Talk:Cheesehead

No equivalent article for FIB or FISH?

The article states that the term "Cheesehead" originated from sports fans from Illinois. Why, then, is there no equivalent article about the terms "FIB" and "FISH", which have been used by Wisconsinites since at least the 1980s to describe people from Illinois? 173.28.115.32 (talk) 00:09, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Dutch cheeseheads

There has been a lot of good discussion about whether or not to include the Dutch epithet on this page. I think not. Not every epithet needs to be included on main Wikipedia pages. E.g., if you go to the page for Frog, you won't find that it's a derogatory term for French people. This is consistent with many racial slurs on Wikipedia. Some epithets uses disambiguation (e.g., there is a page for Cracker (term), but you won't find any of that information on the page for Cracker (food)). Some have no pages at all: for these, Wikipedia acknowledges that the term exists on its list of ethnic slurs, but since there's nothing else to say about it, that's as far as it goes (e.g., "crow" is listed and cited as a slur for "a black person" on the list of racial slurs, but there's not much else to say about it).

To me, it sounds like the term "cheesehead" as applied to the Dutch falls into this last category. Its use for the Dutch is not as noteworthy as its use for Wisconsites (for proof of Wisconsin relevance, look no further than the fact that there is a patent on cheesehead hats in America). The discussion on the Dutch term has not included any cultural relevance to the Dutch term (see the content on Cracker (term) for an example). The Dutch content should be removed. GoldCoastPrior (talk) 17:26, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I support it's removal. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I disagree completely. This is not the "Cheesehead Sports fan" page, it is a page about the word "Cheesehead". And like any word it's origins are important. It is a short reference and it should be there for context; in all three occurrences of the word, it started out as a derogatory adjective. This is an encyclopedia after all; it should be as thorough as possible. Timmccloud (talk) 14:34, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Timmccloud, yes, but this is the English Wikipedia, not the Dutch Wikipedia. In Dutch, the word for cheesehead is kaaskop, which is actually a mold (cooking implement) used to press Edam cheese. It can also be used as a derogatory term for Dutch people. But this English article isn't titled kaaskop (which would be the appropriate location to write an article about the derogatory Dutch term), it's titled cheesehead. As such, it should relate information on what a cheesehead is an how the word is used in the English-speaking world. If there was an article for kaaskop, than it would be appropriate for a hat note to be added to this article pointing to the Dutch term. However, there are no reliable sources that say English-speaking people call Dutch people cheeseheads. If anything, the Wiktionary is a more appropriate place for covering the definition of the term: wikt:kaaskop. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:43, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Checking the archive for this page this subject has come up several times before. Interestingly the Dutch Wikipedia article, nl:Kaaskop, only mentions cheeshead's use as a slur for the Dutch and does not mention the use for Wisconsinites at all. The Dutch article has no discussion page, so apparently they do not consider the American use even worth discussing. The Dutch articles for de:Wisconsin, de:Green Bay Packers, and de:Chicago Bears all mention the American use. Someone on the French Wikipedia decided to create an article about the American use, fr:Cheesehead, that does not mention the Dutch use, however it seems to be a draft. The French article on fr:Wisconsin also mentions the American use and strangely also mentions the Dutch word "kaaskoppen" in the same article without a citation, but the Dutch use is not anywhere else on the French Wikipedia. The French article on the fr:Packers de Green Bay mentions the America use, but not in the fr:Bears de Chicago article. The German Wikipedia articles for de:Wisconsin, de:Green Bay Packers, and de:Chicago Bears all mentions the American use and not the Dutch use.

The point I am making is the Dutch use as a cultural phenomena is not as big an impact as the American use. So while I think it should be mentioned in the article, it should not be given equal attention per WP:PROPORTION. I have removed it from the lead and moved any mention of the Dutch use to its own section at the bottom of the article. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 16:51, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Richard-of-Earth for being bold and taking a crack at making a change. Usually when there is a disagreement, we hold off on making changes though until the discussion has come to some consensus. Regardless, I think your idea may make sense, but there would need to be some improvement. First, I don't believe Ref 10 (wiseGEEK) is reliable. Second, as I stated above "kaaskop" is a mold used to make cheese. Historically, soldiers would use their helmets as the mold, which is where the term came from and why it is now used as a derogatory name. Last, if there is a section in an article dedicated to some sub-topic, it needs to be mentioned in the lead per MOS:INTRO.

All that said, I still think a separate article titled kaaskop on the English Wikipedia would make the most sense to distinguish the two. I threw together something here as an example: User:Gonzo fan2007/Kaaskop. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I understand about not making changes during a discussion, but but it was easier to make those changes then explain what I though should be done. Also the disagreement has been going on for a long time and the arguments made now are the same as in the past. When an article is written on Wikipedia about a subject with a non-English name, there is no hard policy on whether to use the English translation of the non-English term. When this term was used by the Germans for the Dutch, they probably used Käseköpfe. In any case, I do not believe an article for "kaaskop" would pass notability and would end up just getting deleted. For this article itself there could be justification for merging this article to the Green Bay Packers article, but then much of the information here would get removed as WP:UNDUE. I consider the Dutch use of this so much less notable that it is just deserving a passing mention as trivia and trivia is not mentioned in the lead. See MOS:LEADREL. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 18:14, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Totally love what you did here Richard, it's just that the sub-titles were a bit off. You can't call something an "origin" if it existed prior to an event. But not being in the lead totally makes sense. Combining the book/novel Pappillo, which has nothing to do with the dutch usage, also didn't make sense, but by altering the subtitle it makes complete sense now. The article is better for your effort! Timmccloud (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you and there is no better thanks then when my improvements to an article led to others making more improvements. I completely agree with your improvements as well. I was not aware that Pappillo was not referring to Dutch as I was not familiar with the story, but I suppose it does say right in the citation that this is suppose to occur in Paris. I guess I get a trout slap. MOS:LISTBULLET suggests that we not use bullets when the "passage is read easily as plain paragraphs." However it might be good to leave the bullets to make sure others do not mistakenly think the Pappillo item has anything to do with the Dutch use. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Exactly my thought with the bullets; I needed a simple solution to it to differentiate the two subjects. I'll also add a hyperlink to the book name to further differentiate. Timmccloud (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)