Talk:Stephen Cole Kleene

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: It's both unnecessary and self-defeating to declare that something is a pun, and worse, to explain it.  A pun by definition explains itself.  If the intended audience hasn't the requisite literacy for appreciating it, then its effect is null and void and it should not be used anyway.  Think about the audience of this article for a moment.  Anyone sufficiently literate to read an article in English on mathematical philosophy and to understand terms like canonical and witticism would already know the expression Cleanliness is next to Godliness and thus would immediately recognize and appreciate the pun without further explanation.  To explain the pun is to kill it (and to annoy the reader).  Note also that versions of this article appear in numerous other languages.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.11.147.182 (talk) 23:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A large part of the readership of English Wikipedia consists of non-native speakers, who wouldn't know that cleanliness is next to godliness is an English proverb. Without this information, the whole anecdote becomes pointless nonsense. This has nothing to do with literacy, but with (non)shared cultural background.—Emil J. 13:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I don't see in what way is your repeated claim that this article appears in 18 languages relevant. We are not discussing any other language versions of the article, we are discussing this version. The thing is that unless you know that this particular phrase is supposed to be a pun on a proverb, you will not realize that it is one, since the proverb itself is a fairly idiotic combination of words which no sane person would ever use were it not for the fact that it is a proverb. You cannot look up linguistic explanations outside the confines of Wikipedia if you are not aware that you have a linguistic problem (ignoring the fact that the classification of proverbs as linguistics is quite a stretch). There is no reason to go ad insaniam, the fact that X is a pun on Y implies (or at least strongly suggests) that Y is a fixed idiom, and anyone interested in the details can google said idiom. I didn't insert anything anywhere, I only reverted your deletions, but I agree that there is no particular reason to link to pun as it is used here as an ordinary English word.—Emil J. 11:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Oh, I see your point now, but your basic premise is fundamentally flawed. As a non-native speaker, I can assure you that it never occurred to me to switch to an article on Czech Wikipedia when browsing English Wikipedia just because such an article exists. That's simply not how it works. Second, whether something "spoils the effect of the pun" is completely irrelevant. This is an encyclopedia, not a joke list. It is supposed to be informative rather than funny. As for "witticism" and whatnot, you still seem to miss the basic difference between vocabulary and proverbs. The former is an inherent part of the language, whereas the latter is not, it is part of cultural background which does not have anything to do with language per se, and typically is much less familiar to foreigners even if they have a good command of the language as such.—Emil J. 10:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

text: You have not responded to any of my arguments, you are just repeating the same crap over and over, and I'm not going to waste any of my time on this. I just realized that the whole thing has been tagged for "citation needed" since April 2007, hence it should have been killed years ago, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Problem solved.—Emil J. 10:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A comment on puns 

message: A comment in the article added by User:Sburke on 29 April 2007 cites a source for the pronunciation of "Kleene":
"source: private correspondence with his son, Ken Kleene, with and his colleague H.J. Keisler"
Is there a verifiable source for this private correspondence?
--50.53.55.212 (talk) 17:18, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of ''Kleene'' 

message: There are some sources for "KLAY-nee", but almost everyone seems to say "clean". For simplicity's sake I suggest adding sources to the following list without using signatures. (I have replaced the y from the Youtube links, because of the spam filter.) Watchduck (quack) 15:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources