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Lifespan tags are dates in parenthesis which contain the birth and death dates of a person. For example: (1 January 1900 – 1 January 2000).

• The start and end dates should be divided by an en dash, and not a hyphen or em dash.
• If the lifespan tags are of the subject of the article, the en dash should be separated with spaces: (1 January 1900 – 1 January 2000), not (1 January 1900–1 January 2000)
• If the lifespan tags appear in another part of an article, such as being used to give the birth and death date of a person who is not the subject of the article, the dates should be divided with an en dash, but the en dash should not be spaced apart, and should only include the year, not the month and/or day: (1900–2000).
• Lifespan tags should be included in the short description, but only the years: Chinese encyclopedia writer (1900–2000). Except if the article is of a holder of a highly important office position, such as Abraham Lincoln, where the years serving in office are placed instead of lifespan tags.
• If one date is not known, then where the date would go should be replaced with a question mark (?): (? — 1 January 2000; this also goes for the short description.
• If the subject is Living, then put b., followed by their birth date: (b. 1 January 1900.
• Lifespan tags should be included after the article title in set index articles
• Lifespan tags can be used to disambiguate article titles, but only as a last resort. Use occupational titles before lifespan tags, which should be placed after the occupational title, separated with a comma (,): John Doe (businessman, 1900–2000), not John Doe (1900–2000).

Roasted (talk) 20:09, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Isn't most of this covered by MOS:DATERANGE? And I think the abbreviation "b." should (almost) never be used for "born". And the em dash in your "date is not known" example is wrong. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I also think this is largely redundant and not needed. Also, some of it is in conflict with current best practices – for example, short descriptions typically don't include the years of life, unless needed for disambiguation. Which is for the better, as they are meant to be short, after all. Gawaon (talk) 07:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:SDDATES, vital year ranges are not only used where required for disambiguation: As long as the formatting criteria are met, biographies of non-living people, articles on specific publications, and dated historical events generally benefit from dating, but since the description should be kept short, other information may need to take precedence. ... For historical biographies, specific dates such as "1750–1810" are preferred over "18th-century" for clarity. Graham (talk) 05:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The proposal above that "Lifespan tags should be included in the short description" is a far more sweeping injunction than the mild and conditional opening of WP:SDDATES, Dates or date ranges are encouraged when they enhance the short description as an annotation or improve disambiguation and is contrary to the observations you quoted (generally benefit from dating, but since the description should be kept short, other information may need to take precedence). NebY (talk) 13:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

En dash spacing is to do with whether the dates themselves contain spaces/punctuation and therefore need more separation, not with where they appear.

I feel this is a bad idea—it potentially adds another layer of confusion, with similar information appearing in different places and people religiously applying elements of it in situations where they should be using their own judgement. Probably via bots and with no regard to the article's existing style . . .

Also the (businessman, 1900–2000) example implies to me that those are the years when he was a businessman, so I'd want to find a less ambiguous alternative like (businessman; 1900–2000) or an unambiguous one like (1900–2000), businessman. Which would, of course, get corrected back by someone who couldn't see the ambiguity.

Overall I think it's unwise—people should be using the existing advice plus common sense, in my opinion. Musiconeologist (talk) 09:19, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Why? How are WP:SDDATES and MOS:DATERANGE insufficient and how would the imposition of this strict regime giving dates precedence over other information benefit our readers? NebY (talk) 13:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I noticed that in the infobox when adding the lang it (e.g. on the page Bica (coffee)) "media" doesn't work; why? JacktheBrown (talk) 20:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style, it is not a help desk. I don't see how your problem is related to the Manual of Style.

Anyway, {{infobox food}} expects the |name= parameter to be plain text, without markup. You should use |name=Bica|name_lang=pt|name_italics=true. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Per MOS:TYPOFIX "insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected". But, what if the error is in a title being cited? Correcting the error is going to make it hard to find that article if the link changes. E.g. "Neflix star returns to his West Sussex roots". Clearly Neflix means Netflix, at Timothy Innes, and I know some would correct that, but I'm not sure. Thanks for your thoughts. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Don't see any problem correcting the ref title, but of course the underlying url has to be left alone. - Davidships (talk) 22:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I'd correct that without hesitation. Popcornfud (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

As the OP wrote, correcting the typo makes it more difficult to find the article if the link changes and it needs to be found again. I would not correct but give some inline comment <!-- not a typo --> or {{not a typo}}. Other readers will figure out the meaning just as you did. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:35, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

He could correct it and have a hidden comment next to the ref that clarifies what the actual title is. —El Millo (talk) 23:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

@Facu-el Millo: "correct it and have a hidden comment next to the ref that clarifies what the actual title is." I like that. It hides the error. It doesn't require a disruptive {{sic}}. If at some point in the future it needs to be searched for again, the original will be easy to find. I'd probably put it in hidden text right next to the word that was corrected.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Davidships, Popcornfud, Michael Bednarek, and Facu-el Millo: Based on what seems like a consensus above, I propose the following change to the MoS. At the end of the paragraph that ends "be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically).", we could add the sentence If there is a typo in the title of a source, the source could be hard to find after the typo has been corrected, so when correcting the typo, add a hidden note (<!-- -->) near the error to indicate the original text. I hate to add anything which makes the MoS longer and more complicated, but is this worth the distraction? What think you? SchreiberBike | ⌨  11:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Where the ability to find the ref is not compromised because there is an underlying URL (as in this example), this is not necessary; otherwise a [sic] would seem more appropriate. But I am just a passing editor, so I leave this to those with broader persective on MOS. - Davidships (talk) 12:06, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this is such a rare borderline case that it doesn't deserve to be mentioned. I also have some doubts that it's really necessary. Presumably, when the original URL disappears, people will just enter it into the Wayback Machine and hopefully retrieve it there. If not, they may google it, but search engines are fairly tolerant of misspellings and I suppose the typo-corrected title may be nearly as findable as the original one. Maybe more so, if the publisher had in the meantime spotted and corrected the typo. Gawaon (talk) 12:54, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike I think it's too specific—it's OK to draw attention to it as a issue to be aware of when editing, and maybe suggest possibilities for handling it, but prescribing which to choose seems premature. Something like One way to handle this is . . . seems better. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

That is, the recommendation would be to bear the issue in mind when correcting a title. Use of a hidden note would be an example rather than a guideline. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:55, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Gawaon's point: it's rarely occurring and not worth mentioning. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the notion that a source may be harder to find the the typo is silently correct, but a hidden note cannot be the best solution to this. This matter would be relevant not only to editors like us but also to several external users (e.g. non-Wiki researches) who will not even be aware that such a hidden note exists. The format of such notes will also be wildly inconsistent. The simplest solution here, in my opinion, would be to leave the typos as-is. They are not in the prose text, so they don't really hurt anyone except maybe AWB typo searchers; a [sic], either unlinked ({{sic|pronounciation|nolink=yes}}) or hidden ({{sic|pronounciation|hide=yes}}) would solve even that. IceWelder [✉] 05:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I have to say I think you're right. The typo is part of the information about the source or about how to find it (depending whose typo it is), so a correct citation includes the typo. Hiding the typo, or leaving the reader to guess whether it's ours or not, would be putting aesthetics before accuracy. Musiconeologist (talk) 10:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

We do allow silently correcting harmless typos (MOS:TYPOFIX), that was the starting point of the discussion. Hopefully, reliable sources won't often have typos in titles, but if they do, there is no reason to treat them differently from any other typo. Gawaon (talk) 10:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm a confirmed gnome and I've got a collection of delicious errors that I go through every once in a while to make corrections. In the past I would mark errors in titles with {{sic}}, but then other editors would correct them with the explanation "insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected" and not leave any sign of the original error. This is a small problem as a percentage, but there are at least thousands, and a surprising number of the errors are in quality sources. (Over the last day I've made corrections linking MOS:TITLETYPOCON 61 times, 35 of them for twelvth.) I agree that a hidden note is not a perfect solution, but it's the best I've seen so far. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the point here is that in a title, it's not necessarily an "insignificant typo" (in the words of that section) and not necessarily 100% harmless. So there can be a reason to treat the individual typo differently when editing. (I'm saying that a reason has been given in the discussion, based on the reader's potential needs, and that it's made me change my mind.) But the situation doesn't need treating differently in our advice, since it's a matter of judgement about a specific typo. It's treated the same in that the editor uses their own judgement as to whether it's significant. But the outcome of their judgement might be different for the particular case. Musiconeologist (talk) 12:53, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I've boldly added the shortcut MOS:TITLETYPOCON to the top of this discussion to make it easy to link to this consensus without adding clutter to the Manual of Style. I've only seen that done once before, so I'm not sure if others will agree that this is helpful. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Apart from the colour, the "correct" and "incorrect" examples under Quotation marks and internal links both display identically and behave identically when I click them. So the only way to compare them is to open up the section for editing. Maybe include a code snippet for each? Not necessarily the whole fragment—I'm thinking perhaps just [[" "]] and "[[ ]]" so things don't get too cluttered.

NB I've not checked for other instances of this—I just happen to have encountered this one. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In the correct example, the quotation marks are outside of the linked title, while in the incorrect one they are part of the link text. If you look closely, you should see it. Gawaon (talk) 13:42, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can come up with a way to make the difference more obvious. EEng 13:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Gawaon I did, and in the app they appeared as part of the link in both cases. Musiconeologist (talk) 14:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, scrub that. The difference is visible in the app. I had to take a screenshot then zoom in. Apologies. I might add something about them showing in the link colour in one and in the surrounding text colour in the other. Musiconeologist (talk) 15:31, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I've now made the change, before seeing the replies. I decided it was minor enough to just do it. Feel free to change it if something else would be better. Edit: I've since changed it, to a brief comment noting whether the quotes are the same colour as the link or as the surrounding text in each case. Musiconeologist (talk) 14:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I took the liberty to revert that since I think that your earlier version (with the code examples) was actually more helpful. Gawaon (talk) 17:40, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Gawaon Thanks—I saw just after saving a change here. I'm happy with that. Musiconeologist (talk) 17:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In the MOS, it uses the example "The article about The Wachowskis, for example, is better without any pre-coming-out photos since the way they looked is not well known as they shied away from public appearances.", yet their article does include pre-coming-out photos, should the images in the article be removed, or should a new example be found?
Thanks,
I can do stuff! (talk) 03:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think any specific example is required for this guideline—what it means should be obvious to the reader. Remsense诉 03:48, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Currently the MOS sidebar template "By topic area" includes "Regional", which links to vaguely language-related and language-region cross-topics. However, the MOS has significant subpages on specific languages which are very difficult to find on main page navigation -- basically I have to guess. Furthermore, there is no corresponding Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (languages) (or similar, something like which can be made immediately).

For example, under the sidebar is linked WP:Naming conventions (geographic names); but going through the sidebar to MOS/Korea-related articles, we are linked to WP:Naming conventions (Korean), which is then part of a large category of language conventions with lots of near-orphans. Additionally, there is no way to access stalled proposed guidelines that may be served as essays for the time being, or do with eyes for improvement, such as MOS/Arabic (which by the way is not linked in a regional category, but under MOS/Islam-related articles).

There's a lot of potential disentangling and cleanup to do between region, language, and culture guidelines (or not); or some could be referred back to subpages of WP:WikiProject Languages instead of here as P&G. Regardless, all MOS pages need to be somehow findable, because usually it seems people don't even realize they exist. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

An additional orphan: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (foreign languages) (just 2004), whereas the only way to navigate archives is the WT:MOS/Archive index -- I found this by chance using the search box, so there are probably other orphaned MOS Talk Page archives? SamuelRiv (talk) 22:32, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

What is the WP:MOS policy on usage of --> vs → ( aka right-arrow / U+2192 ) ?

We should be allowed to use hyphens for titles because it causes fewer problems. This is what Geiger-Marsden article URL is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experiments

It's ugly and weird. A hyphen will look so much better. Kurzon (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger-Marsden_experiments already works, it's a redirect. Gawaon (talk) 06:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems a bit pedantic, though. Why is hyphen bad but en dash good? Does it have to do with an algorithm? Kurzon (talk) 13:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

No, just the general rules of English on when to use which punctuation. See MOS:DASH. Gawaon (talk) 13:03, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

OK then. Change the rule so that we can use hyphens. They look the same to humans, it's only the computer who can tell the difference. Why is this such a big deal? Kurzon (talk) 13:27, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm a computer, but I see the difference. Gawaon (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

It's like commas and periods. If you're not sensitized to the tiny difference, you might say they look the same. But the distinction matters a lot, though I'm not saying that that the dash-hyphen (or dash–hyphen) distinction carries quite the same import. EEng 14:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I imagine someone in France might be more interested in French–Canadian politics than French-Canadian politics, say.

The visual difference shouldn't be tiny in a font that distinguishes properly: a hyphen is usually half the length of an en dash. But we're typically editing in a monospaced font, which makes it a lot less visible. So an editing preference that automatically converts double hyphens to en dashes and a triple ones to em dashes when saving might be helpful. I'm not sure where one makes the feature request for that. Musiconeologist (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

As always, Phabricator. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:31, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Also, merge U and V back together, as well as I and J and I'm not kidding. Remsense诉 14:08, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Which raises a question: why do we have all four of those letters in the article titles in Category:Latin words and phrases, anyway? —David Eppstein (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Because they were originally invented for use in Latin, corresponding to phonemic distinctions in Latin! Ofc ditto C and G for completeness's sake. Their use then apparently continued in the language until... it says 2777 AUC here, wow! How auspicious. Remsense诉 15:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

It's because it's common for style guides to recommend an em dash for joining two nouns in this way. Remsense诉 13:04, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Jesus F. Christ, my proposal isn't so ridiculous! Kurzon (talk) 12:30, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors are reluctant to use their power to influence English usage in this way (i.e., deprecating the en-dash for joining equal terms). Possibly the only punctuation issues where enwiki does put its thumb on the scale are date formats and the use of "logical punctuation" for quotations. Newimpartial (talk) 12:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Their counter-arguments are rather specious. Kurzon (talk) 12:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd add that (i) it's an essentially universal convention among publishers, (ii) using the wrong one changes the meaning and thereby removes or adds information, and (iii) using the wrong one gives the text an amateurish appearance. Discussions like this one arise because in the past, the choice of -/–/— was taken care of by printers and publishers, so authors had less need to know about it: it was just part of printing well-presented text. The different meanings looked different, without the reader necessarily being conscious of why.

A hyphen joins two things, an en dash juxtaposes them, and an em dash separates them—which is how the different lengths make it look. (I think it's partly from a hyphen being narrower than a normal space and an em dash being wider, so one pulls the words together and the other pushes them apart, while an en dash does neither.)Musiconeologist (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Well here I am talking about presentation, namely the URL. But also a hyphen is easier to type, there's a key for it. Kurzon (talk) 11:42, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

So? You only need to type it once. Remsense诉 14:32, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kurzon: AnomieBOT has a bot task that creates redirects for articles with titling containing en-dashes, making this a non-factor. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

A user argued that use of quote box within the article does not constitute a "pull quote" within the context of MOS:PQ, because it is not repeating something in the article. Although, the editorial intent is obviously Wikipedia editor's desire to accentuate and bring more attention to that part than rest of the article, so I believe it is considered pull quote for the intent of the guideline. Please help with the interpretation of the meaning of "pull quote" as used on Wikipedia as used in Boy_Scouts_of_America#Program Graywalls (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, repeating something or displaying it prominently obviously needs to consider additional NPOV concerns. Remsense诉 14:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

A pull quote is an extract pulled from the material within which it's embedded to highlight it. A quotation from an outside source is not a pull quote, it's just a quote, even if it's given special emphasis. However, making arbitrary quotes in articles pretty is not advisable. See, for example, the documentation at {{Quote box}}. Largoplazo (talk) 15:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

People have been repeating this stuff about POV for years and it's thoughtless nonsense. Judgment must be exercised, and the use cases are limited, but a highlighted quote need be POV no more than does a block quote in the article proper, or a photo caption. EEng 20:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought the point was that choosing to highlight a particular quote is itself POV, not just providing it for verification or illustration purposes but giving it undue emphasis. It's perhaps the same as MOS:NOTETHAT; beginning a sentence in an article with "Note that" implies that what immediately follows should is merits note—as though the rest of the article doesn't so much. In both cases, we should let the reader assess the significance of each piece of information given in the article without cuing them as to what we think deserves special attention by them. Largoplazo (talk) 21:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

It's POV if it's POV, and its undue if its undue. We make editorial decisions about what to include or not include, what to put in the lead or not put in the lead, what to emphasize or not emphasize, all the time. Quote boxes are just one more such decision. EEng 14:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It matters a bit more than those elements because highlighted quotes are a bit more distinctive than them, is what I think the common sense idea is. Remsense诉 21:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

The redirect Mos:english idioms has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 10 § Mos:english idioms until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 00:14, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

While I realize it's not part of the MOS, I'm curious about other editors' thoughts on Wikipedia:The problem with false titles, an essay that was created a couple months back. The essay basically states we should be using articles ("the" mainly) before nouns. The essay and the author purport that the construction "The documentary follows American songwriter Bob Dylan" is incorrect while "The documentary follows the American songwriter Bob Dylan" is correct. I (and others, based on activity I've seen on my watch list) feel the latter is incorrect, but I wanted to see what editors more versed in style guidance have to say about it. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:19, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

This essay was actually created more than a year ago, but was moved following a moving discussion a couple of months ago.

It's an opinion essay. Editors will either be persuaded by the arguments of the essay or they won't. I personally don't feel this is a matter for the MOS, per WP:MOSBLOAT. Popcornfud (talk) 17:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Can't be anything wrong with seeking more input, is there? Clarinetguy097 (talk) 17:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Everyone must write in exactly my dialect of English. Everyone who uses a slightly different dialect with different usage of articles is incorrect and I demand that we immediately fix all articles in our articles to conform with my dialect.

To be clear: in my dialect, unlike the essay author's, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "The documentary follows American songwriter Bob Dylan". "Bob Dylan" does not take an article by itself, and "American songwriter" is a noun adjunct, not a standalone noun. In phrases with noun adjuncts, the article goes with the modified noun, not the adjunct: in "the chicken soup bowl", "the" modifies "bowl", not "chicken" or "soup". Because "Bob Dylan" does not take an article, "American songwriter Bob Dylan" also does not take an article.

But I guess there is nothing surprising or actionable about someone being wrong in a Wikipedia essay. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:59, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I too think that there is nothing wrong with not using an article in such cases, it's just a stylistic choice. Hence the problem with the essay may be that its own title is false. Gawaon (talk) 18:24, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

My concern is that editors, like Popcornfud from above, have been going around adding "the" to articles unnecessarily based on that essay. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 18:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Then people who disagree can put it back. See other style essays arguing a point, such as WP:RESPECTIVELY, WP:COMPRISEDOF, WP:AVOIDCYBER, etc. Popcornfud (talk) 18:39, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't really understand what we gain by saying the same thing with more words. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:59, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

For readers like me, a change of register to a more objective and neutral one. The literal meaning is the same, but is only part of what's communicated. But I suspect that whether there's a difference depends on which variety of English the reader uses. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

To me there's nothing unobjective or non-neutral about omitting the article. This sort of phrasing is merely a convenient way of sandwiching in a brief explanation: "American songwriter Bob Dylan" is a shorter way of writing something like "Bob Dylan, who happens to be an American songwriter". In contrast, to me, writing "the American songwriter Bob Dylan" comes across as the more opinionated, "Bob Dylan, the only American songwriter worthy of being called THE American songwriter". —David Eppstein (talk) 21:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting. There's a definite difference in how we read it, then. I'm sure it must be regional. It's hard to put my finger on. The closest I've got is that I hear the version without the as inviting the reader to have an opinion about the information or draw an inference from it. It's quite subtle though, and not always there. What is always there is a feeling that it's slightly too journalistic in tone. (NB this is all from the POV of my own BrE usage.) The emphasis that you mention isn't there at all for me, and is pretty much excluded by the lack of commas around Bob Dylan.

So we can't win: there are two different defaults. The one that someone uses will sound neutral to them, and the other will carry some emphasis. Different varieties of English do have slightly different grammar, and that's probably what we're up against here. Musiconeologist (talk) 22:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, to me it's a matter of: to what does the "the" attach? It can't be Bob Dylan, because personal names don't take articles, so it must be "the American songwriter". And if it's attached that way, it must be a parallel phrase, two noun phrases used to repeatedly describe the same person: "bon vivant, raconteur, man about town". And what could "the American songwriter" mean as a standalone noun phrase, but a person worthy of being called "the" American songwriter?

In contrast, as I said above, in "American songwriter Bob Dylan" without an article and without a comma, "American songwriter" is just a noun adjunct, a descriptive phrase in the grammatical form of a noun but used as an adjective. It doesn't take "the" because that kind of phrase doesn't take an article, and it doesn't have any meaning beyond being a descriptive phrase saying that the person to whom it attaches is an American songwriter. You might be more likely to use this phrasing for people less famous than Bob Dylan who actually need an explanation, "American sports climber "Bob" Dillon Countryman", a different person with a different description. You could equally well write "an American sports climber, "Bob" Dillon Countryman", with an article and a comma, but the article is indefinite, the grammar is different, and you're just using more words and more pauses to mean the same thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I really can't get my head around how "the American songwriter Bob Dylan" carries this meaning for you. It should be identical to the function of "the" in sentences such as "Harrison Ford appears in the film Star Wars" (which does not suggest that Star Wars is the only thing worthy of being called a film) or "Susan took the dog, Rex, for a walk" (ditto). Surely you wouldn't remove "the" from those sentences...? Popcornfud (talk) 22:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't write them with that grammar. "Harrison Ford appeared in a film, Star Wars", or "Harrison Ford appeared in Star Wars, the film" (as in, the film version of Star Wars, not some other version) but to me "the film Star Wars" with no comma is outright ungrammatical, a miscapitalization of "the film star wars" meaning a certain sequence of wars involving film stars. And "Susan took her dog, Rex, for a walk" (again, with a comma: two parallel noun phrases) or maybe "Susan took a dog, Rex for a walk". I might use "the dog, Rex" only in a situation where "the dog" could be used by itself, because there is only one dog (in the context of the sentence; maybe it is set in a house where there is only one dog). —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Forgive me, but if you think the sentence "Harrison Ford appears in the film Star Wars" is ungrammatical, I don't really know where to proceed in this conversation... Popcornfud (talk) 23:14, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

The particular songwriter who is Bob Dylan! Nothing more than that. Not "the only songwriter, who is Bob Dylan". The attaches to songwriter, and Bob Dylan specifies which one is meant by the. Musiconeologist (talk) 22:33, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

To mean "The particular songwriter who is Bob Dylan" I would have to write "the songwriter named Bob Dylan" or some such phrasing that makes "songwriter" the main noun. In "the songwriter, Bob Dylan" the two nouns are parallel and in "songwriter Bob Dylan" the first one is an adjunct to the second. In the phrasing with two parallel nouns, each has to be able to stand on its own, so to use a definite article "the songwriter" would have to be unambiguous. And an adjunct cannot take an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

What you're explaining makes perfect sense—it just differs from the structure my own brain uses to parse the sentence. The songwriter→ "Ah, right, that's probably the subject then, but I still need to know what the means" → "It means that one". Musiconeologist (talk) 23:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

To clarify the structure: Without commas, I read it as (the (songwriter who is Bob Dylan)), not as (the songwriter)(who is Bob Dylan). Musiconeologist (talk) 23:06, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I became aware of this issue a few days ago, when someone commented that the version without the was American rather than British usage. In an edit summary, I think. To me (British) it feels uncomfortable in normal writing, and probably wrong, but commonly used in journalese. Like the habit of replacing and with a comma: breaking the grammar to save a word that is needed for the sentence to flow properly. It feels like writing part of the sentence in note form. (These are my thoughts without looking at the essay. So they're not influenced by it, but don't take it into account either.)

I'm not sure it's strictly incorrect in BrE, but I definitely dislike it.

Update: I've read the essay now, and I pretty much agree with all of it, except that I wonder whether AmE is different. It seems to be saying the same thing I did above. Maybe I feel the "sensationalising" aspect less strongly than the author. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I've seen it suggested before that false titles are more widely accepted in AmE, but I don't know if it's true. It could be... But I've also found major American organizations that advise against it, such as the New York Times and Garner's Modern English Usage. Popcornfud (talk) 19:01, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes people who use one variety of English just assume that a feature they don't like must belong to another variety, so it's hard to say. I might well be doing that myself. Musiconeologist (talk) 19:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that the American songwriter Bob Dylan means the Bob Dylan who's an American songwriter or The American songwriter who's called Bob Dylan. To imply there was only one American songwriter you'd need a comma after songwriter. Musiconeologist (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

The information at WP:FALSETITLE is persuasive for me to look up to it as a style guide, similar to the fashion of other essays like WP:RECEPTION or WP:ELEVAR (both of which I use personally as style guides for my writing). FALSETITLE is not an official policy but editors who deem it useful can look up to it as a style guide. Regional differences might arise, so the issue can be discussed in certain WikiProjects in order to gain consensus on a Project-level (For instance all articles within Wikipedia:WikiProject Taylor Swift follow FALSETITLE, as do recently-promoted FAs of David Bowie albums like The Next Day or Low). Ippantekina (talk) 02:26, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

This worries me. As Musiconeologist observed above: "So we can't win: there are two different defaults." For some people the use of such article-less expressions is entirely natural, for others it's slightly non-standard and journalistic. However, WP:FALSETITLE frames it as if there's only one right way, the other being wrong. It claims "False titles originated in newspaper writing" which is unsourced (or weakly sourced) and may be wrong, and it boldly concludes that this usage is "inappropriate for an encylopedia". Which is nonsense from the viewpoint of those for which this usage is standard. Yes, I know that the article is labelled as an "essay", but it still is in the Wikipedia namespace, and apparently some WikiProjects treat it as gospel from which deviations are not allowed. While actually it misrepresents mere opinions as facts. I think we should seriously consider moving it out of the Wikipedia namespace (and deleting the WP:FALSETITLE shortcut) to preventing this kind of thing from happening in the future. Gawaon (talk) 06:37, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

WP shortcuts to userspace are acceptable, so the shortcut should probably be kept. If you want to argue for userfication of the essay, you'd probably need to WP:MFD it. Maybe see if there's any other support for that here first before starting an MFD. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Does a template exist that displays something like "This essay might be specific to some regional varieties of English and not others. The opinions expressed might be widely accepted by users of one variety but not by users of another"? (Assuming the difference is regional.) Musiconeologist (talk) 09:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

This is frustrating. I created this essay a year ago in my user namespace purely as a way to explain why I remove false titles, which I can link to in edit summaries. This version of the essay contained a disclaimer assuring people that if they were not persuaded by my argument then they could revert my removal of a false title and I would respect the WP:STATUSQUO. I do not see false titles as a big issue.

Two months ago, someone kicked up a fuss about my linking to the essay using WP shortcuts, saying this should only be done with essays in Wikipedia namespace. I therefore moved it into Wikipedia namespace. I then removed the status-quo disclaimer after someone told me namespace essays shouldn't use first-person language. A move discussion then followed in which the consensus seemed to find that it didn't need to have been moved from my userspace in the first place. Shrug. The whole thing seems to have become a molehill-mountain situation. Popcornfud (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

You voluntarily moving it back to your userspace, and/or adding the disclaimer back, might be an option to explore. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I would appreciate that too! Like I said, having it in the Wikipedia namespace, where it can easily be interpreted as (at least) semi-official advice, worries me somewhat. Gawaon (talk) 10:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I kind of hoped that the banner at the top saying "this is an opinion and not Wikipedia policy" etc would alleviate that risk.

If the real controversy here is not actually my essay, but whether opinion-essays in the "wrong" namespace might be misinterpreted as policy, then maybe there should be a different debate happening about that.

In any case, I'll look into moving the essay back as it was never my intention to have it in Wikipedia namespace in the first place. Popcornfud (talk) 10:44, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I feel there are a couple of underlying issues, and neither of them is really about your essay. One is people wanting to edit by rigid rules, when good editing is about getting a feel for subtleties of the language and and weighing up their effect in a given situation, and the other is a tendency to treat shortcuts as if they were citations to a legal document rather than just a convenient way to find things. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:58, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify that by "we can't win" I just meant that someone aiming to choose the always-correct form is doomed to fail since either is wrong for some people. I didn't mean "we who must decide a policy or take some action". I was exploring the usage question. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:41, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It seems like this discussion already de-escalated, but I'm curious if there's any precedent for style controversies to be handled on a WikiProject by WikiProject basis. (For my own part, I'm starting to suspect that the trends in usage are in fact region-based.) Clarinetguy097 (talk) 17:42, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand why some are so worked up by this essay when there is already a banner saying explicitly "This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines" right at the top, as well as a status-quo disclaimer at the bottom. This belongs to a plethora of similar existing essays and I don't see a valid reason to "delete it from the Wikipedia namespace". I see some interpretations that this essay (sort of) "frames that false title is completely wrong (or similar)", which are awful miscomprehensions of what it is trying to say. Ippantekina (talk) 16:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, it says that anyone who doesn't follow its advice writes in a style "that's inappropriate for an encylopedia". That's a fairly strong wording, which can cause strong reactions. Gawaon (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I have a feeling that we should try not to stir those up again, though . . . I'm very glad things have calmed down. (I wouldn't have replied to the original query if I'd realised what was going to kick off.) Musiconeologist (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Really it just explains why they can seem a bit odd to some of us, while recognising that others might disagree. Musiconeologist (talk) 16:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Background: Based on MOS:ELLIPSES, I had edited one of my own sentences, placing a fourth period inside the closing quotation mark because that is what I thought MOS:ELLIPSIS instructed. But it just did not look right to me.

I consulted Garner's Modern English Usage (4th ed.) and searched the Wikipedia Manual of Style. I found MOS:LQ, which naturally agrees with Garner.

Then to the Teahouse, where I posted: MOS:ELLIPSES and MOS:LQ seem contradictory, and I received an affirming reply from Mike Turnbull.

I therefore added one period and an explanatory sentence to the MOS:ELLIPSES section, as follows.

Before edit: Jones wrote: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ..."

After edit: Jones wrote: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...". (Note that the period ending the sentence should be placed outside the quotation mark; see MOS:LQ.)

All the best – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I've undone your edit, since I think this requires further discussion. Especially since the quoted example spans multiple sentences, I think it should rather be written as "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...." – three periods marking the omission, and the fourth marking the end of the sentence, which supposedly happens in the quoted text too, and can therefore be enclosed in the quotation marks. Gawaon (talk) 18:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

If the quoted text ended in a period, why would we include an ellipsis? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

This is a good question. Or rather, the question is: why would one ever need an ellipsis at the end of the quotation, if logical style is used. If one writes "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully". (with the period after the quote mark), this already indicates that the final period is not part of the quote. Hence no ellipsis is needed, even if the original sentence continues. Gawaon (talk) 18:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps my understanding is flawed.

Which of the following is correct?

1. "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ..."
2. "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...".
3. "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...."
4. "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations."

Note: The quoted text occurs in the middle of a long sentence, i.e., the sentence continues after the word, evaluations.

Many thanks – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 21:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

If that's supposed to be a quote within a paragraph, no ellipsis is needed at either side. Put in context, it might read: Some experts recommend "the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations".

More interesting is the case that one wants to set it as a blockquote. It's too short for that, but we can ignore that. In a blockquote, there are no quotation marks and it's hence not possible to put anything "outside the quotation marks", so some kind of quote-final ellipsis seems necessary. Personally I'd tend to put four periods here (three for the ellipsis, one to end the sentence), though admittedly that's not what the MOS currently seems to recommend:

The use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations....

Gawaon (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I had thought #2 is correct because, per WP:INOROUT: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 22:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

True as far as the punctuation is concerned, but there is still no need for an ellipsis, which will usually only be needed in the middle of quotations. I'm afraid MOS:ELLIPSES is in pretty bad shape since it doesn't reflect that and rather works with toy examples which have nothing to do with encyclopedic usage. Gawaon (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thank you, that helps. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:35, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

MapReader, regarding your latest edit: consider the text right after the example, which says: "Place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis only if it is textually important, as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks but rarely with periods." Nevertheless adding a period here contracts this recommendation and makes the example contradictory. I would suggest you self-revert until this is resolved. Gawaon (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Separating the two quotation marks is textually important, to avoid “sentence one…””sentence two”, which is clunky and clumsy. But if it’s all one continuous quote, it would be better (and probably meet both of our needs) if the middle quotation marks were removed and the sentences run together, separated by the ellipsis. My edit is better than what was there before, but the latter would be better still. MapReader (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, my understanding is that the two examples are indeed meant as two examples that are completely unrelated to each other. If there was just one quote, surely one would write something like "sentence one ... sentence two" without intervening quotation marks. Gawaon (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

This part is right: the fourth [dot] marking the end of the sentence, which supposedly happens in the quoted text too, and can therefore be enclosed in the quotation marks. If the original read, e.g., "... The facts suffer so frightfully at the hands of Johnson and his writing.", the "." is part of the original material, so can properly be included inside the quotation. If the quoted text ended in a period, why would we include an ellipsis? Because material has been editorially removed from the original quoted material (in my example case, it's the "at the hands of Johnson and his writing" string). Which of the following is correct? Depends on the original material. In most cases, this will be valid: "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...." unless the original material actually ended with "evaluations." There would not be a true need for ... veterans' evaluations ...". unless for some reason the original material did not end with "." after the elided material, perhaps because it had "!" or "?", or because it was itself terminated originally with "...", or was a title/headline/caption/table header/etc. with no terminal punctuation at all. However, using ... veterans' evaluations ...". doesn't actually break anything, and there might be a preference for this the more fragementary the quoted material is. If it's 20% of a sentence, I would probably go with that, but if the quote is 90% of a sentence and just lopped off an extraneous parenthetical comment (especially an inline parenethetical citation in an academic paper), I would be more inclined to use ... veterans' evaluations ...." which suggests a "complete thought", as it were.

I'll repeat what I always say: LQ is not difficult in any way, and people need to stop trying to manufacture ways to make it difficult. Include inside the quotation marks only the content (including puncutation) of the original quoted material and do not change it (except as noted later here); do not include inside the quotation marks content (including punctuation) that is not in the original quoted material, and that includes changing one puncutation mark to another (this is principally how LQ differs from typical British styles, which do permit such "silent" alterations, as in {{"'Not today,' he said", with "." altered to ","). If it is editorially desirable to change content inside the punctuation, this is done with [square-bracketed] insertions, or in the case of ellision with "...". The ultra-academic, usually redundant style "[...]" is not necessary, except when the quoted material contains its own original "...". That's really all there is to it.

avoid “sentence one…””sentence two”: Yes, there is no reason to ever do that. If you were quotating the same material, you'd just fuse the quotations: "Sentence one .... Sentence two.", if the first is a fragment; but it would be "Sentence one. ... Sentence two.", if two complete sentences were quoted with intevening material elided.) If you were quoting two different parties and thus couldn't merge them into one quote, they would be separated, and probably have introductory clauses making it clear which speaker/writer is which.

PS: If anyone's still not clear why it's "evaluations ..." not " evaluations...", it's because the latter indicates a truncated word not a truncated passage. The ambiguity doesn't really come up with a word like "evaluations" but does with words like "which" and "there" and "as", for which longer words exist like "whichever" and "therefore" and "aside", which could have been truncated.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

PPS, regarding If one writes "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully". (with the period after the quote mark), this already indicates that the final period is not part of the quote. Hence no ellipsis is needed, even if the original sentence continues. Doing it that way would not an error, but it depends on editors and readers alike being 100% involved with LQ, which is obvioiusly not the reality. Various of our editors just DGaF and write however they like, leaving it to other editors to clean up after them later, so our readers (who even notice such puncuation matters at all) cannot depend entirely on the terminal "." having been placed correctly (and various of them would not pick up any implication from the placement anyway). When just quoting an isolated fragment like "Johson called it a 'disaster' in a press conference two days later", this really doesn't matter, but when quoting one or more full sentences followed by a fragment it is sensible (and zero cost/harm of any kind) to make it clear to the reader than the entire quoted material is ending with a fragment: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...." It is better to let the reader know that something is a fragment when they cannot already be entirely certain of this from other clues. Always remember that our goal is to communicate as clearly as we can, not to reduce our typography to the shortest imaginable output; this is not a "coding elegance" contest among hackers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I have a much better understanding now. The sentence I wrote in another article that launched me down this rabbit hole was "20% of a sentence" so it's good to know I got it right the first time. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Support for … _{(unicode ellipsis, U+2026)} is widespread now. The decision to prefer ... over … was made 15-20 years ago when unicode support was nascent.