Talk:Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich

Requested move 24 September 2019

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. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

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Evangelical Reformed Church of the canton of Zürich → Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich – 'Canton' should be capitalised as a proper noun as it represents a geographical locale.

A user has recently moved this article to a new title changing 'Canton' to 'canton' (along with the same phrase within the article). However, as a geographical location, 'Canton' in the context of 'Canton of Zürich' is a proper noun and should be capitalised. The Wikipedia manual of style unambiguously supports this capitalisation MOS:GEOUNITS. Although I can change the article text back, I am prevented from altering the title. 85.255.233.148 (talk) 12:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. bd2412 T 01:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Indeed. Canton of Zürich is a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:31, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose The official wording for any canton in Switzerland is canton of X; it is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, in a title, or a list entry, see e.g. : "... the canton of Zurich is the most heavily populated, while ..." by Swiss fedr-- 11:22, 27 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZH8000 (talk • contribs)

However, this is English Wikipedia, and in English this would be treated as a proper name (it's a title, as you say above). In any case, the citation you give is not valid, as it is not using it as a proper name, but is talking about the cantons in general; in English we may well do the same thing (if talking about counties in general we would say "the county of Devon does this, the county of Berkshire does that", but we would still capitalise them if they appeared within proper names of organisations). And see this, this, this, this, this, etc, etc, if you don't think Swiss people ever capitalise canton in running text. They most certainly do. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Not quite correct. The correct English usage would be “... the County of Devon ...” (County is capitalised because it is part of the Geographical location). MS:GEOUNITS unambiguously supports this capitalisation. “County” would not be capitalised if the word was used in isolation.

Example...

”The County of Devon is a neighbour of the County of Cornwall. The county is also bordered by the County of Dorset.”

85.255.234.221 (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Either is actually perfectly valid. The BBC, for instance, invariably lower-cases in these circumstances. But when we are speaking of more than one we would frequently lower-case. It's a matter of taste. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:42, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

We are getting sidetracked. Regardless: the manual of style demands the capitalisation. 85.255.232.115 (talk) 10:53, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

All the references in the world (particularly non- English ones) cannot over-rule the Wikipedia Manual of Style, which is intended to keep the style consistent throughout the Wikipedia of a particular language. I accept that Swiss (or even German) usage may not capitalise the ‘canton’ in such circumstances, but the English Wikipedia (and the English language) does.

Curiously, I have noted that you yourself have capitalised ‘diocese’ as in “... the Diocese of Geneva ...” to a section that you have added to the article Geneva, so you are applying double standards here. 85.255.234.221 (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

"All the references in the world (particularly non- English ones) cannot over-rule the Wikipedia Manual of Style" That's nonsense and contradictory to fundamental policies by WP. I suspect the IP to be nothing else than a troll – I B Wright aka TheVicarsCat probably.

And IP: please learn to use talk pages correctly! WP:TALK -- ZH8000 (talk) 12:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

My indentation was exactly as I intended it as I was responding to you and not Necrothesp. Do not alter other people’s posts to show that they are responding to someone other than as intended.

And casting aspersions against other contributors in a discussion that you are comprehensively losing is just demonstrating a desperation to win the argument. 85.255.234.232 (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, I suspect the Swiss Federal Administration has the more sophisticated English lectors than any cheap web site scripter. -- ZH8000 (talk) 12:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

But probably none of them are native English speakers! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:24, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I just found the official English style guide by the Swiss Federal Administration: It says on page 17:

• "Write ‘the canton of’ (lower case c) when referring to the geopolitical area." Ex.: "I live in the canton of Neuchâtel. The canton of Bern is Switzerland’s sec- ond largest.

• "However, use a capital C for Canton when referring to the government of that canton." Ex.: "The Canton of Basel approved the new legislation."

I think this is a reasonable and usable distinction. -- ZH8000 (talk) 12:17, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Disagree!: The Swiss style guide to English (quite apart from not being an authoritative source on English), is not the manual of style for Wikipedia.

It is most likely published for internal use in Switzerland. 85.255.234.232 (talk) 13:16, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Even if that were relevant to Wikipedia, where does it refer to organisations that have "canton" in their name? I note that it does later refer to the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education. I also note this, this, this, this, this, etc. All Swiss webpages specifically referring to the church. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. The name of the canton is irrelevant. It is the name of the church that is important. The full proper name of the church is "Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zurich", and as a proper noun phrase all the major words should be capitalized. (Note that this is a request to revert a recent undiscussed move.) Station1 (talk) 06:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Quite. The previous move was undiscussed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.