I've always said that extensive variants on spelling and
transliterations should go into footnotes and/or a section in the
article itself, rather than in the first sentence of the lead section,
but there is also an argument that people expect to find it in the
first sentence. Where to draw the line when such things begin to
overwhelm the reader, is difficult. Some editors expect readers to
skim past stuff like that if they are not interested in it. Others
want the first sentence to be right there as the first thing the
reader reads, without technical naming stuff getting in the way. YMMV.
Carcharoth
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
Something different to talk about. I have wondered for some time if it
is really the case that we have not addressed the issue of "alias"
names, where the point may simply be alternate spellings. This is not
particularly important for contemporary names that are already
Romanised. It is certainly matters if you go back several centuries,
given that spelling was not standard.
As far as I can see [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)]] doesn't
cover this ground, while dealing with numerous points in the same
general area of naming. My instinct is that multiple possible spellings,
for example surname variants, should go into a footnote or perhaps be
boxed up, as a way of keeping them from distracting the casual reader.
They are certainly of interest to specialists and scholars, and have a
role to play in making search work.
Charles
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