Template:Did you know nominations/Dracula

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk) 07:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Dracula

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Vlad III, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler

• ... that although Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory are popularly believed to have inspired Dracula, Bram Stoker's notes mention neither figure? Source: See Dracula#Influences; information is spread over two paragraphs.Source:
  • ALT1:... that Bram Stoker picked the name Dracula because he thought it meant devil? Source: See Dracula#Textual history. From Stoker's notes: "Dracula in Wallachian language means devil" (Elizabeth Miller & Robert Eighteen-Bisang).

• Comment: This is my third DYK nomination. The article in question has just been promoted to GA following an extensive rewrite.

Created by ImaginesTigers (talk). Self-nominated at 16:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article was recently promoted to GA, checks out for copyvio and neutrality. Earwig only picked up direct quotes. The photo is public domain, looks good and is in the article. Now that ALT1 has been edited, it is more accurate. The fact that Stoker was wrong does not mean about the word's meaning that it wasn't his inspiration, just that we should not make it appear like he was correct. However, I am approving ALT0 per the nominator's request, and because it has fewer points of contention. I added sources from the article since they should be included in the hook as well. QPQ is not needed since this is only the nominator's third nomination. BuySomeApples (talk) 22:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The Wallachian dialect of Romanian doesn't really exist, Romanian is divided into two main groups, the northern variant (Moldavia, most of Transylvania and the northermost parts of Dobruja) and the southern variant (Wallachia, most of Dobruja and southeastern Transylvania). This southern variant is divided into more subvariants such as Muntenian and Oltenian, probably the one in southeastern Transylvania is also considered its own but I am not sure about that, but the reality is that it isn't like Oltenian and Muntenian are considerably more similar to each other than with the southeastern Transylvanian variant as to form their own group within the southern variant of Romania, so a Wallachian dialect doesn't really exist. Here are some maps to understand it better [1] [2]. I'll move the page and do the necessary fixes some day. Sorry for so much text about unrelated stuff, but I'd just put "in old Romanian" or "in Romanian" instead of "in the Wallachian dialect". Super Ψ Dro 21:52, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@Super Dromaeosaurus: The main problem is that I can't substantiate that. Do you have any sourcing to that effect? All of the sourcing that I have reiterate what Stoker said, or simply reproduce it without comment. Don't get me wrong—I believe you! I just can't make it reflect what is accurate because that's not what the (relevant) sources say, so your help would be really appreciated! — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 00:04, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I got it wrong. In old Romanian, Dracul meant "dragon", "devil" is the modern meaning (see Vlad the Impaler#Name), so there's no need to put "in old Romanian", which probably makes the sourcing issue easier. By the way, which source would you need? One saying the Wallachian language he was talking about is Romanian? Super Ψ Dro 07:35, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

• Guys: Vlad the Impaler#Name has a rather finely sourced explanation of the name, which Vlad himself used in his signature -- in short, if probably refers to the Order of the Dragon and to his father, Vlad II Dracul, wearing it. At no point did Dracul(e)a mean "devil" in Romanian, old or new, Wallachian or whatever -- even if we were to assume that dracul was the "devil" and not "serpent" in the language of the time, which is patently not the case, draculea is a derivative suggesting possession or kinship by/with dracul (it has no real meaning in modern Romanian). This means that the hook, whatever it is based on, is lazy and inaccurate; so is whatever part of the article it is based on.

(As a side note: it is completely immaterial to the subject, as all primary sources, including Vlad's signatures, are in Slavonic, not Romanian: but there is such a thing as a Wallachian dialect, and info I sourced the article on Alecu Beldiman suggests that, while fully intelligible to other speakers of Romanian, it had its peculiarities, as in voicing z as a dz, therefore d̦, and j as dj.) Dahn (talk) 07:23, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, I now note it is based on Stoker's own quote: "Dracula means means devil." Guys, this is precisely why you should differentiate between a fact and a report of a fact -- it is easily disputable that Draculea ever meant "Devil", and in any case Dracula in that form doesn't even exist in Romanian (well, it does now: it only refers to Stoker's novel). Stoker was not an authority on Romanian, and he couldn't even speak it; he was probably just parsing the few words he could discern and spelling them the way he heard them. So the "fact" is not that Dracula means "devil" in Romanian, it is that Stoker thought it did. Make what you will of this. Dahn (talk) 07:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Revisied the alt, but I'll say that my preference is still for the primary hook, not the alternate which I'm aware has issues. What "dracula" actually meant is irrelevant to the reason Stoker picked it. He didn't pick it because of Vlad the Impaler; he liked the meaning given in whatever book he saw it in. — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 12:14, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Uh, the ALT hook now says "because he thought it meant devil", which seems fine to me. I also prefer the first hook. Ceoil (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• 'Withdrawing' this nomination. I'm not familiar with the DYK withdrawal procedure, so I've tagged the template for deletion. If that's improper, please let me know! — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 21:54, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  Are you sure @ImaginesTigers:? I can close this nomination if you want, but a Dracula hook would look great on the front page. BuySomeApples (talk) 20:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  Agree with BuySomeApples; would be great to get it to main page. Ceoil (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  BuySomeApples (talk · contribs) and Ceoil (talk · contribs): We'll just keep it going. — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 08:26, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you @ImaginesTigers: and @Ceoil:! I have done a full review of the nomination (everything checks out) and approved ALT0. Can't wait to see this on the front page. BuySomeApples (talk) 22:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

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