Sorry, my example was incorrect. I meant [[Pennsylvania Dutch|Pennsylvania German]]. I always get confused with the direction -- that's why I think the syntax should be [[foo->bar]], not [[bar|foo]]. Indeed.

The main problem are double redirects; especially with titles that are under dispute, people prefer to link to the current version. This is perfectly reasonable. In any case, if we can choose an article title that is both more likely to be used in other articles and academically correct, I think it's obvious we should do it. Regards, Erik

There's no reason to put correct in quotation marks here if nobody disagrees other than by mere habit. And if that is so, it is proper for an encyclopedia to use the correct term. That's why the Britannica uses "Ockham's Razor". Using the Google popularity test for article titles is unprofessional. To pick an analogy: Based on Hollywood and TV movies, many people believe that cars will explode after a heavy crash, which often leads them to escape the vehicles quickly instead of trying to save others who are still in them. Wikipedia will correctly point out that it is an error, because there is nobody who factually disagrees with it. Try googling for it. 16K vs 26K in Google - hardly "by far" the more prevalent and preferred. What matters is not just the number of sites, but also the type of sites.

Jonathan Walther wrote: ? I saw no disrespect. He has a point. I'm not sure I go with him all the way, but there *is* an important point here. --Jimbo

At 05:20 PM 2/9/03 -0500, the Cunctator wrote: <snip> I agree. In this particular case, we're not dealing with a long-dead philosopher: we're dealing with the language of a thriving community. The question is, or should be, _what terms do they use_? In particular, what terms do they use when they're speaking English? (In Pennsylvania Dutch, I suspect they call it "Deutsch".) Certainly, the region is called the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, not the Pennsylvania German Country. Googling won't get you this one--the Amish avoid the Internet. -- Vicki Rosenzweig vr(a)redbird.org http://www.redbird.org

Of course, "German" is no more Deutsch (or Dietsch) than "Dutch" is. "Dutch" is at least cognate with what they call themselves in their own language, whereas "German" is is a Celtic name that has never been used by any of the many Teutonic peoples. Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

Nastiness doesn't get you anywhere, Clutch. A quick Google search found http://druidry.org/obod/druid-path/celts_saxons.html which said, in part, "The ancient Germans and Celts had many things in common so culturally it might be more correct to group them all together as Northwest Europeans rather than separate them politically". How much research have you done on the issue? Germanii were only one tribe, anyway, weren't they? Zoe Jonathan Walther &lt;krooger(a)debian.org&gt; wrote:On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 08:38:54PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote: According to Tacitus, 2000 years ago they were calling themselves something cognate with "Germanii", which was the Roman word for them. How did German suddenly become a "Celtic" word? What research can you show to back up that assertion? How can I trust other information you add to Wikipedia articles if it has a similar amount of research behind it? Jonathan -- Geek House Productions, Ltd. Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting, QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation, General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998 Phone: 604-435-1205 Email: djw(a)reactor-core.org Webpage: http://reactor-core.org Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC V5R2W2 --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now

|From: Jonathan Walther &lt;krooger(a)debian.org&gt; |Content-Disposition: inline |Sender: wikien-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org |Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 19:02:48 -0800 | | |--K8nIJk4ghYZn606h |Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed |Content-Disposition: inline |Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable | |On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 08:38:54PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote: |> |>Of course, "German" is no more Deutsch (or Dietsch) than "Dutch" is. |>"Dutch" is at least cognate with what they call themselves in their |>own language, whereas "German" is is a Celtic name that has never been |>used by any of the many Teutonic peoples. | |According to Tacitus, 2000 years ago they were calling themselves |something cognate with "Germanii", which was the Roman word for them. |How did German suddenly become a "Celtic" word? What research can you |show to back up that assertion? How can I trust other information you |add to Wikipedia articles if it has a similar amount of research behind |it? | |Jonathan | | Hi there, Jonathon, Of course, that was a contribution to the mailing list, not the Wikipedia, but I did look it up first. The Oxford English Dictionary and Grimm are a little bit more reliable than Tacitus for the meaning of words, don't you think? And, of course, Latin picked up words from other languages, such as Celtic. Tacitus may have been right, but I did not make it up. Why would I have done that? So, here you go (from OED): German, a.2 and n.2 Also germayne, germaine, germane. [ad. L. German-us, used, as adj. and n., as the designation of persons belonging to a group of related peoples inhabiting central and northern Europe, and speaking the dialects from which the "Germanic" or "Teutonic" languages have been developed. The name does not appear to have been applied to these peoples by themselves, or to be explicable from Teut. sources. A view widely held is that it was the name given by the Gauls to their neighbours; the Celtic derivations suggested are from OIr. "gair" neighbour (Zeuss) and from Irish "gairm" battle-cry (Wachter, Grimm). According to Muellenhoff, "Germani" was originally the name of a group of Celtic peoples in north-eastern Gaul, was transferred from these to their Teutonic conquerors, and afterwards extended to all the Teutonic peoples.] <snip bit about pronuciation that wouldn't render in ascii> In English use the word does not occur until the 16th c., the n. appearing in our quots. earlier than the adj. The older designations were Almain and Dutch (Dutchman); the latter, however, was wider in meaning. Note also that "Dutch" for the language and people is older than "German", harking back to the original discussion. Hoping this finds you well, I remain, Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

|From: Jonathan Walther &lt;krooger(a)debian.org&gt; |Content-Disposition: inline |Sender: wikien-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org |Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 22:10:43 -0800 | | |--neYutvxvOLaeuPCA |Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed |Content-Disposition: inline |Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable | |On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 10:35:33PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote: |>Of course, that was a contribution to the mailing list, not the |>Wikipedia, but I did look it up first. The Oxford English Dictionary |>and Grimm are a little bit more reliable than Tacitus for the meaning |>of words, don't you think? And, of course, Latin picked up words from |>other languages, such as Celtic. Tacitus may have been right, but I |>did not make it up. Why would I have done that? | |Tacitus was "on the ground" so to speak. He referenced his sources, and |did a lot of legwork. He is the closest thing to a reliable, first-hand |witness we have. I don't care to spend a lot of time debunking modern |historical revisionists who have political axes to grind. | |Jonathan | |--=20 | Geek House Productions, Ltd. | | Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting, | QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation, | General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998 | |Phone: 604-435-1205 |Email: djw(a)reactor-core.org |Webpage: http://reactor-core.org |Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC V5R2W2 | |--neYutvxvOLaeuPCA |Content-Type: application/pgp-signature |Content-Disposition: inline | | |--neYutvxvOLaeuPCA-- |_______________________________________________ |WikiEN-l mailing list |WikiEN-l(a)wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l | Well, now we see you as you are, Jonathan, It's easier, I guess, to go on about Tacitus if you cut out the part where you insulted me and said I had done no research and the part where I answered your insult and proved you dead wrong by showing you my research. (Unedited exchange below). Silly me, I thought you'd be apologizing this morning, not adding more falsehood and insults. I don't have any axe to grind. I pointed out that the debate about the corrrectness of "Pennsylvania German" versus "Pennsylvania Dutch" was not well framed since both were English words. That's all. I think anyone can look at the contents of this message and take your measure and mine pretty accurately. Howlin' Tom Parmenter, that accurate and honest guy who does his research before he shoots, a/k/a Ortolan88 The entire story, with no cuts: Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 22:35:33 -0500 From: Tom Parmenter &lt;tompar(a)world.std.com&gt; To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org CC: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org In-reply-to: &lt;20030210030248.GB10674(a)reactor-core.org&gt; (message from Jonathan Walther on Sun, 9 Feb 2003 19:02:48 -0800) Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness Reply-to: tompar(a)world.std.com |From: Jonathan Walther &lt;krooger(a)debian.org&gt; |Content-Disposition: inline |Sender: wikien-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org |Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 19:02:48 -0800 | | |--K8nIJk4ghYZn606h |Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed |Content-Disposition: inline |Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable | |On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 08:38:54PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote: |> |>Of course, "German" is no more Deutsch (or Dietsch) than "Dutch" is. |>"Dutch" is at least cognate with what they call themselves in their |>own language, whereas "German" is is a Celtic name that has never been |>used by any of the many Teutonic peoples. | |According to Tacitus, 2000 years ago they were calling themselves |something cognate with "Germanii", which was the Roman word for them. |How did German suddenly become a "Celtic" word? What research can you |show to back up that assertion? How can I trust other information you |add to Wikipedia articles if it has a similar amount of research behind |it? | |Jonathan | | Hi there, Jonathon, Of course, that was a contribution to the mailing list, not the Wikipedia, but I did look it up first. The Oxford English Dictionary and Grimm are a little bit more reliable than Tacitus for the meaning of words, don't you think? And, of course, Latin picked up words from other languages, such as Celtic. Tacitus may have been right, but I did not make it up. Why would I have done that? So, here you go (from OED): German, a.2 and n.2 Also germayne, germaine, germane. [ad. L. German-us, used, as adj. and n., as the designation of persons belonging to a group of related peoples inhabiting central and northern Europe, and speaking the dialects from which the "Germanic" or "Teutonic" languages have been developed. The name does not appear to have been applied to these peoples by themselves, or to be explicable from Teut. sources. A view widely held is that it was the name given by the Gauls to their neighbours; the Celtic derivations suggested are from OIr. "gair" neighbour (Zeuss) and from Irish "gairm" battle-cry (Wachter, Grimm). According to Muellenhoff, "Germani" was originally the name of a group of Celtic peoples in north-eastern Gaul, was transferred from these to their Teutonic conquerors, and afterwards extended to all the Teutonic peoples.] <snip bit about pronuciation that wouldn't render in ascii> In English use the word does not occur until the 16th c., the n. appearing in our quots. earlier than the adj. The older designations were Almain and Dutch (Dutchman); the latter, however, was wider in meaning. Note also that "Dutch" for the language and people is older than "German", harking back to the original discussion. Hoping this finds you well, I remain, Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

Erik Moeller wrote: I would add that these "rules" _tend to be true_ (maybe), but that it does depend on the particular case. I would say that when dealing with the name of a people, popularity is a strong factor, but also what they call *themselves* is a strong factor. How hard it is to spell, how likely the "correct" term is to become popular in the near future, etc., all of these can be taken into consideration. --Jimbo

Zoe- No, because that name is used neither by scholars nor the public. As I wrote, I am not opposed to anglicization, and anglicization is by itself not unscientific. (There are reasonable arguments that can be made against it in the case of European languages, but I do not subscribe to those arguments.) If there exist two different English terms, however, the one which is correct should in most cases be used, provided it has already been adopted by scholars. Regardless, we have found a compromise for the Pennsylvania article, so I will no longer use it as an example. Ockham's Razor, on the other hand, should be moved to that title. Using "Occam's Razor" in the title and "Ockham's Razor" in the text is just plain silly. Regards, Erik

Axel Boldt wrote: I share those sentiments. Still, inconvenient as it may be, it does end up on a case by case basis. Of the two specific proposals by Erik I happen to agree with one and disagree with the other. I agree with Ockham because it is English and he was English. There are apparently two such villages in England with no certainty about which of them produced old Bill. If we're going to use a Latinized version why not go all the way and refer to him as [[Gulielmus Occamensis]]? I disagree about [[Pennsylvania Dutch]]. That term is not just about language, but about three centuries of cultural life. That term has developed a large range of connotations that go well beyond what the term "Dutch" may mean by itself. As the popular saying goes: "The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts." There is still room for [[Pennsylvania German]], but it seems to me that this would have a more restrictive sense that deals with linguistic aspects of German in Pennsylvania including in areas that are not familiarly considered to be "Pennsylvania Dutch". Eclecticology