Talk:Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony

Huh?

On 6 January, "Bermicourt moved page Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony to Narrow gauge railways in Saxony over redirect: Don't prefer US spelling". Aside from it being a punctuation issue, not a spelling issue, there's no relationship here with US versus British usage that I've ever heard of (except once from Railfan23). Book stats say no: American, British. So any objection to just fixing this? Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of regional usage, there is no reason to hyphenate "narrow gauge", the sources commonly don't hyphenate it and Wikipedia does not require it. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:17, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 16 January 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus, so not moved.
This unusually-lengthy discussion came down to three main issue: the substantive merits of hyphenating "narrow gauge"/"narrow-gauge"; consistency with other articles; and WP:ENGVAR/WP:TIES issues.
On the WP:ENGVAR/WP:TIES question, there was no consensus on whether the German region Saxony has closer ties to either variant of English. There was also no consensus on whether to accept the claim that there is a significant difference between British English and American English in usage of the hyphenated form.
On the question of consistency, a clear majority of editors supported changing this title to the hyphenated form to match the head article and other related articles. However, that claim was undermined by the point made by others that the current balance of usage largely derives from WP:BOLD moves, and may not reflect a consensus.
That leaves the arguments on the substantive merits of hyphenation, where there were very robust and well-presented arguments in both directions. A majority of !votes accept the general argument in favour of the hyphenated usage, and that could reasonably weighed as a consensus in favour of the hyphenated form. However, in this case I think it would be unwise to weigh it in this way. This is a single instance of a sub-topic of the broader topic of "narrow[ /-]gauge railways" on which the broader consensus is unclear, and deciding the broad principle on a case-by-case basis leads to numerous repetitive discussions with the risk of inconsistency. So I am closing this discussion as "no consensus", and I urge the editors involved to open at WP:RFC to settle the dispute in a centralised discussion (per WP:MULTI), and to decide whether there are any areas of exception to whatever broad principle might be agreed.
I realise that the lack of a conclusive outcome will disappoint many editors, but I believe that an RFC will prove to be a better way of ensuring a broad and stable consensus for naming he whole set of articles on narrow[ /-]gauge railways. Those who have laboured hard to refine their arguments in this discussion will not have to do much work to adapt their points for use in the RFC. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:22, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

---

Narrow gauge railways in Saxony → Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony – The hyphen in the compound "narrow gauge", where it is used as a modifier, helps the reader understand how to parse the noun phrase even when unfamiliar with the phrase; omitting the hyphen is OK in specialist literature where nobody would hesitate on how to parse it, but for the general reader, the clue provided by the hyphen is conventional and useful, and is used in most sources (it is not a more American thing as Bermicourt suggested when the reverted the first attempt to fix this as uncontroversial). Dicklyon (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Evidence of common hyphenation in sources

• Book n-grams show the hyphen to be used in the majority of instances, in both British and American English.
• News stories frequently use the hyphen.
• Scholarly articles often use the hyphen, too, even in ones about Saxony.
• dictionaries, [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] typically give the hyphenated form for the adjective form.
• Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends. British author W. Awdry, in his books directed at general and naive readers, always includes the hyphen except when capitalizing "Narrow Gauge", and sometimes even then. See his rail-fan book even. Dicklyon (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Comments on this evidence

• If you do an ngram for "standard gauge railway(s)", you get the opposite result, and if you do one for "broad gauge railway(s)", you similarly get the opposite result, albeit by a smaller margin. So why add a hyphen to "narrow gauge railways"?
• News stories are not a good basis for saying that well written English uses a hyphen. At best, they indicate that hastily written English sometimes uses a hyphen.
• The "scholarly books" link establishes that the non-hyphenated version is far more common in such books.
• The dictionary links are to Chambers and to a couple of obscure English-foreign language dictionaries. But the Oxford Dictionary, the most prestigious of all dictionaries in English, does not hyphenate, and cites numerous quotations without a hyphen.

Bahnfrend (talk) 09:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

That OED list of examples is indeed bizarre, including no hyphenated ones. They do the same for "high tension", giving no hyphenated examples, even though book usage clearly shows majority hyphenation when used as an adjective, in British English. Dicklyon (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, when I called it OED I was mistaken, as you were when you called it "the most prestigious of all dictionaries in English"; not the same thing at all, per this explanation from Oxford U.. I wouldn't put too much stock in that one. If someone has OED access, I'd like to see what they say. Dicklyon (talk) 21:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I found the real OED at my local library (2nd edition, 1989). Its examples do not include any uses as adjectives without hyphens for narrow, broad, or standard gauge. Its examples are exactly and only these:

• It became a fight between the broad-gauge companies and the narrow-gauge companies.
• A notable feature in the life of the Crewe works is the narrow-gauge railway.
• A through broad-gauge train was due.
• A standard-gauge railroad ... (I got tired of copying whole sentences.)

Also some examples as noun phrases, without hyphen, such as "the inconvenience of the narrow gauge." Dicklyon (talk) 01:04, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Support. No reason to deviate from the standard practice. No such user (talk) 12:50, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The "evidence" produced by Dicklyon obscures the fact that in British English "narrow gauge railways" has been as common as "narrow-gauge railways" for over 30 years (ngram viewer). In American English, the difference is more marked, but still close (ngram viewer). So this is not "standard practice" per No such user; if anything it is a US spelling preference and thus contravenes WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN as well as failing to reflect the sources; both news stories and scholarly publications use "narrow gauge railways" as well as the hyphenated version and there is no overwhelming reason to prefer it. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I've never seen a style or usage guide suggesting that hyphenation is more common in American than in British English. Show us if you have one. This book suggests the opposite. Dicklyon (talk) 05:05, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:HYPHEN and basic common sense. Compound adjectives are hyphenated in English. The fact that Bermicourt can find some British sources that don't do it doesn't mean there is an ENGVAR argument to be made here. There are no British style guides that recommend dropping this hyphen, so it's just a writing style in railway specialist sources that deviates from standard English practice. WP is not written in that style, but in WP:MOS style, which is based on US and UK mainstream style guides. The fact that various sources are found that do properly use the hyphen and some that don't means there is no consistently used variant style in the sources, ergo we always default to what MOS says to do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. As a railway enthusiast of many decades' standing who lives outside Britain and North America, I have seldom encountered "narrow-gauge" even in American English. According to English compound#Hyphenated compound modifiers, "If ... there is no risk of ambiguities, [a compound modifier] may be written without a hyphen: Sunday morning walk." The article goes on to state that unambiguous compound modified expressions are not normally hyphenated. The expression "narrow gauge railway" is not ambiguous, as it means "a railway that has a narrow gauge" and cannot have any other meaning. For that reason, the expression should not be hyphenated. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe you're not looking at general-readership English sources? Check out these: [6], [7], [8], [9], and many more. Dicklyon (talk) 07:21, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Three out of four of these so-called sources are guidebooks for tourists, not books about narrow gauge railways. Wikipedia is not a guide book for tourists. The English language sources cited in this Wikipedia article all omit any hyphen. That in itself is another good reason not to change the name of the article. Bahnfrend (talk) 12:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

B, books from the "Narrow Gauge Branch Lines series" are of course insider/specialist sources; it is conventional for specialists to not bother with clarifying hyphens on familiar phrases. The tourist guides are a better model of writing for a general audience, as WP strives to do. Please consider WP:SSF. Dicklyon (talk) 16:18, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Response. Tourist guides are commonly published and written by people who know a lot more about travelling than about writing grammatically correct English. I don't see them as a good indication of what is correct. Much better indications can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, which does not hyphenate "narrow gauge railway", and in Fowler, which, as stated in the next post, deprecates hyphenation in general. Bahnfrend (talk) 09:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The real OED always hyphenates, as explained above; see this note from Oxford re the relation between the OED and the one you are mistakenly referring to as "the Oxford English Dictionary", which is actually an online consumer dictionary, and not that well respected by comparison to the OED. Dicklyon (talk) 16:37, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to have to pick apart Bahnfrend's posts about this bit by bit, because many claims, rationales, and alleged sourcing are provided, and none of it is correct. Provably so. I'll do this with direct quotations in the extended discussion section below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:07, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I am somewhat ambivalent on the subject of hyphenation. My version of Fowler tends to deprecate their usage except for clarity. In this case, I don't think that there is an issue of clarity that there may be in other cases (eg British narrow gauge slate railways). There is some value in consistent usage across the main space for titles (WP:CONSISTENCY) referring to rail gauges and within content: that is, that narrow-gauge is adopted throughout, and not just where it is appropriate for clarity. References to narrow gauge within an article that uses narrow-gauge as part of the title (for reasons of clarity) will inherently lead to inconsistency within an article that can most effectively be dealt with by standardising on the hyphenated form across articles. This is the basis for my support. I see no strength to assertions of WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN. This is ultimately a matter of clarity and then of WP:CONSISTENCY - if it is needed in some cases for clarity it should then be done consistently. The converse of consistently not using the hyphenated form would lead to a degradation of clarity in some cases. This is a proposition that is less acceptable than the alternative. I would observe an irony that exists in discussing standardisation in the context of rail gauges. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:27, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment. But you don't respond to my main point, which is that "narrow gauge railways" is not ambiguous, and therefore should not be hyphenated. That's what Wikipedia already says about expressions that are not ambiguous. If you and the other supporters don't agree, you or they should start a debate at Talk:English compound, not debate the point here. Bahnfrend (talk) 12:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe that I have responded to your point! I have acknowledged that, in this and perhaps many other cases, it is not ambiguous save that there are cases where a hyphen can resolve a potential ambiguity not apparent to a person without the preconceptions of one who is "so familiar" with the topic that they fail to see any ambiguity that may result in the mind of another, foreign to the topic and in need to be guided by grammar to make the correct cognitive associations that are so apparent to you. WP is, after all, for the enlightenment of the masses and not for the edification and satisfaction of the aficionado). I have given an example where this is apparently the case (the need to clarify - not the sanctification [auto correct put that there] of the aficionado and where there is clearly a consensus to support the adoption of hyphenation in a previous RM, even if it is subject to an open RM for this purpose (of adding the hyphen) that the previous close did not address. My support is based on the apparent need for clarification in some instances (of narrow- and other-gauge railways) and the MOS position of WP:CONSISTENCY. Clarity in all cases and consistency (ipso facto, in all cases) can only be reconciled by consistently adopting the hyphenated form - unless you can present a well considered arguement of sufficient weight to refute such a proposition (of which I see no previous). Cinderella157 (talk) 15:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

The argument for WP:CONSISTENCY goes the other way, since all the "narrow gauge" categories are unhyphenated. This is part of a campaign by Dicklyon to force Wikipedia to accept an unnecessarily strict WP:POV that is not reflected by the sources. Bermicourt (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:CONSISTENCY can be achieved by strictly omitting the hypen in all cases but only if clarity is not compromised in all cases - as I state previously. All uses of "narrow gauge" are not unhypenated nor have they been for some time. Narrow-gauge railway was moved to the hyphenated title on 8 February 2015 by User:Anthony Appleyard resulting from a request by User: Lkmorlan. A search of Dicklyon's contribution log shows no entries for "narrow gauge" in the period from the time of that move until 30 December 2016. I don't see the significance of your link to WP:POV except by way of explaining that POV is an abbreviation for point of view? A search of the article contains no reference to an unnecessarily strict point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinderella157 (talk • contribs) 04:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Also note that this article has had the correctly hyphenated compound adjectives in the text for 3 years (not due to me); being consistent with that also suggested a move. Dicklyon (talk) 05:13, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

That is irrelevant. The original article title and lede were unhyphenated and under WP:RETAIN that's what we should go with. And please don't alter the article text during a discussion. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if WP:RETAIN retain applies in this case. Since it applies to varieties of english - which is not the case here (actually, I do know but I am trying to be polite!). I perceive that, if there is any misdeed in making this edit, then there is an equal misdeed in its reversion, without acknowledging the validity of the reasons for making the edit - something you have not done. This is exactly the type of issue I referred to in my original support. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:18, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Well that depends on your point of view. Ngram viewer clearly shows that the hyphenated version is far more common in US English sources, whereas for British English sources, usage is more evenly split between the two and our leading dictionary uses the non-hyphenated version. So there is definitely a regional flavour to this. I would argue that Wikipedia should reflect the sources by using both (following the practice for regional English) and we should not be forcing editors to adopt only one spelling variant; the one which predominates in one region of the world. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:28, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Please, whose "leading dictionaries? Or doesn't the MacQuarie count? Do you only perceive the world in terms of the Atlantic divide? My tone should be interpreted as terse but not uncivil. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

My position and the basis for this was established in my initial statement. I have, I believed, not varied from this but replied to confirm that which I have originally stated - despite attempts to refute same. I have looked directly at the n-gram evidence. While there is a difference between US and English usage, both cases support the hyphenated version and therefore debunk any arguement on the basis of WP:ENGVAR. This is a matter of WP:HYPHEN and WP:CONSISTENCY for the reasons I have previously identified. WP:RETAIN does not override these considerations in the case of titles in this context. I also note that WP:HYPHEN doesn't inherently recognise an inconsistently with WP:ENGVAR. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:43, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

You misread my sentence; I was referring to the Oxford English Dictionary in a clause that was clearly about British English. And BTW please don't resort to cheap personal and speculative attacks on another editor's worldview. The rest of your argument is overstated IMHO; Wikipedia's grammar guidelines should not override the sources in the real world which reflect both variants. Bermicourt (talk) 14:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

But only both verities? Cinderella157 (talk) 15:02, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support—for heaven's sake: I google it and see lots of hyphenated examples and lots of unhyphenated examples. That means we hyphenate. We are not an engineering newsletter, or a sign in a railway station even; you can see that such contexts, and especially the mentality of those who write the text, might become sloppy through over-familiarity. But our titles are for readers in search who do not have that context. And our readership generally should not be presumed to have expertise. Wikipedia is not elitist in its assumptions of readers' familiarity and reading context. Tony (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No it isn't, but why do we need to force people to adopt only one of two widely used spelling variants? Surely we want to introduce our readers to the richness of the sources they may encounter? The hyphen adds nothing to their experience or understanding in this case. Bermicourt (talk) 11:50, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The reasons are WP:CONSISTENCY and the clarity issue of WP:HYPHEN. You can't argue WP:CONSISTENCY in the favour of the unhyphenated version and then make this argument of inconsistency - sorry, but it is just inconsistent. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

You can't and I'm not. I'm arguing that this is one area where the sources use two variants widely and we should not be forced to favour one over the other to satisfy a predilection. Actually, if you look at the history of such articles you'll see that they were more consistently spelt unhyphenated until the nom came along and changed them e.g. in the articles on narrow gauge lines in Portugal, Britain, Norway and China. The categories all bear the unhyphenated names because that was the consistent standard and there was no need to change it. Bermicourt (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry but: "The argument for WP:CONSISTENCY goes the other way, since all the "narrow gauge" categories are unhyphenated. This is part of a campaign by Dicklyon to force Wikipedia to accept an unnecessarily strict WP:POV that is not reflected by the sources. Bermicourt (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)" Cinderella157 (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

In other words, if you're going to use a "consistency" argument, bear in mind that, until this recent hyphen campaign, it took you the other way. On the other hand I'm not the one insisting on uniformity, just pointing out that it's slightly unreasonable, some might say sharp practice, to change a bunch of articles and then say that 'for consistency' we must adopt the same style as those we've just changed. Bermicourt (talk) 15:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

My last was a quote of you and quite frankly, your response makes absolutely no sense - I'm sorry. It very much sounds like you are accusing me of changing a bunch of articles? Cinderella157 (talk) 15:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

You need to track the discussion a bit more closely then. If you just re-read your quote and my last but one response, you'll see my clear reference to the nom's "campaign" and to his changing the titles of numerous articles. Bermicourt (talk) 16:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Any case where "the sources use two variants widely" is precisely and exactly the time when we ask "what does MOS say to do?", and just do that. Always. We do something other than what MoS says when virtually all the RS consistently use a single form that isn't the MoS compliant one, because it's clearly become a strong convention. There is no strong convention here, just random variance, so follow WP's own style guide, per normal.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:07, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Clear correct English. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:50, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - there's no such thing as a "Standard-gauge railway", so there's no need to hyphenate either Broad gauge or Narrow gauge. Mjroots (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

There is such a thing, as book usage clearly shows, but I don't see how that relates to the question. If the standard gauge did not exist, we'd still hyphenate the compound "narrow gauge" when using it as an adjective, as essentially all dictionaries and grammar guides suggest. Dicklyon (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - I've never seen the phrases written with a hyphen, and I don't think a hyphen is necessary. I think the hyphen is distracting.  – Corinne (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not credible that you've never seen "narrow-gauge railway", if you've ever looked, e.g. in a dictionary, a book search, a news search, or even a web search. It's most commonly hyphenated, and the hyphen does not "distract", but rather signals the reader to treat those two words as a unit, as any grammar and style guide will explain (e.g. New Hart's Rules as quoted below, or the Oxford English Dictionary as discussed above). Dicklyon (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Neutral Changing from "Oppose" to "Neutral", not because of Dicklyon's comments but because of the entry at Merriam-Webster on-line (see link to definition in my comment below).  – Corinne (talk) 00:43, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong support – The general English pattern of using a hyphen to make a compound work as a single adjective is appropriate here, especially seeing that this is the way it is most commonly done in books (per the n-grams), and in light of the linked dictionaries, and the quoted Oxford English Dictionary, that list the adjective form as narrow-gauge and give examples of it hyphenated. Also, per MOS:DASH. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:47, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Both terms are widely used, so from my reading of the arguments above, the issue is whether hyphenation makes the title less ambiguous. Narrow-gauge is less ambiguous as it clearly identifies that the gauge is being modified by narrow, which admittedly seems obvious but may actually be of use to someone with very little background knowledge of the topic. Scribolt (talk) 09:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support - Grammatical clarity is needed for all readers, including those who are unfamiliar with the unhyphenated term "narrow gauge". There is not enough source agreement to override this principle. Those who are familiar with "narrow gauge" will not be confused by the hyphen; whether they find it offensive is beside the point for our purposes. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:18, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Extended discussion

This is largely in response to Bahnfrend, but at least one other respondent also appeared to be misinterpreting Fowler's, and another suggested the same sort of "if the sources aren't consistent, we can do whatever we want" argument as if MOS didn't exist – and didn't exist primarily to address that very kind of case.

1. There obviously is a "risk of ambiguity" here; only people familiar with railways know that "narrow gauge" is a single modifier.
2. But it's a moot point. WP hyphenates compound modifiers. Whether "As a railway enthusiast of many decades' standing" you like that or not is immaterial. No one agrees that every single rule in MoS suits their preference, and no rule in MoS is the preference of every single editor. We follow it because it's a stable compromise and it puts trivial, tiresome disputes to bed so we can get on with the important stuff.
3. Reliable sources on travel and other topics besides railways, written for a general audience not specialists (and actual publications, not signs), from reputable publishers with professional editors, are almost certainly going to better represent norms of English usage than "a railway enthusiast of many decades' standing". And better than both signage and railway specialty material. Your attempt to dismiss sources because they're not train-specific is a no-go.
4. Your analogy to "Sunday morning walk" also doesn't work; those are two separate modifiers. It's a Sunday walk, and also a morning walk, but this is not a "gauge railway" and a "narrow railway" (while the latter might seem subjectively true, it would be a matter of opinion, and the first doesn't even parse as meaningful). The meaningful construction in this case is "narrow-gauge railway". This becomes even clearer in more complex constructions like "British narrow-gauge slate railways", which positively requires a hyphen for anyone but a railfan to identify the modifiers correctly (There isn't something called the "British narrow" gauge, but who would know that? And there is no such thing as "gauge slate", but why would a reader be certain if not already steeped in the topic?) Since we have to hyphenate that, we need to also hyphenate other cases of "narrow-gauge railway" per WP:CONSISTENCY.
5. You're also misreading Fowler's. In detail, and with direct quotations and page citations:
   • The recent Burchfield edition begins its section on hyphens (pp. 370–371 of the 2004 printing) with examples of messy "mix-and-match", using and dropping the hyphen seemingly at random, quoted from a single publication. Burchfield criticises that it was "clearly written by a person who was unaware of the need for basic consistency in the use of hyphens." And that was about constructions completely unlike each other besides being compounds; here we're talking about the exact same text string in multiple article titles.
   • Burchfield continues, observing that hyphenation style varies "from publishing house to publishing house". This publishing house has a particular standard, codified at MOS:HYPHEN.
   • He also does not at all support your implication that American publications hyphenate where British would use a space; quite the opposite. British tend to use a full compound with neither space nor hyphen when American would use a hyphen, and use a hyphen when American would use a space; this is illustrated with examples like "teen-age" in many US publications being "teenage" in British, and "horse racing" in many American newspapers but "horse-racing" in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. There's no evidence that "narrowgauge" is routinely fully compounded like that, so a hyphen it is. (Butterfield, below, clarifies this further.)
   • "The familiarity of a term is important", he adds. "Narrow-gauge" with or without the hyphen is not "familiar" to anyone as a matter of general English usage, only to people unusually familiar with railway terminology.
   • "Main uses of the hyphen. 1 To join two or more words so as to form a single expression ... and words having a syntactical relationship which form a compound ...; and in a compound used attributively, to clarify the unification of the sense. ... 3 To prevent misconceptions .... 4 To avoid ambiguity ...." That all applies here.
   • Butterfield's very new edition (2015, pp. 387–388) is in all-new wording when it comes to hyphens, but doesn't substantively contradict any of Burchfield (though clarifies a point – nouns versus adjectives).
   • A hyphen "has the purpose of linking words and word elements rather than separating them. Beyond this apparently simple rule, in the world of real usage, lies chaos ... especially when use of the hyphen is governed by discretion, context, or taste rather than by clear-cut rules". Style guides like MOS provide clear-cut rules, and exist to prevent that external chaos from "invading" a publication and resulting in inconsistent output for readers and to curtail writer/editor strife over the matter page-by-page. A 'don't hyphenate because my train magazines don't' push is exactly the context and taste argument against which Butterfield warns.
   • He observes that the same dictionary just mentioned dropped hyphens in many constructions, but it did this with compound nouns (ice-cream → ice cream); here there's a American rather than British trend to fully compound (chick-pea → chickpea, versus the British one to fully-compound the adjectives). The only example given of an adjective undergoing this is water-borne to waterborne, a full-compounding not a split into two words like "narrow gauge".
   • For applicable uses, Butterfield lists: "1 Creating a single unit of meaning. To join two or more words to form a single noun, verb, adjective, etc. ..., and words having a grammatical relationship which form a compound ..." That is the case here. He reiterates here that the hyphen is commonly dropped for compound nouns, not adjectives. "2 Phrases in front of nouns. To clarify the meaning of a phrase that is normally spelt as separate words" – e.g., in a construction like this railway has a narrow gauge – "when it is used attributively (before a noun)". That is also the case here. "5 To avoid misinterpretation. To clarify meaning in groups of words when the associations are not clear or when several possible association can be inferred." Clearly also the case here, the more so the more complicated the example is (e.g. British narrow-gauge slate railways).
   • Nowhere, anywhere, does either modern edition of Fowler's suggest a trend of dropping hyphens for compound adjectives, much less a trend (British or otherwise) of changing them into spaces in adjectives (the closest thing would seem to be full compounding of either very familiar terms or particular technical ones, and it's not happening with narrow-gauge → narrowgauge.
6. The reason that train-focused publications drop the hyphen is familiarity – to readers of those publications; doesn't apply on WP. The reason signage does it is typographic expediency, the same reason it's usually in ALL CAPS; also doesn't apply here.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Bahnfrend's response

It seems to me that there are only four fairly short points that need to be made in response to the above discussion:

1. MOS:HYPHEN does not require compounds to be hyphenated. It does no more than suggest hyphenation in the circumstances it describes. Really, what the proponents of change are saying in this discussion is that they think "narrow gauge" should have a hyphen, and that MOS:HYPHEN requires one, but the latter is simply not true.
2. MOS:HYPHEN also concludes with the following: "Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; the rules and examples presented above illustrate the broad principles." As I have indicated in earlier posts, Wikipedia also says, elsewhere, that "... unambiguous compound modified expressions are not normally hyphenated." That is one of the "subtleties" to which MOS:HYPHEN refers in its conclusion, but does not discuss.
3. It may be correct to say that "narrow gauge slate railway" is ambiguous, because it could mean either "a railway made of narrow gauge slate (ie thin slate)" or "a railway with a narrow gauge used to carry slate". But even if there is such an ambiguity, adding a hyphen to transform that expression into "narrow-gauge slate railway" will not clarify that particular ambiguity, and in any event it does not matter whether there is such an ambiguity, or whether any such ambiguity can be fixed, because the issue we are debating here is whether to hyphenate a different expression, namely "narrow gauge railway(s)".
4. The expression "narrow gauge railway(s)" is not ambiguous. It can only mean "a railway (or railways) with a narrow gauge", and that's why it should not be hyphenated.

Bahnfrend (talk) 07:20, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll take your avoidance of all of the important points as concession that you have no refutation of them. As for the four trivial matters (which are actually three; the fourth is a repeat of the second):

1. No one has made that argument. Rather, the argument is to do what MOS suggests in absence of a strong majority of sources preferring to do otherwise in a particular case. This is how all MOS matters get decided; there is nothing special about this case.
2. As already explained, this is not an unambiguous case to anyone but a railfan. WP is not written specifically for railfans. The hyphen makes the meaning much clearer (it's the gauge that's narrow, and it's a narrow-gauge railway, not a "gauge railway" that is narrow in comparison with other "gauge railways"). Addition of the hyphen has no effect pro or con on understanding by people who are railfans. Ergo, it is objectively a net improvement. No "subtleties" are at issue here.
3. What you're saying there defies reason in at least two ways. I decline to get in a circular argument with you about it, and trust the closer to have common sense.
4. Already covered that.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Also note that Narrow-gauge railway has been hyphenated for about two years now, and that didn't bother anybody. The hyphen can only help; there's no theory by which is has any negative effect on any reader or editor; only positive. Removing the ambiguity of how to read it is a good thing, and should be uncontroversial. What is the reason for all this arguing from the rail fans, who don't seem to understand or appreciate English grammar? Dicklyon (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like clutching at straws. Just because an article title has been in existence a long time, doesn't preclude healthy discussion about what the title should be. The hyphen issue in this case is clearly controversial as your own talk page shows, but you have continued to press on with a hyphen campaign, disregarding the views of other editors. And now you're even suggesting that rail fans are grammatical Philistines - an argument you may find difficult to sustain and which breaks Wikipedia's guidelines on PERSONAL ATTACKS. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:02, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely, I'm always up for healthy discussion. Not clear why you say the hyphen would be controversial. Most English-language sources do this, and especially those written for a general audience, which is how we do in WP. I think what my talk page shows is that you and Railfan23 mistakenly took this to be a British/American difference, though it clearly is not. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how rail fans write for each other; it is quite typical in all fields to drop hyphens when writing for an insider audience that is so familiar with the compounds that they don't need help parsing such things. The AMA even changed their style guidance on small-cell carcinoma, away from the hyphen, after the term was familiar enough within the medical community that they no longer needed it; but we don't do that, because it would lead the naive reader astray. Dicklyon (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Also note that the distinctly British New Hart's Rules of 2005 says "a compound expression preceding the noun is generally hyphenated when it forms a unit modifying the noun", and gives examples including "first-class seats" and "low-level radioactive waste" which are analogous to "narrow-gauge whatevers". They seem to support hyphenation more unconditionally than typical American guides, so I'd say you've got things pretty backwards in that respect. Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Dicklyon, New Hart's Rules also notes that there's a trend toward using one or two words instead of adding hyphens, so long as there's no ambiguity (p. 60). They give "peacekeeping force" and "high quality teaching" as examples. "Narrow gauge railway" would therefore be fine. For example:

• Peter Johnson, Narrow Gauge Railways, Bloomsbury, 2013.
• Peter Bosley, Light Railways in England and Wales, Manchester University Press, 1990, 102: "standard gauge tramway" and "narrow gauge railway".

SarahSV ^(talk) 18:52, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, they say "there is a drift toward", and that is fully acknowledged in discussion here of how hyphens sometimes dropped when the phrase becomes so familiar that their help is no longer needed. And yes I agree that in "high quality teaching" all readers will see "high quality" as a unit even without the help of a hyphen. And that for railfans writing for railfans, that could apply as well to "narrow gauge", as in those rail books you cite, and hence that drift happens. For writing for a general readership, however, there is no reason to prefer dropping the hyphen, since it's there to help the less familiar reader parse this kind of compound. WP writes for the general reader, not just for those who are familiar with what a railway gauge is. Dicklyon (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Bahnfrend's further response to SMcCandlish

1. I was not avoiding any of SMcCandlish's points. My response was to those points, and it was short and to the point because only a short response was necessary.
2. There is no such expression as "gauge railway" as a compound expression in isolation. A railway may be a "narrow gauge railway", a "standard gauge railway", a "broad gauge railway", a "3 ft 6 in gauge railway", etc, but there's no such thing as a "gauge railway" without such a preceding modifier. You won't find anything authoritative suggesting anything to the contrary. Therefore the expression "narrow gauge railway" is not ambiguous, and should not be hyphenated. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:27, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

   B, I don't disagree that there's no such thing as a gauge railway, but apparently thousands of writers think there is, and we can't expect naive or general readers to know there's not. They will mostly puzzle it out, but will read it much more quickly and easily with a little help from a hyphen. That's what it's for. Dicklyon (talk) 07:41, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The trouble is that you select external evidence on the basis of whether it supports your existing prejudice, not on how credible it is in order to establish an objective norm. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I cite what I find. You can cite what you find. What have you got? Dicklyon (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

What you've found is not evidence from credible or reliable sources, but, eg, posts on Facebook by people who haven't bothered to proofread their posts properly. Bahnfrend (talk) 10:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Well I certainly didn't mean for you to take a web search very seriously; that's why I usually cite books and news searches, which mostly show things that a had a good chance of having been looked at by a professional editor. That web search cite was just to show that sometimes there is confusion about things like "a gauge railway". I agree with you that a person who understands what's they're writing about would not do that. All it shows is that not everyone is as familiar with railraod terminology as rail specialists are. Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'll have to admit that before I posted my "Oppose", I only did a quick Google search, and that most of the first few entries were un-hyphenated, but I also really did not recall seeing a hyphen in that phrase. However, I looked it up in the Unabridged Merriam-Webster dictionary on-line, and it shows it only as hyphenated, whether it is spelled "narrow-gauge" or "narrow-gage". However, I do not think all two-adjective modifying phrases are hyphenated; in fact, there are many that are not hyphenated. I have to agree with Bahnfrend that there is no need for a hyphen when the modifier is clear. I think people often add the hyphen because they think all two-adjective phrases must be hyphenated, when they don't always have to be. English compound#Hyphenated compound modifiers provides support for both sides of this "argument". On the one hand, it says that if the compound modifier is a permanent compound, if the dictionary has it as hyphenated, it should always be hyphenated regardless of whether it is in the attributive or predicate position. On the other hand, it also says, "If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: Sunday morning walk." Often, the compound adjective is hyphenated when it is becoming so common that it is on the road to becoming one word. It is intermediate between two separate words and one word. I don't think "narrow gauge" is in that category. (Sometimes, a phrase is hyphenated for a while, and then goes back to being un-hyphenated, like "New-York" in "New-York Historical Society", which has kept the hyphen from a century ago.) I think it's regrettable, though, that some of us are getting a bit upset by this discussion. It's clear that sometimes "narrow gauge" is hyphenated, and sometimes it is not, and the style guides, dictionaries, and internet searches provide examples of both. I think we should go by similar titles of Wikipedia articles. How have they been written, by and large, up to now? (I know many article titles correctly have an en-dash, but there must be some that correctly have a hyphen.)  – Corinne (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and for changing your !vote to neutral. On that search you did, here's a conjecture: perhaps you did a Google web search for just narrow gauge, e.g. like this. The trouble there is that Google ranks proper names and site names pretty high, so most of the hits are proper names and companies and such, and one seldom or never puts hyphens into proper names. If you search for "narrow gauge railway" or "narrow gauge line", and look past the proper names, it looks very different (and did even more so a few days ago, before Bermicourt took the hyphens out of all the WP titles while this discussion was ongoing). Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 30 January 2017 (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.