Category talk:Japanese eras

Write about the era not its name

I've just been looking at a few of these Japanese era articles and found that they tend to start out like this.

"Yyy ([kanji]?) was a Japanese era name (年号,, nengō,?, lit. 'year name') after Xxx and before Zzz."

Now I'd like to ask whether we're talking about the era or the name of the era. If we're talking about the name of the era, then it should be "Yyy is ..." not "Yyy was ..." but, of course, why would we be writing about the name of the era surely we want to write about the era itself not its name. Here's the solution as I see it: cut the excess.

"Yyy ([kanji]?) was a Japanese era after Xxx and before Zzz."

JIMp _talk·cont 05:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)