Talk:Evelyne Brochu

Requested move 27 July 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved as proposed. (closed by non-admin page mover) Mdaniels5757 (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

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Évelyne Brochu → Evelyne Brochu – No accent in her name. Confirmed by actress herself.--AndréLegault (talk) 11:06, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose there is no such name as Evelyne without the accent in French. French Canadian newspapers spell her name in French. https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/04/15/arnaud-soly-et-la-serie-leo-qui-fait-du-bien etc. So would require some first hand interview evidence that a French Canadian wants to Anglicize herself and use the English version of her name. Otherwise we stick with WP:FRMOS. Please don't cite a Twitter account. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

The actress herself confirmed to me that her first name does not contain an accent. People in doubt can contact her agency, Agence Goodwin (artistes@agencegoodwin.com) who will confirm the matter. Moreover, if you watch the credits of the movies or TV series in which she plays, you will see that her name appears without an accent. It is the same on the site of her CD "Objets perdus". Her file at Union des artistes shows no accent. Idem at her agency, on the IMDb site. In the french media, her name is written in both ways in which Evelyne Brochu: in the Journal de Montréal, La Presse, Le Soleil, Radio-Canada, Chatelaine, 985fm.ca. If the newspapers have sometimes written her name with an accent, it is probably because on the French version of Wikipedia, until recently, the article was written with an accent.

But, in the end, who are we to believe, the person herself or someone else?

Regards, --AndréLegault (talk) 15:58, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

We'd need the correspondence you sent published in a reliable source. We had this before, someoneone from Wikipedia sending a Twitter note to some poor sportsperson saying "does your name have to be written with a hacek" or something, what exactly was the sportsperson supposed to say "Get off my Twitter you anti-Czech fan"? Or how about, "hi, on Wikipedia French-Canadians are all spelled in French, would you like to be the exception?" In ictu oculi (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. This nomination has been submitted by a French-language Wikipedian with an accented name, who is obviously familiar with this matter. The actress and singer uses a stage name that is not accented and that is how the name should appear in the main title header of her Wikipedia article. Here is her web page which confirms that her name is unaccented in her on-screen credits, album covers, magazine covers, Facebook, publicity, etc. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 16:13, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding French first names, currently in the National Assembly of Quebec, there are two members of the CAQ: one is Éric Girard (Lac-Saint-Jean MNA) (with accent), the other Eric Girard (Groulx MNA) and Miinister of Finance (without accent). But, both names are pronounced the same. So, that argument does not stand.

By the way, for another way to spell the name (Evélyne), check this site --AndréLegault (talk) 17:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes but you're the nom. What makes you think that those sources are correct? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support. I don't have any particular inside knowledge about her private life, and know her only from what I've seen in the movies — but AndréLegault is indeed correct that she's credited without the accent in her acting roles, and that media show a weird and inconsistent mix of "Evelyne" and "Évelyne" in her press coverage. The argument that the unaccented "Evelyne" spelling doesn't exist in French isn't compelling; just as in English, it is entirely possible in French for a person to be given a variant spelling that isn't the way the name is usually spelled (e.g. Anick Lemay, whose first name "should" have two n's instead of just one, yet doesn't), or a name that doesn't usually exist in French at all (e.g. Robin Aubert, Steve Lussier, Mitsou Gélinas) and is instead borrowed from English or another language, or a name that's just naturally spelled counterintutively to what you would expect (e.g. the film director Daniel Grou, who had to introduce himself to people as "Grou, pas d'lx" so often that he actually ended up with the nickname "Podz".) So the fact that (E/É)velyne is usually spelled with an accented É in French doesn't prove a damn thing in and of itself about whether Mme Brochu has an accented É or not. I can understand why some sources might have used an É because they expected one, but her own statement that she doesn't have one is definitive. I've also noticed AndréLegault doing some good work recently on cleaning up the long-overlooked fact that a lot of articles have been linking to actress Julie Le Breton's article through an understandable yet mistaken "LeBreton" redirect — another thing that undermines the idea that the spelling of French names always conforms to common expectation, because "LeBreton" would usually be more expected than "Le Breton" — so I'm very sure he knows what he's doing. Bearcat (talk) 16:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Bearcat, WP:FRMOS In ictu oculi (talk) 07:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You are correct! But that is a bit bizarre. It is common in Francophone areas to omit accents on capitals, and the MOS actually states this. It is also common to do this in anglophone areas... had I accented capitals in my high school French courses, I would have lost marks for it. At University we were told either would be accepted but unaccented was suggested as "plus élégant".

So it seems in this matter, we go against common usage both in English and French, don't even ask whether there is an authority for prescriptive (correct) English usage, and instead go with an obscure authority for correct French usage? That seems somewhat bizarre. I suspect the diacritic mafia have been busy here. Andrewa (talk) 12:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Go with common English and French usage. The MOS is wrong. The accent is sometimes added for stylistic reasons, to promote her work and career. We should not fall for it. Andrewa (talk) 12:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I can't see the statement "The MOS is wrong" is correct. The MOS is correct. The accent is sometimes removed. Not added. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Even in French, people can be given the unaccented form of a name that usually has an accent on it. So this is not a case of "some sources remove an accent that's supposed to be there" — it's a case of "the subject's given name actually, objectively does not have the accent at all, so sources which use an accent when referring to her are adding something that she does not actually have". I'm no Molière when it comes to writing French, but I have a French background and know the language well enough to know what I'm talking about when it comes to a thing like this: "this person actually does not have an accent on her name at all" is not the same thing as "some sources drop accents on capitals even though they're supposed to be there normally". Bearcat (talk) 15:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)