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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 April 8

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April 8

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Pretentious interview stories

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There's a style of "writing" that's beloved of scribblers in the weekend liftout sections of major newspapers. Some notable person is to be interviewed and written about. The story is usually written in the present tense. The journo starts off talking about themself (!), maybe how the interview came about, how they found/find the appointed venue, whether they got/get there on time or not, the weather that day, maybe what they were/are wearing ... Then it's on to the subject, what they were/are wearing, what they both eat/drink, how they look/sound, yada yada. Ultimately the actual meat of the story - the subject's works, thoughts, opinions, responses - is arrived at, but by then it may be thin pickings.

Does this pretentious puffery-guffery have a name? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 02:04, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It could be called Gonzo journalism, but the kind of thing you're describing sounds more like simple "padding". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:10, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen that type of thing added as a "wraparound" to an interview with someone who has since died, usually recently. This is a way to get a "new story" out of old footage. In some cases the actual interview wasn't much, like an actor plugging some crap movie that bombed, but the insight into how the actor behaved prior to and after the interview may well be more valuable than the actual interview. StuRat (talk) 02:14, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There's something at Puffery#Puff_piece... AnonMoos (talk) 02:32, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes there has been no interview at all: the journalist may merely lift details from other journalists' stories and from general references, and either give the impression that he/she's just interviewed the subject, or outright lies about it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 15:31, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IPA pronunciations of Romanian-language names

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Hi, I speak Romanian natively and I recently reviewed over 1,000 IPA pronunciations of Romanian and Moldovan names here, at the English Wikipedia. They weren't all correct, so I took care of them for the most part, but I came upon a few cases that I'm not 100% sure about, so I'd like to ask those of you who speak Romanian to help find a correct pronunciation for 19 such names. Now, you don't necessarily have to be able to read IPA symbols, because I used a Romanian phonetic transcription as well. Stressed vowels look like this: a, ă, e, i, î, o, u.

So which ones would you choose? —  Andreyyshore  T  C  02:32, 8 Apr 2017 (UTC) 

You would probably find more speakers of Romanian on ro:WP:O than here. --31.168.171.66 (talk) 08:19, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I chose to have a discussion here because it's more about the English Wikipedia, but I did advertise it at the Romanian village pump. —  Andreyyshore  T  C  08:22, 8 Apr 2017 (UTC) 
Andreyyshore, my knowledge of the phonetic alphabet is limited, but I can tell you that in Romanian media, Teodor is always stressed on the middle syllable. Also, Veneția might not come from Venice, but from wikt:ro:venetic, so it's impossible to say the correct pronunciation without local knowledge. Afil might give you some pointers regarding rivers.--Strainu (talk) 09:22, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input. I did hear Andra say "Teodor" a few days ago, but I wasn't sure what to think about that, as I'd heard all the versions above from at least one person before.
Maybe I did overformalize things with all the transcriptions, but, in reality, even replying with a simplistic hyphenation such as "Cea-u-șes-cu" can be of great help. Many of my dilemmas (covering 9 out of 19 articles) are exactly about that; could use some confirmation to make sure I'm not just going crazy, making stuff up :) —  Andreyyshore  T  C  13:13, 8 Apr 2017 (UTC) 
You might find this article useful, even if it doesn't cite its sources. A few more opinions:
The name of Veneția River, as well as of the village of Veneția has nothing to do with the city of Venice. The name comes from the romanian Vânăt meaning violet (color), in the form of Vineția (with the accent on the last i), which was changed, in time, to Veneția (with the same accent). The name comes from the violet shaded color of some of the argilous soils in the area. Străinu is however right, you could not guess the proper accent just by reading the name of the river or of the village. Local knowledge and/or etymological knowledge is required to assess the proper pronounciation. Afil (talk) 01:20, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Strainu: That's exactly my line of thinking regarding "August". For Boldești-Scăeni and Săcueni, it should be mentioned in the article that they're also frequently spelled "Boldești-Scăieni" and "Săcuieni" (as on ro.wp, and leaving the pronunciations as they are). As for the article about hyphenation rules, all the pronunciations in the table above are theoretically fine, except for a few cases where the original transcription wasn't done properly. The question here is which ones are actually being used.
@Afil: Thanks. I guess that the nod to Venice (which I now see was added by an IP user) was misleading. I think the best solution to this is to:
  1. Remove "Venezia in Italian" from the lead;
  2. Add a tie bar to the ts so that it reads t͡s (that goes without question) and leave the rest of the pronunciation as it is;
  3. Maybe add a paragraph or a footnote acknowledging that it's, indeed, written like the Romanian exonym for Venice, but that they're etymologically unrelated (citation needed). —  Andreyyshore  T  C  02:24, 9 Apr 2017 (UTC) 
I will change "Ceaușescu" to the four-syllable version. The word ceauș itself has the stress on the u, so there's no way it could be a semivowel. Ceauș having two syllables also makes sense because it comes from Turkish çavuş (no doubt that the a and the u are in different syllables). I also (finally) found two recordings of shows where Paul Codrea was invited. The host pronounced it according to my version and Paul didn't object to it; he didn't look like something was wrong. —  Andreyyshore  T  C  02:38, 10 Apr 2017 (UTC) 

e.g., i.e. and etc. vs eg, ie and etc

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Whilst I acknowledge that many international style guides will advise you use 'e.g.', 'i.e.' and 'etc.', all major UK style guides (including that of the UK government, the Guardian, the Economist, and Oxford and Cambridge universities) say it should be 'eg', etc. Should - therefore - the Wikipedia Manual of Style include separate options for US and UK? --Sb2001 (talk) 23:00, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This would probably be better at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style or maybe Wikipedia:Village Pump (policy), as you are asking for opinions that would potentially affect the MOS (which is not what the reference desk is for). I'd have to guess that the fact that the international style guides say e.g. and i.e. would restrict eg and ie to only the most British of British-English articles. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:38, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keeping in mind the book, The eg and ie. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Added a link for the non-old fogeys. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:03, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your question is flawed. All the major UK style guides do not recommend eg.--Shantavira|feed me 09:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[citation needed], of course. 12:18, 9 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmhermen (talk • contribs) 12:18, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Citation is obvious, i.e. the relevant style guides (which I have in front of me): Concise Oxford Dictionary, Oxford Manual of Style, etc.--Shantavira|feed me 15:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In Britain the method is to place a point after an abbreviation which omits the final letter of the word, but otherwise no - for example "e.g.", "i.e.", but "Mr" and "Mrs". Americans do not follow this rule. 81.129.14.0 (talk) 13:05, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sb2001 -- I'm not sure what the official Wikipedia "Manual of Style" says about this, but the general Wikipedia tendency has been to allow national variants in spelling, but not usually in punctuation. So Wikipedia follows British practice in that commas etc. are not automatically reordered before quote marks, but follows American practice in that outer quote marks should be double (not single), and so on... AnonMoos (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See the following; Guardian style guide - 'eg no full points' UK government style guide - 'eg, etc and ie' Economist style guide - 'ie and eg' University of Oxford style guide - 'etc', 'eg' and 'ie' @Shantavira - I am yet to come across a style guide in the UK which does not recommend no full stops. --Sb2001 (talk) 16:04, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also University of Cambridge educational style guide: "Do not use full stops in these common abbreviations: eg, am, pm, op, no, cf, ie, ed, etc or after Mr, Mrs, Prof or Dr". Alansplodge (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And again, BBC NEWS STYLE GUIDE: "Eg ie no full stop".
And finally Editorial Style and Writing Guidelines - NHS Connecting for Health: "Common abbreviations such as, ie, eg and etc should be written without full stops". Alansplodge (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is interesting but should be taken to the MOS pages. Nothing on Wikipedia will be changed following a discussion here. There seems to be good evidence to support an ENGVAR split in punctuation here though. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note that New Hart's Rules, the official (and highly influential) standard for books published by the Oxford University Press, takes a more conservative line, calling for full stops after abbreviations (where the final letter is omitted), but not after contractions (where the final letter is retained). So i.e., e.g., Prof., but Mr, Mrs, Dr ... rossb (talk) 22:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, worth adding to any discussion that takes place at MOS. The Rambling Man (talk) 02:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I surmise that style guides for web publications are more likely than those for hardcopy printing to favour eg over e.g. jnestorius(talk) 12:13, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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