# Talk:The Path to Rome

French-English author: under MOS:DASH, there's a difference between French-English and French–English: the former (hyphen) means that he was an Englishman from a distinctly French-flavoured community of Englishmen (just as "African-Americans" are not Africans); the latter (endash) means that he was in some important way both French and English.
My understanding of nationalities was that they were always hyphenated rather than endashed because the old nationality describes the new one (British → British-American; i.e., an American person who is also British). That is to say, Belloc is French-English because he's a French (adj) person who is also English (adj), but Charles de Gaul and Winston Churchill might debate French–English relations (i.e., a coordinating rather than mutually defining relationship). This is actually explicitly called out in MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES, a subtopic of MOS:DASH. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
explain his decisions to the audience.: audience is unusual here: we'd normally say reader, but I'm hesitating because "the reader" is also a character in the book.
Yes, it's a difficult structure and a bizarre thing to write around. If you come up with an alternative that works, I'm all ears. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
his journalistic work at The Daily News had earned him as much as #14 a week: not a BrE problem, but we should introduce earlier on that he was a journalist and worked for this paper.
Not against it, but I'm not really following the rationale. The section introduces Belloc, his religion (pertinent to the book), his role in the army (pertinent), his intellectual position (maybe not pertinent), his Britishness (i.e., why is he writing this in English), and his foot traveling (pertinent) in the first paragraph. The second contextualizes why the book is written and where it appears in Belloc's oeuvre, as well as a bit about his stylistic goal. The third is for explaining the familial and financial contexts. I could see replacing the Oxford bits with his journalistic work, but I think the job description is more at home with the explanations of his financial situation. Open to alternatives, as always. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
If we're going to give page numbers for quotes, we should specify the edition (quotebox). Somewhat boldly, I've swapped the author's name to the work's title, which is better when we're giving a page number (plus it's always a tricky one as to how far an author's narrator straightfowardly "is" that author, even in an autobiographical work).
I've been using the Library of Congress's version, though my understanding is that the book doesn't really change much because the drawings/maps/etc. have to occur at fixed positions throughout. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
BrE doesn't need a comma before the final item in a list, but it does allow it (subject to vociferous opinions for and against), and it's helpful when the list is complex. I've generally left them in.
I'm a strong "for" on the Oxford comma, but I have to applaud your impartiality here; it's hard to overcome scholastic rivalries.  ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
I put in some horrific code to translate the CHF values into modern GBP. I only barely understand it and have included a "helpful" note os that it can be fixed if/when it all collapses.
Yes, I was reluctant to do the inflation pieces for francs because he uses them in France, but clearly there's no reason not to use them in the Swiss section; good looking out. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Otherwise -- a really lovely article. I would have very little to complain about at FAC. One thing to think about: during the Summary section, we almost slip into an in-universe style at times: it almost sounds as if Belloc's narrator is also narrating our article when we report his opinions in Wikivoice (He buys another bottle of excellent wine in Porrentruy; He has the worst, or second-worst, meal of his life). It might be wise to frame these in a more detached manner, if they're felt important: "he has a meal, which he calls the worst or second-worst of his life..." or something like that. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:06, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist: I really appreciate you taking a look at this. Once this is at GA, I'll probably bring it over to FAC (for WP:4). As for the in-world narration, I think it's hard to avoid especially when the narrator is the person stuff happens to. I'm not sure how much this circumlocution adds to the detachment of the writing. For example, in a traditional narrative, if the narrator George tells us he and Bob are friends, we have to call who he calls his friend his friend, because not doing that creates a narrative distance between the two characters that isn't there and I think serves as pseudo–scare quotes; that is to say, we say "George meets up with his friend Bob" rather than "George meets up with Bob, whom he considered to be his friend" since the circumlocution implies that Bob isn't really George's friend. In this non-traditional narrative, we have to assume wine he calls excellent really is excellent. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think those two things are the same -- I think it comes down to how much "personality" is in the phrasing. It's one thing to write "Belloc drinks a bottle of wine, which he does not enjoy" -- I don't think anyone would have a problem with that -- but something like "Belloc drinks an absolutely god-awful bottle of Italian swill" wouldn't pass muster -- we'd either flatten it or turn it into a quotation. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:17, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
I think this passes muster now. What do you think? ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, looks good. One query -- is the Old Wall of the Vatican definitely the Aurelian Wall and not the Leonine walls? UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:27, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Great question, but yes, Belloc recounts that he arrived at the "Gate of the Poplar", which is clearly the Porta del Popolo of the Aurelian Walls. This is a good reminder to add it to the summary though, so thank you! ThaesOfereode (talk) 21:41, 14 September 2025 (UTC)