Talk:Riddarholmen Church

message: I see that this article used to be named "Riddarholmen Church" but was moved to "Riddarholm Church". In my opinion this makes no sense at all. Both the Royal Palaces (who are responsible for the upkeep of the church) and Visit Stockholm, the official tourist site of Stockholm, call it "Riddarholmen Church". "Riddarholm" in fact is not a name nor a word in Swedish but a neologism invented here on this page. The name of the island which gave name to the church is "Riddarholmen". The church is called "Riddarholmskyrkan" in Swedish after the island. Swedish grammar does however not apply to English. (What "Riddarholmen" would be translated to in English has also nothing to do with anything.) I suggest that the article is re-named "Riddarholmen Church". Yakikaki (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "Riddarholmen Chuch" means "Church of the Riddarholm" = inappropriate name. Swenglish by Swedes is not as relevant as correct English. The church is not (not) called "Riddarholmenskyrkan" in Swedish. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 23:36, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your input SergeWoodzing, I believe I understand your point and appreciate that you want to discuss the question. However, I believe that you may be mistaking part of the name of the place for a definitive article? It's a bit messy, but simply put it is the case that some place names in Swedish have incorporated a definitive article (much like in e.g. French, as in La Ciotat or Le Havre; you wouldn't say "University of the Havre", you say "University of Le Havre"). So it's still in full a name, i.e. a proper noun. Therefore it's not actually the case that "Riddarholmen Church" would mean "The church of the Riddarholm", since Riddarholmen is the complete and indivisible name of the place.  The key about the church name is that it's composed of two elements: the place name and the building - name + church. When you put the name "Riddarholmen" together with "kyrkan" ("the church") in Swedish, you as it happens ends up with "Riddarholmskyrkan" because of the way the Swedish language operates, but it doesn't mean the name Riddarholmen in any other way can be split up like you suggest; there's no place called "Riddarholm". If on the other hand the place name would have been e.g. Vaxholm, well then I would have agreed with you, it should obviously be "Vaxholm Church" — because Vaxholm is the place name. So if we want to keep the structure of the name as it is now, I would keep arguing that it should be "Riddarholmen Church". The only alternative as I see it is if we consider the whole of "Riddarholmskyrkan" as a proper name (and there may be arguments for this) and use the Swedish name in full for the English article. Do you see my point? Yakikaki (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Swedish is my 2nd language & I've taught it (& English) since 1968. I'm not doing any "mistaking". In Riddarholmskyrkan there is no "-en-". Riddarholmen - the Island of Knights - in the name of the island. The church is Knights' Island Church not (not) Church of the Knights' Island. Knights' Island Church in standard English is Riddarholm Church, as well as here, here, here, here, here & here, etc etc etc etc... Please stop this! --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. I'm putting it up for suggested move. I've explained my reasons why and hoped we could sort it out here but it doesn't seem so. Yakikaki (talk) 14:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea to rename the church so that all those travel sites (with good knowledge of English), which you ignored, will be wrong? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 14:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The island ("islet") of Riddarholmen is written just like that as a separate name. Dropping the "-en" part of the word, which is a determined article, in order to combine it with another word (in this case with an "s" added as a binder), is a specific feature of Swedish grammar. It is the import of Swedish grammatical rules that is "Swenglish". In English, Riddarholmen will be the subject of standard English grammar as applied to loan words, i.e., the grammatical status of the final letters will not be second-guessed, irrespective if this offends the aestetic sensitivities of Swedish-speaking people such as myself. Tomas e (talk) 16:35, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name