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UESPWiki talk:Spelling/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki talk:Spelling discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

References

I relied upon several discussions about spelling when compiling this page. For anyone who is interested in reading those discussions, these are the links:

Capitalization of Links

A question for experienced editors: When should links to other wiki pages be capitalized and when should they not? For example, if a link to the Spelling page (which itself is capitalized) is used in a sentence, should the link text be Spelling or spelling? I've seen both used in different places and was wondering whether there was a guideline I haven't seen yet. Cheers --Sandgroper 08:23, 12 June 2007 (EDT)

We don't really have a policy, but I would recommend to capitalize it, as it is a link to an article. --Ratwar 18:51, 12 June 2007 (EDT)
Ok, thanks - sounds like this should apply to new links, but isn't necessarily enough of a policy to go changing existing links, if I understand you correctly. --Sandgroper 19:33, 12 June 2007 (EDT)
That sounds about right. --Ratwar 01:45, 13 June 2007 (EDT)

A NPC or an NPC?

I think it would be good to have a site-wide standard for whether to say "a NPC" or "an NPC". It's definitely a minor issue and not something I feel any editors need to devote time to cleaning up. But there are constantly edits being made switching cases of "a NPC" to "an NPC" and vice versa. I think having some decision on which is preferred would at least allow the site to slowly migrate in that direction, instead of having some pages flip flop back and forth day after day. I can't say I myself have a strong preference, though. Does anyone know if there's an official rule that applies here?

While we're on the subject, there's also the question of how to pluralize "NPC." I know I've looked into similar cases in the past and I found out that to some extent either "NPCs" or "NPC's" is permitted. But I definitely prefer "NPCs" as the plural, and I think that is what's generally been done on the site. So if we're going to add NPC-related rules to the spelling page, I'd propose we also state that "NPCs" should always be used for the plural. --NepheleTalk 21:16, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

I've always used "an NPC", and looking at some D&D manuals, it appears that they do the same. They also pluralize it as "NPCs", which I can confirm conforms to the Canadian Press Stylebook (some Candian editors consider it to be equivalent to The Bible). I have no idea about common American usage, though, which is what we normally use on this site. --Robin Hood 21:47, 1 August 2007 (EDT)
Well, if D&D manuals aren't official, then I don't know what is ;) Seriously, though, thanks for the info! --NepheleTalk 22:07, 1 August 2007 (EDT)


I agree - "a NPC" just sounds wrong, and the use of the apostrophe in "NPC's" also seems bulkier than it should be. (Plus, most pluralizations do not use apostrophes, so it seems inconsistant with the English language to use them here.) For what it's worth, Wikipedia's article seems to conform to this standard. So I say "an NPC" and "NPCs" are the correct usages just in general. --TheRealLurlock Talk 22:11, 1 August 2007 (EDT)
I have been using "an NPC" and "NPCs" all along, and think are the correct use. --DrPhoton 03:48, 2 August 2007 (EDT)
I've been thinking about it, and as a some-time linguist/some-time editor (but mostly a programmer), I believe I've come up with a reasonable justification for the use of "an NPC" over "a NPC". It has to do with a linguistic concept known as liaison, very commonly seen in French, but not so much in English. The basic idea is inserting or removing letters to make sounds flow better. "Que a il fait?" would technically be correct in French, but absolutely nobody would ever actually write it that way. The correct version would be "Qu'a-t-il fait?", with the "Que a" being combined into a contraction, and the "a il" picking up a "-t-" in the middle just to make the pronunciation flow better.
In English, you see it with the rule always use "an" before a vowel. Well, that's great, except we have "a unicorn", "a ukelele", etc. Why? Because the long "u" sounds like "yu", which starts with a consonant. Thus, you get "a UFO", even though the long form would be "an unidentified flying object". In a similar fashion, you get "an NPC" even though the long form would be "a non-player character", simply to make it sound correct. If you'd like further "proof of concept" (even if not a real proof), Google "an NGO" vs. "a NGO" (with the quotes). You'll find that "an NGO" outnumbers "a NGO" by nearly 6 to 1.
So that's my reasoning for why "an NPC" is the correct way to go, take it or leave it. --Robin Hood 11:30, 2 August 2007 (EDT)
I think we're all in agreement here, but I agree as well--"NPCs" and "an NPC" is the way to go. Apostrophes almost always imply possession, so that's out. "A NPC" would be correct if everyone said "non-player character" in their head whenever they read "NPC," but as far as I can tell that's not the case. Besides, we wouldn't want to make the D&D gods angry, now would we ;). --Eshe 12:42, 2 August 2007 (EDT)
While we're on the subject of NPC's, I believe that "NPCs" should indeed be spelled "NPC's." The English rule is that you use apostrophes to pluralize acronyms (CD's, DVD's, etc.). --The5thAvocado 22:04, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

(outdent)All sources I remember state that "s" should be added to pluralize an acronym, except when the acronym uses internal punctuation or the acronym's last letter is an "S". --GuildKnightTalk2me 22:50, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

As I understand it, 's is the older standard, where s on its own is now more commonly used. When using the s on its own, the rule of thumb is to still use an apostrophe if it will help avoid confusion: "I got straight As on my report card" vs. "A's are the best mark you can get" (since "As" would easily be seen to be a word in this instance). --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 23:51, 2 September 2008 (EDT)
No, no no! An apostrophe is never used to indicate a plural! NPCs is the plural, NPC's is possessive, as in "The NPC's inventory". Ditto DVD. "I own several hundred DVDs" vs "This DVD's cover has a crack". — Unsigned comment by Rpeh (talk • contribs) at 01:04 on 3 September 2008
Maybe not here, but a quick Google search will turn up several sites indicating that the use of 's in things like numbers and initialisms was at one point considered correct and is now falling out of favour. I remember being taught to write "1970's" (probably in the 1970s), but now "1970s" is considered preferable...same thing goes with acronyms. It's included in Wikipedia's article (what isn't?), though apparently whoever wrote that section didn't cite their info properly. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 10:40, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

Capitalization of races, classes, etc.

Do we have a policy on the capitalization of words like "orc", "necromancer", etc? The manual capitalizes race, but in a quick search, I couldn't find anywhere that it even mentioned a specific class. (PS, good luck coming up with a rule for this: in English, we capitalize words like "Asian", "English", etc., but we don't capitalize "human". Go figure!) --Robin Hood 19:40, 21 February 2008 (EST)

Nope, I don't think we've made a real decision on this one. And I know I tend to use both. If the context is one where the word is being used as a proper noun, I capitalize (e.g., when it's clearly a reference to the game's defined use of the word); if the context is more generic, then I frequently use lower case because I think only proper nouns should be capitalized. But trying to draw that line is often tricky and I'd bet it doesn't make sense to many readers.
Which leads to two questions: do people think we need to have a policy on capitalizing races and classes? And if so, any ideas what the policy should be? I don't have any strong preferences about either one ;) --NepheleTalk 01:49, 22 February 2008 (EST)
Speaking as a qualified linguist (not that this should have any bearing...), I believe Nephele's usage accurately reflects common practice. I don't think there is any real need to codify a policy, unless there is a significant variety in different editors' usage.
It does get a bit tricky with the various races in Tamriel - as Robin Hood notes, we tend to capitalise nationalities but not races, but do you count 'nord' as a nationality or a race? I personally would view them as 'nationalities' - after all, Nords, Redguards, Bretons, and Imperials are just different 'breeds' of human, and Dunmer, Altmer, Bosmer, and Orsimer (Orcs) are different 'breeds' of elf. In fact, the only race name I could imagine not being capitalised is 'orc', but I'm not sure I know why it seems reasonable to do so.
As far as classes are concerned, I think the only situation in which they should be capitalised is if they are presented as titles (e.g. Bob the Necromancer, Tim the Enchanter, Salmo the Baker) - you don't tend to capitalise professions, and classes are basically the same thing.
Ultimately, given the general policy on this site, if it's capitalised in the games, then it should be capitalised on this site. --Gaebrial 03:18, 22 February 2008 (EST)
I also ran into this a while back, and was told that the consensus was that races should indeed be capitalised. Should this be added to the article now? I think it would be helpful as it's one of those potentially contentious issues where "the style guide says..." would settle the matter. --Vometia 19:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Vometia....How can you judge the Elder Scroll's spelling when you don't even have yours in order? "Capitalised" it's pronounced Capitilized. Integra 16:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Please maintain a civil tone.--TheAlbinoOrcany_questions? 17:29, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I am being civil, i'm just stating that she has a few misspelling's of her own. Integra 18:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Vometia was not judging the Elder Scroll's spelling at all, just asking a question and providing a suggestion. Pointing out her mistake was probably not the most appropriate thing to do; we aren't perfect. I also think that adding that race names should be capitilized is a good idea. -- Jplatinum16 18:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Erm, "capitilized" is not correct spelling anywhere. In the US it's "capitalized", but in the UK it would indeed be spelled "capitalised". --GKtalk2me 16:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
In my absence I hadn't realised I'd inadvertently caused so much controversy! For the record, I'm from England and as such GuildKnight is correct, the spelling I'm familiar with has an "s", not a "z". Without checking, the OED would probably indicate that either spelling is correct in the UK, but in general usage, "-ized" tends to be a rarity here and, correctly or otherwise, it's usually assumed to be an Americanism.
Also for the record, I'm not sure if I've criticised the spellings in TES except to say that they aren't correctly localised for the UK release, although that's unfortunately commonplace with videogame releases. --Vometia 18:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary deletion

Since it's pretty much been decided to remove the dictionary once all the preliminary work has been done (see here), does anybody have suggestions on where we should direct people who are trying to figure out Elder Scrolls spellings? I'll leave it for now, but we'll need to replace it with something eventually. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 06:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of any feedback, I've changed the text to suggest using the search function for now. We may want to re-think that at some point. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 02:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Dialog/Dialogue

Hmmm... in the US there is a distinction between dialogue and dialog. Dialogue would be used to refer to conversation, and dialog would be used to refer to text. Might want to make a note of that. 67.193.96.49 07:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The Construction Set spelling is "dialogue" in all cases as far as I know. Also, at least Merriam-Webster doesn't seem to make this distinction.[1] – Robin Hood↝talk 07:58, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Worshiper / Worshipper

I'm under the impression that the US spelling is "Worshiper", and despite claims to the contrary, I can't see anything that disagrees with that. Certainly dictionary.com calls the "pp" version "especially British".

I prefer the "pp" version, but until this is sorted, please can people stop going through and "fixing" the spelling? rpeh •T•C•E• 00:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

According to the CS the game uses the spelling 'worshipper'. I can't find a use of 'worshiper' so can somebody else check that? mxk101Talk 00:34, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Gods and Worship, and in a comment on some of Harrow's dialogue, but that isn't the point. Certainly when the game is quoted, we should use the in-game spelling. Otherwise, we use the American spelling and everything I can see says that is "worshipers". rpeh •T•C•E• 00:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (Moved from Factions D talk page...should probably have brought it here in the first place.)
I think my edit summary covers it, but since there's a little back & forth, I'm bringing it here. "Worshipers" and "worshippers" are both correct in American English. I used Merriam-Webster, but Wiktionary is also suggestive in that it doesn't say anything about it being a US spelling under either entry.
Doing a search in-game, I found both spellings, but "worshipper" seemed to be the more common, at a glance. (Just counting the number of search hits I found, though some may have been false hits.) – Robin Hood↝talk 00:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I have spelled it "worshipers" in here for as long as I can remember, although I think it looks better with two p's. I'm open for making a bot fix it all over the place. --Krusty 00:46, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
@My apologies, I just realised that the CS I did the search in didn't have Oblivion.esm loaded. I guess that's a sign I need to go to bed. mxk101Talk 00:48, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

(←) I think the most logical solution would be to follow the rule we use for dialog/dialogue. --AKB Talk 00:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

"Dialogue, Dialog: "Dialog" is primarily a US spelling, but is also acceptable in international English. Either spelling is acceptable on the site. There should be no need to correct either spelling of this word, except to provide consistency within a single article."

Since both American and International spelling can use 'pp', I think we should as well to please both audiences. Better this than the inconsistency we have now. Legoless 00:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Well I'm happy with "pp", but since we don't have a single (declared) American in this debate yet (Canadians don't count ;) ) I'd like to wait before adding the decision to the main page. rpeh •T•C•E• 01:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Erhmm, I'm a born and raised American... --AKB Talk 01:09, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
In America (as far as I'm concerned), both spellings are used, but worshiper is more common. I'd support AKB's idea, but I doubt that will stop most users from changing the spelling as they please, whether or not it's consistent within an article. -- Jplatinum16 01:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
@AKB, I said "declared". This is one case where the nationality userboxes would be useful, and you don't have any - especially not {{User American}}. You don't have to have it, of course, but it means I had no way of knowing your nationality before you told me here.
@JPlatinum, if we can get a consensus here then we can add it to the main article, and after that we can fix spellings on sight as long as they aren't from in-game sources. The problem at the moment is that the preferred, non-game spelling isn't defined. rpeh •T•C•E• 01:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
The original spelling, back in Middle English times, was worshipe, thus the proper spelling was worshiper. In modern English, the archaic spelling for worshiper was retained for some reason. The spelling with two p's is more of a consistency thing. --Brf 01:34, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

(←) @ Rpeh, I wasn't accusing you of not knowing my nationality by some error on your part, I was declaring my nationality as an American. Sorry for the confusing phrasing. --AKB Talk 01:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, well we have at least two Merkins supporting "pp", so I've added it to the main page. Given the overwhelming support here for that spelling I don't think I'm being premature, but if anybody disagrees, feel free to revert and restart discussion. rpeh •T•C•E• 01:59, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Can we agree not to capitilize "region" after proper names?

There are substantial differences in how the wiki capitalizes when spelling the proper names of regions. Sometimes it's the "Sheogorad region," sometimes it's the "West Gash Region," ect. Lore pages use "region." Image descriptions vary (though also tend towards "region"). When mentioned in location lists on various ingredients' pages, "Region" is always capitalized. And I have no wish to change those, since ... well, there's a lot of them. Anyways, spelling it the same way across the board is not necessarily important, but I'm a sucker for some kind of explicit internal consistency. Plus, I think I have a whole bunch of mistakes to fix, and I don't want to do that until I'm sure I was backing the wrong horse.

"The spelling of proper names should never be changed; the wiki should exactly match the spelling as used in game." I assume that doesn't mean base IDs (in which case, I think "Region" would win out), but rather how it's spell for the character in-game. Which was pretty difficult to determine, since books, dialogue, and journal entries maddeningly refuse to say "region" after mentioning one by name. The only example I could find was one journal entry (of course, I stopped searching once I found it, but I still had to search a ton): "A Dunmer scout said an ancient Dunmer stronghold called Berandas lies south of the village of Gnisis in the West Gash region."

So ... what say you, Internet? Minor Edits 03:39, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm really a Wikipedia editor, but plan on joining here soon after exams and help out with new Skyrim stuff. What I have found most bothersome here is that in section titles, all words are capitalised. However in Wikipedia the practice is frowned upon because it makes articles look messy and unprofessional. Instead words in section titles are capitalised only if you would capitalise them in a normal sentence. For example the title of this section should be formatted as it has, not like: "Can We Agree Not To Capitalise "Region" After Proper Names?" which is silly. I would support any move towards getting rid of this rule, which is at UESPWiki:Spelling. 122.61.219.84 00:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Alchemy or alchemical ingredients

The wiki is divided on whether it is "alchemical ingredients" or "alchemy ingredients." More pages seem to use "alchemy ingredients" and a half-dozen pages right now use both spellings. Since both Morrowind's and Oblivion's journal entries consistently use "alchemical," and we're supposed to follow the game's lead, I think that's the proper spelling for the word in adjective form and this should be on the list as a frequently misspelled phrase. Minor Edits 01:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter which is used, as they're both correct. "Alchemy ingredients" means "alchemy supplies", i.e. the ingredients used during alchemy. "Alchemical ingredients" means ingredients of an alchemical nature. Neither form is wrong as long as it's used in the correct context. So it doesn't need a clearly defined rule, just some common sense and a grasp of the English language. Legoless 01:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


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