiskey. I confess I often write this way when taking notes (without chemical influence), but we should take pains to decompress such "verbal ZIP files" when writing in articles here. The same goes for a lot of things, like habitual dropping of that in constructions in which people tend to drop it when talking aloud (as in my previous sentence, where I shortened "I confess that I often write this way ..." – note how much informality and parsing difficulty the deletion introduces); use of who when whom is intended; forgetting to expand acronyms on first usage; referring to the United States as "America"; using "US" (or "U.S.", if you insist) as a noun; forgetting the comma after an introduction like "In 1999" or "After moving to Paris"; etc., etc. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but excessive brevity is not, or that very saying would simply be "Brevity is wit."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

PS: Another example, mangling the Tyson material quited above: "Its existence had been predicted just a few years earlier by British-born physicist ..." is awkward, because the construction, by its nature, leads us to expect a collective noun phrase after "British", as in "... by British researchers at the Royal Society of Omphaloskeptics", a construction that would not take the at all, unless in reference to a set of previously mentioned persons.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:07, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish If only his name were Wilhelm Reich III.... I obviously read all of your commentary, there would seem to also be a question about whether all the adjectives in the noun phrase were definite. "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a 2007 book by the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens" reads well while "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a 2007 book by the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens" is confusing. Is this a book or a new story? Another example adds an adjective "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is a 2007 book by the atheist, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens" reads horribly. I feel there is some rule in here, and I am pretty sure it is in the placement of definitive adjectives. Just my $0.002 and I am by no means a grammar expert. Lipsquid (talk) 21:52, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I reverted the first time because it's unnecessary and just sounded worse to my ear, so being that my reason for reverting was essentially "I disagree with this change" I didn't think further explanation than the default undo summary was needed. The definite article there is grammatically acceptable, sure, I just think it sounds worse with it than without it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:36, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

While I can appreciate your intuition, surely there are better reasons to revert edits than our own subjectivity. Dodecaphony sounds aurally pleasant to some, but I wouldn't recommend piping it over speakers at the mall. Jg2904 (talk) 22:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)