Talk:Ed van der Elsken

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Dutch entry on Ed van der Elsken; capitalization in his name

Latest comment: 9 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

I could use a translation of what looks like an excellent entry of Ed van der Elsken at http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_van_der_Elsken but my Dutch - and the translator software I have tried -are not up to it. That page does not seem to relate the important work vdE did in making his own life his subject matter and where this fits in a whole picture of a developing aesthetic and genre. sinarau 13:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm surprised that you say this. To me, nl:Ed van der Elsken looks very sketchy. And it also seems completely unsourced. So there seems to be little in it, and no reason to take seriously what little it does say. (NB even if it were a most impressive article, it could not be cited, because Wikipedia is not a reliable source. See WP:USERGENERATED.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Capitalisation of van der Elsken: The article uses van der Elsken not Van der Elsken as appears in some references. I will correct this error which has been pointed out by Hoary sinarau (talk) 12:04, 17 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

The Dutch spelling of his name is Ed van der Elsken. But when the last surname is used without the given name the van is capitalized in Dutch. So it is Ed van der Elsken and mr. Van der Elsken. I don't know about any rules in English. Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 17:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I came here to say what I discover Jan Arkesteijn has just said. I believe that within (well-informed) English writing it's normal to copy Dutch practice when writing about Dutch people. Unfortunately en:WP doesn't yet have an article about Arnold van Bruggen, but his name does arise within the article on Rob Hornstra; I'm careful to distinguish between "Van Bruggen" and "Arnold van Bruggen". This edit (summary: "replaced 'Van' with 'van' throughout Copyedit (minor)") seems unfortunate. NB I'm no expert on Dutch practice and am willing to believe that there are some exceptions. Also, there's a question of what to do when quoting English-language or other sources that capitalize strangely. -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

By the way, you can check on that here, as long your translation software can deal with it. Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 17:23, 17 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

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