Talk:The Shire

Requested move 22 April 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: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 21:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

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Shire (Middle-earth) → The Shire – The Shire redirects here, this is a natural name for the article (it’s known as The Shire) this would allow for the removal of the disambiguation (Middle-earth) Lava Lamps (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support. WP:THE #1 is met as "The" serves a useful disambiguation purpose. Among all the entries for "The Shire" on Shire (disambiguation), this does appear to be the primary topic. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:43, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - not even Tolkien capitalized the "The". -- Netoholic @ 01:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  You are making an argument against WP:THE #2. Can you explain to me how it does not satisfy #1? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:08, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  WP:THE #1 requires at least some significant level of that usage. In this case, neither the primary sources don't use "The Shire" in running text... and high-quality secondary sources almost never use it either. -- Netoholic @ 02:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Nowhere does #1 require a particular capitalization. Here is the full text: "If a word with a definite article has a different meaning with respect to the same word without the article, the word with article can be used as the name of a Wikipedia article about that meaning, and the word without article can be used as the name of a separate Wikipedia article." Shire is a common noun which can take both the definite and indefinite article, as expected. Proper nouns, however, either take no article or the definite article. Shire (Middle-earth) takes the definite article only; you cannot refer to it as just "Shire" in running text. This is exactly the case (common noun vs. definite-article-taking proper noun) that #1 is trying to capture. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  All WP:TITLES are determined by usage in reliable secondary sources. In this case, there is no support in the sources for usage of "The Shire" in running text. -- Netoholic @ 03:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  And "the Shire" is the only acceptable formulation in running text in reliable sources. That the first letter must be capitalized for technical reasons has no bearing on the validity of WP:THE #1. By your argument, Apple almost never appears capitalized in running text, so Apple Inc. should be the primary topic since it always appears capitalized. If the people who wrote WP:THE wanted your interpretation of WP:TITLES, don't you think they would have put it in the plain text of the criterion? Instead they even provided an example, The Crown. I went through all 7 pages of Google results for "possession of the crown" (unfortunately "the crown" primarily brings up results about the show) and not a single "the" was capitalized. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Neither was "crown" apparently. I know all about the technical limitation of Wiki page names, and that is not at all related to the concern here. Something represented almost exclusively in running text as "the XXXXXX" should not be titled "The XXXXXX" because doing so fails WP:VERIFIABILITY. This page is correctly named. Sounds like The Crown may not be. -- Netoholic @ 06:28, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  How can you claim that the very example used to illustrate WP:THE is incorrect? I am unamused when people claim that broader policies trump specific guidelines, when what they really mean is that they want their interpretation of policy to trump everything else. No, the specific guideline is there for a reason, it is consensus interpretation of policy as applied to a specific area, to minimize having the kinds of disagreement on individual discussions like we are right now. And the consensus interpretation of policy is for "The Crown" and "The Shire" regardless of capitalization. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Well, I'd love it to be "The Shire" but it's a dead duck, I'm afraid. It won't happen until the policy is changed, which will be sometime after the plague of frogs, the war that ends the world, Ragnarok, and the sky falling in. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  You can read WP:THE for yourself and make up your own mind; Netoholic's interpretation is highly unusual and flies in the face of the plain text of the guideline. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 13:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Support under WP:THE#1, the plain meaning is different (and the sense intended here and only here) with the definite article attached. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support per WP:THE #1 (only one of the points at WP:THE need to be met) and WP:COMMON NAME. Hog Farm (talk) 15:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support Tolkien normally referred to it as the Shire, not Shire. Also, most other meanings are rather obscure, only serious rival is Shire as a general geographical term, only other one I had even heard of was the Shire horse. PatGallacher (talk) 19:48, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
• support. Starzoner (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support The current title is unnecessary. Why include (Middle Earth)? To differentiate from the other Shires? ~ HAL333 06:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  @HAL333: Shire (disambiguation) lists several "Shires" and "The Shires", so yes its necessary. -- Netoholic @ 06:27, 24 April 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.

The Angle, the Hoarwell and Lothlórien

Shippey's comparison chart claims "Hobbits originated in the Angle between the Hoarwell and the Loudwater (in what became Lothlórien)".

The stuff about Hoarwell and Loudwater is correct, but not the stuff in parentheses.

Lothlórien is located on the other side of the Misty Mountains. Someone either misunderstood this or confused Lothlórien with Imladris, which is close to the Angle and in fact located upon the Loudwater.Magnum482 (talk) 13:40, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Removed parenthesis. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:42, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

This still seems confused. The hobbits originated on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains, whereas the Angle is on the western side.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, recall that the Germanic peoples of modern Scandinavia and Germany originated from peoples from further east. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:27, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Khuzdul and Old Norse

There is an error in the language diagram - Khuzdul was not translated as Old Norse.

The rare bits of Khuzdul in LoTR are not translated. The "outward" names of the Dwarves, such as Thorin, Balin etc. were indeed from Old Norse, but this is because Old Norse was used by Tolkien to represent the human languages of the areas where the Dwarves originally lived Hence the language of the Dwarves' "outward" names are in a language related to that of the Rohirrim, as Old English is related to Old Norse.

The Dwarves' real Khuzdul names, Tolkien said, they reveal to no non-Dwarves, and do not even inscribe them on their tombs. Nor did they teach Khuzdul to non-Dwarves and rarely even wrote in it (Balin's tomb in Moria is a rare example, but even there the "outward" names Balin and Fundin are used, rather than their real Khuzdul names)

As Khuzdul was invented by Aulë and unlike virtually every other language in Middle Earth not ultimately derived from Elvish, it would make no sense for Tolkien to use a language related to English for it. From what else he wrote, it's likely that if he had 'translated' it he'd have used Hebrew. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.197.219 (talk) 10:04, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Hobbiton

"Hobbiton redirects here", but that town(?) is not described at all here! Just in relation to the locations of other places. Is Hobbiton the capital? What else?? 47.69.67.116 (talk) 07:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

The redirect correctly points here, but I've now made it point directly to where Hobbiton is described. Hobbiton is just a small town near the middle of the Shire, notable for being the home of the Bagginses. The capital is Michel Delving. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:07, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Hobbit origins map.svg
• Location The Shire 3019 TA.svg
• Sketch Map of The Shire.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:17, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Primary meaning

I wonder if this fictional region hasn't become THE primary meaning of shire in modern English, necessicating some renaming of our articles? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:57, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Not in the UK, at least, where "shire" is still in wide use; "The shire" on the other hand certainly only means Tolkien's. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Staffordshire, Shropshire etc

This area well settled to be part of the inspiration, but is not covered in the article. There are invisible comments saying don't add this material (or citations) but the article is not balanced on these points. It's a bit strange to freeze the article in an inaccurate way, so I'm reluctant to do more, but I'm uncomfortable about it the article notcovering well settled things that are not "New claims" simply because nobody said it on here to this point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shirtquire (talk • contribs) 19:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Shirtquire: Many thanks for sharing your views. The article is "settled" insofar as it is fully-cited, has been edited by many hands over a long period, is based on multiple reliable sources, and has passed a formal review. That does not mean it's perfect, whatever that would be. However, that does not justify either adding sources to the lead, nor of adding sources or claims which are not reliably established themselves. For instance, you added citations to the Birmingham Mail and to The Guardian, both of which can often be relied upon; but in this case, neither of them actually mentioned The Shire at all! The fact that someone has asserted that Tolkien lived near the Wrekin during his military training in the first world war, and was possibly influenced by it, and perhaps included a description of some hill in Middle-earth (Weathertop perhaps? Bree-hill? the articles do not say), do nothing to connect any part of The Shire to The Wrekin, so we cannot use those sources to make any such claim. We have exactly no evidence that The Shire is based on The Wrekin or other hills in Shropshire. Or Staffordshire, for that matter.

Secondly, any new claims need to be made in the main text, the article body, not the top/summary/lead section, which does not have citations in it because it is only a summary of the rest of the article. I hope this helps you to see that there is some method in the madness. All the best (and please remember to sign your posts using ~~~~), Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:07, 22 October 2023 (UTC)