Talk:McMahon–Hussein correspondence

Assistant or slave

Shame on Wikipedia for bowdlerizing the caption to say "assistant of Faisal" instead of earlier sources' correct and self-evident "SLAVE of Faisal". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.30.128.137 (talk) 16:07, 9 May 2016‎

Sykes-Picot article

With all the study I have been making of Mcmahon and Balfour, I can see now that the Sykes-Picot article needs a bit of work as well; of course it's directly and indirectly related to the other two so if anyone wants to pitch in and edit a bit over there....:) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Selfstudier (talk • contribs)

Pesky "Brits"

"Britain" is "commonname" for UK ie it means the same thing and is used a lot by everyone (sometimes officialdom may make a difference between the two but no-one pays any attention to officials). "British" is the same thing as UK citizen except that virtually no-one would describe themselves as the latter.(Note British embassy, not UK embassy and British prime minister is just as common as UK prime minister, UK policy, British policy etc).Selfstudier (talk) 11:21, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Selfstudier:; if this is meant for me; yes I have changed 'Britain' and 'British' to 'United Kingdom' / 'UK' in several places. Formally, the country occupying the island of Great Britain, the adjacent islands and the northern part of Ireland (known as Northern Ireland) is called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]]. Since Wikipedia uses formal English, and that the copy-edit request is for a planned FA nomination, I thought the change was appropriate but I was too tired to change them all. If you want to change it back, please go ahead, I won't revert you because I don't care either way. Cheers, Baffle☿gab 01:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Baffle gab1978:Hello, Once and I also worked together on the related Balfour Declaration which went through FA process. All the Britain and British were left alone on that occasion and I think that is the right thing tbh.(I think the issue was not raised then by the copyeditors, I might be wrong). Most British authored sources will also prefer Britain and British. I find WP a bit confusing on this, besides United Kingdom, Great Britain (sometimes used to mean UK but strictly speaking this is wrong) has a page but Britain goes instead to a rather confusing disambiguation page if one attempts a Wikilink.Selfstudier (talk) 11:39, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

That's fine then; as I said I've no objection and tbh I probably shouldn't have changed it anyway. I wouldn't wish to confuse our readers (thank goodness those pesky Scots didn't vote for independence or we'd be in real trouble!). Cheers, Baffle☿gab 02:26, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Removed text

I've removed the following quotation box from the article; it clutters the section it was removed from, intrudes into later sections and seems to be unnecessary commentary on a minor point. It could be summarised and/or worked into the article, but to leave it in a quote box seems like dumping it there for the reader to deal with. Baffle☿gab 00:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

From "Portions of Syria" debate

CC-By-SA Declaration: text in this section removed from the article be me, Baffle☿gab 00:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

"The consequences of interpreting McMahon's 'wilayahs' as meaning 'Ottoman provinces' are so disconcerting that it was – and, to my mind, still is – difficult to believe that McMahon was intending to use the word in this sense in his letter. This interpretation would force on us a choice between the two following alternative conclusions:
(i) First alternative: McMahon was completely ignorant of Ottoman administrative geography. He did not know that the Ottoman vilayet of Aleppo extended westward to the coast, and he did not know that there were no Ottoman vilayets of Homs and Hama. It seems to me incredible that McMahon can have been as ill-informed as this, and that he would not have taken care to inform himself correctly when he was writing a letter in which he was making very serious commitments on HMG's account.
(ii) Second alternative: McMahon was properly acquainted with Ottoman administrative geography, and was using the word 'wilayahs' equivocally. Apropos of Damascus, he was using it to mean 'Ottoman provinces'; apropos of Homs and Hama, and Aleppo, he was using it to mean 'environs'. This equivocation would have been disingenuous, impolitic, and pointless. I could not, and still cannot, believe that McMahon behaved so irresponsibly"
...
The documents written by British officials, contesting the interpretation of McMahon's word 'wilayahs' that was made by me and, before me, by the author of the Arab Bureau's History, all date from after the time at which HMG had become sure that Britain had Palestine in her pocket... I do not think that Young's or Childs' or Mr Friedman's interpretation of McMahon's use of the word 'wilayahs' is tenable. After studying Mr Friedman's paper and writing these notes, I am inclined to think that the drafting of this letter was, not disingenuous, but hopelessly muddle-headed. Incompetence is not excusable in transacting serious and responsible public business."

Arnold J. Toynbee in 1970, in correspondence with Isaiah Friedman

References

Baffle☿gab 00:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I put a short sentence back in with the relevant sources.Selfstudier (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Baffle gab1978: thank you for the excellent copy edits, which have been a great improvement to the article. Regarding the above, I have extracted the core text as a blockquote, and expanded Selfstudier’s helpful introduction. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:46, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

EngvarB or British Oxford

On the recent ce, the "English" being used was changed Diff from EngvarB to Oxford spelling (English + "ize", basically). Do we want to keep that or change it back?

(Discussion here for those interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#American_or_British_spelling?_Neither.) Selfstudier (talk) 09:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems appropriate to me, seeing as the letter pictured seems to use -ize spellings. 142.161.83.66 (talk) 03:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the article contains "ise's as well as "ize's" because later editors (perhaps including me, sometimes I do, sometimes not) have put the latter. So the question is really do we change all the ises to izes or vice versa? (i hadn't noticed that McMahon's letter is oxford, haha, maybe because it is being sent to a non British place, not sure what the etiquette was then?Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, they all have to be changed to something consistent and I think it could be argued that there is a tie to Oxford spelling here given the correspondence itself (though I haven't looked through all of it). 142.161.83.66 (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

There's a couple things there, statusquo (it always was engvarB so why change it?) and the fact that in Brit English, either one is correct whereas in US English only ize is correct. It would be nice to know what the breakdown is among editors and readers here, not sure how we would find that out and maybe in the end, no-one cares.Selfstudier (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)