Talk:Glossary of sheep husbandry

Glossary/terminology (copied from Talk: Domestic sheep)

I propose we move the glossary to Sheep husbandry. About half the terms are husbandry terms anyway, and it's an uncited eyesore here. I'm looking to get this article at least to GA-class, so I think both topically and practically-speaking it should be moved. VanTucky ^talk 00:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Many of the terms are indeed husbandry ones, but then again, many are more to do with the animal itself. If it was in sheep husbandry, would we not just have the same problem in the opposite direction. What about breaking it out into a separate article? As a separate article, the two other articles would have some basic terminology, with "Main article" tags. "Sheep terminology"?

I have reservations about some of the changes to the body of the terminology section. Dealing with each:

• Quite right that bold should not normally be used except for first occurrence of headword. However, its use in lists is one of a small number of exceptions: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Boldface. I've restored this.

• Non-IPA pronunciation. I agree, and I've put this in (my own laziness in the first place I'm afraid). I've left in a couple of the non-IPA ones in addition, for those unfamiliar with IPA (as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Other transcription systems permits). See what you think.

• Repeats of definitions given elsewhere. I see the logic for an ordinary section. However a glossary section ends up being complete – except for the most common and important terms (for example it would include the local term yow, but miss out the standard term ewe). If this was an ordinary section, I would agree with leaving out repeats, but my feeling is that in this case a complete glossary is more important than avoiding minor repetition. The repeated definitions do mostly include further information. I've restored them for the moment. User:Richard New Forest 23:19, 25 November 2007

Most of the other issues I can deal with, but retaining definitions given elsewhere, especially those that have their own articles, is not under any circumstances acceptable. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and articles are not meant to have define every special term they use. That is what links are for. Sheepdog and shepherd (for example) are terms that have their own article, and linking to those within the regular text is sufficient. Repeating terms, such as ewe, which are not esoteric and are clearly defined beforehand in the article is just clutter. This is the only major livestock article that has such a glossary, and there's good reason for it. What this article needs is more comprehensive, informative prose and less rambling lists. I will be removing the duplicate terms. VanTucky ^talk 02:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Forgot one point you made. Breaking off into a separate article would be fine, and thus including terms like those I objected to above wouldn't be an issue (obviously). Of course, my honest feeling is that such an article might be deleted as a violation of WP:NOT#DICTIONARY by someone. I think it might be defensible though, considering there really is a large and unique glossary of terms only referring to sheep. VanTucky ^talk 02:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I do understand the argument about repeats, and I won't change it back without discussion. However, where does "not under any circumstances acceptable" come from? Is that WP style? If so, where is it explained? You have explained your reasoning, but I don't think you have yet shown that it overcomes the contrary. My concern is for people who have not necessarily read the whole of the article (or indeed all other related articles). How are they going to know that there is an article on herding dogs, and that it also covers sheepdogs? (Incidentally, "sheepdog" is not mentioned or linked elsewhere in the article.) How many people interested in sheep-related terms are really going to notice the only other link to shepherd – buried in the Old Testament bit of the Cultural Significance section? The way I see it is that the definitions in the first paragraph are a summary of what comes later – as they are for "lamb" and "mutton", which are defined again in the food section. In that case, leave out mutton from the intro and it is an incomplete summary, leave it out from the food section and it's thoroughly confusing. I think it works the same for the terminology section. Having said all that, if there is an agreed policy on the point I am of course happy to go along with it – but I'd like to read it first.

Pronunciation of "yow". Without including the rhyme, someone unfamiliar with IPA either has to go and look it up, or may go away thinking it rhymes with "low". Is this not exactly what Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Other transcription systems is talking about?

Quite right on the quotes/emphasis point. I've corrected one more.

Glossary pages appear to be well established (see Wikipedia:Lists#Types of lists), and even have their own category (Glossaries), with glossaries for such esoteric subjects as contract bridge and bagpipes (the latter is astonishingly long). A close parallel to sheep is Glossary of nautical terms.--Richard New Forest (talk) 10:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I was saying that that is my opinion. Sorry for any confusion. The thing is, articles simply cannot take the time to make each section complete and independent. That would require an absurd amount of linking, as well as a lot of other repetition. If a word or subject isn't linked in that section (as to the sheepdog thing, I will definitely include it in my upcoming expansion) then we put enough trust in readers that they can search for it. Making each article stand alone when it comes to definitions of terms and subjects is not a goal of the project. The goal is to weave the web between subjects. But for the specifics within the article, the intro wouldn't be a summary if it included every major term. I just don't want to include words in the glossary that are either complete separate article topics (dogs, for instance, which isn't really a term referring to Ovis aries anyway. it's a sheep industry term) or words that are pretty commonplace and are defined before (ram, ewe). As to the glossary article issue...good research. It seems a new sheep glossary article would be in order. VanTucky ^talk 22:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's do that then.--Richard New Forest (talk) 10:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

What do we call it? Just Sheep terminology? --Richard New Forest 20:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Above copied from Talk:Domestic sheep, and some more redirects made to here. --Richard New Forest 19:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ewe is pronounced: you. Cgoodwin (talk) 05:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

That is what the IPA pronunciation says – see discussion above about including non-IPA.--Richard New Forest (talk) 16:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Flushing

Flushing is improving of feed quality in the few weeks prior to mating to increase conception rates. Antibiotics are not used in the large scale production of sheep!Cgoodwin (talk) 05:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

See discussion about flushing in Talk:Sheep husbandry, to which I've copied the relevant part of the above comment.--Richard New Forest (talk) 16:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

More Sheep Terms?

I am translating something into English and there is a term for 'three year old male sheep'. I want to know if there is an English word with this definition. Most of the special terms on the page seem to be interested in female sheep and in the first 18 months. Tibetologist (talk) 00:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Is your sheep castrated or not? In the English usage I've come across, an animal of that age would be regarded as fully adult, and the choice would be between ram (or in some areas tup) for an entire male, wether for a castrated one – or stag for a ram castrated late. I wonder if "three years old" might really mean "over two years old"?. There are English terms for younger sheep, such as teg or shearling ‐ these can be used as qualifiers, giving for example ram teg or wether teg. --Richard New Forest (talk) 08:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)