Talk:Caron/Archive 2

message: :Add #Support or #Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~''
====Support====
# This is the name that appears in English dictionaries. —Michael Z. 2006-07-07 00:53 Z
#Support This is the name for the symbol that I learned in my Linguistics studies 30 years ago, and I never heard of 'caron' until today. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment As an alternative, I have been thinking of wedge (linguistics) or wedge (orthography) wedge (diacritic)?. It seems neutral enough, and it can be used to describe the usage, controversy, and history of háček and caron. --Chris S. 19:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment It's not "Adobe-influenced circles". It's the name the character bears in the Universal Character Set, the name it bears in ISO/IEC 8859, and (I must check this) also the name it bore in ISO 6937 (the first edition of which was published in 1983). The UCS is on everybody's computer now. And so are tools which tell the user that "č" is "c with caron". Evertype 19:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Per this site, 'caron' in ISO 8879 mapped to 'hacek' in ISO DIS 6862.2 in Unicode Version 1.0. For example, unicode 010C was called 'Ccaron' in  ISO 8879 and 'LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C HACEK'in ISO DIS 6862.2. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 00:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That "site" states plainly "May 1, 1996: This file is obsolete.  It was made for Unicode Version 1.0, and has neither been updated nor verified for use with any subsequent version of the standard. Use this data entirely at your own risk.". Unicode 1.0 usedd "hacek" and this was changed with the merger with ISO/IEC 10646, which used standardized character names (that is, names which were already part of other formal standards (ISO/UEC 8859 if not others). ISO 6862, by the way is a "Mathematical coded character set for bibliographic information interchange". Evertype 07:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: # This is the name that appears in English dictionaries. —Michael Z. 2006-07-07 00:53 Z
#Support This is the name for the symbol that I learned in my Linguistics studies 30 years ago, and I never heard of 'caron' until today. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Support

message: #Oppose. Háček is not an English word. č is never found in English words. Caron certainly has caught on in the field that concerns itself with alphabets, which is typography, not linguistics.--Prosfilaes 03:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: #Neutral. I agree with both sentiments. Háček is certainly not an Enlish word and shouldn’t be used for an article title if a more common English word exists. However, Caron is fairly inappropriate as well because by my impression it’s not used outside of the Adobe-influenced circles. This is not a frivolous problem for Wikipedia, but unfortunately this particular diacritic is not used enough by English speakers to warrant a more common English name, and I am equivocal. I’ll let the democratic mob decide. — Jéioosh 09:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment As an alternative, I have been thinking of wedge (linguistics) or wedge (orthography) wedge (diacritic)?. It seems neutral enough, and it can be used to describe the usage, controversy, and history of háček and caron. --Chris S. 19:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment It's not "Adobe-influenced circles". It's the name the character bears in the Universal Character Set, the name it bears in ISO/IEC 8859, and (I must check this) also the name it bore in ISO 6937 (the first edition of which was published in 1983). The UCS is on everybody's computer now. And so are tools which tell the user that "č" is "c with caron". Evertype 19:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Per this site, 'caron' in ISO 8879 mapped to 'hacek' in ISO DIS 6862.2 in Unicode Version 1.0. For example, unicode 010C was called 'Ccaron' in  ISO 8879 and 'LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C HACEK'in ISO DIS 6862.2. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 00:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That "site" states plainly "May 1, 1996: This file is obsolete.  It was made for Unicode Version 1.0, and has neither been updated nor verified for use with any subsequent version of the standard. Use this data entirely at your own risk.". Unicode 1.0 usedd "hacek" and this was changed with the merger with ISO/IEC 10646, which used standardized character names (that is, names which were already part of other formal standards (ISO/UEC 8859 if not others). ISO 6862, by the way is a "Mathematical coded character set for bibliographic information interchange". Evertype 07:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral

message: Is "neologism" a proper word from a linguist to describe a word that has not been coined recently (hacek), but rather adopted from a different language, and it's etymology is known? Evertype, last time I checked the definition of "neologism", it wouldn't cover words adopted from other languages. You claim that you are a linguist, do you, however, know the meanings of the words you use? 85.70.5.66 10:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Michael Everson. - FrancisTyers · 11:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neologism

message: Evertype and everyone, you can call "caron" English as long as you want, it will not become English (the ending -on is highly suspicious to me, coup-on for instance is french in origin). As the origins of "caron" are dark, and in my experience, things are usually trivial, I don't believe in the french theory nor spanish theory, I believe that there was this guy with the surname "Caron" in Adobe, Linotype or wherever, and his colleagues called the "hacek" caron once, because he worked with it and they just didn't know the real name. Also note that the czech name for the acute accent is "carka", ie it could be a miss-read/spelled version of this in case some typesetter was searching for the name of the "czech" diacritic. The only difference between háček and caron is therefore the way it sounds to the "english" ears. Does for instance the word innuendo sound english to you? What about double entendre? Anyway, would it be more acceptable for you to use Hacek without diacritic? It is being used like this quite a lot, and it would be a reasonable compromise as it would make the word sound more english. 85.70.5.66 01:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Prosfilaes, if you would support a move to Hacek, please move it to Conditional support.  85.70.5.66 01:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is pretty silly to suggest that "the ending -on is suspicious". It is a Greek suffix commonly found in English, indeed in the name of the diacritical mark macron. It would not be acceptable for me to use háček without diacritics. Evertype 08:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is pretty silly? Please remain civil. I am not calling your opinions silly either. Back for the topics: as you said, it is a greek suffix. So English does absorb words from other languages, there is no reason why it wouldn't be able to absorb Czech words, as it did with robot and with hacek. The fact that hacek is contained in english dictionaries is sufficient evidence that it has been adopted into English, however it sounds to your ears. 85.70.5.66 08:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As someone pointed out above, English is a bastard language (in more ways than one), and we probably have more words of Czech origin than simply "robot". I was disgusted before that people were trying to change this into an ethnic dispute. It is not and I won't have it. Incidentally your vote was stricken as you are an anonymous user. - FrancisTyers · 09:03, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, "silly". The word "silly" is not uncivil. Also the suggestion that caron might derive from "carka" is also unlikely, as the word is čarka. Evertype 09:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh no, you got it wrong again, it's čárka. 85.70.5.66 10:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The diacritic isn't why it's unlikely. The consonant is: čárka is ['tſarka]; caron is ['kærɔn]. Evertype 12:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  It has nothing to do with origin of the word, though I do find caron a better English word than hacek, as the pronounciation is unambigious and it doesn't look as unusual. But the diacritics used on háček are simply impossible for English, and no amount of usage as technical jargon will add it to the language, any more than the tens of thousands of English books that have used ∈ make that a word in English.--Prosfilaes 19:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL :) - FrancisTyers · 07:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's somewhat questionable whether there's a Greek suffix -on which is "commonly found in English" in any relevant sense.  There was a Greek neuter nominative-accusative singular suffix omicron-nu, which didn't convey any specific meaning in Greek other than neuter nominative-accusative singular.  When this is used in active English word-formation (as opposed to merely being passively carried over from Greek, as in Phenomenon), then it is mainly found in terms for "hard" scientific entities (Proton, Boson, Neon, Xenon, Transposon etc.).  Other ancient Greek endings which could take on the shape omega-nu (such as the present active participle suffix -ont-) don't give really rise to any productive English "-on" suffix with significant common meanings shared between the words to which such a suffix would be attached. AnonMoos 09:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say it was all that productive or that it had any meaning of its own. There are plenty of words which end in -on that have a Greek origin. Macron is the relevant one here. My point is that there was nothing particularly "alien to English" about caron. Evertype 09:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, the word is not outlandishly alien to the phonotactics and syllable structure of the English language, and looks sort of like it could possibly come from French or Latin or Greek (though actually it doesn't).  So what?  It still doesn't give it a plausible etymology or ascertainable origin... AnonMoos 06:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is implausible about the folk-etymological suggestion that it could be a fusion of caret and macron? Most etymology begins with such guesswork. In the case of caron, which is doubtless a recent coinage, we will be lucky if we find its actual source though. But have you a better suggestion? Evertype 08:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hacek

message: :::It's somewhat questionable whether there's a Greek suffix -on which is "commonly found in English" in any relevant sense.  There was a Greek neuter nominative-accusative singular suffix omicron-nu, which didn't convey any specific meaning in Greek other than neuter nominative-accusative singular.  When this is used in active English word-formation (as opposed to merely being passively carried over from Greek, as in Phenomenon), then it is mainly found in terms for "hard" scientific entities (Proton, Boson, Neon, Xenon, Transposon etc.).  Other ancient Greek endings which could take on the shape omega-nu (such as the present active participle suffix -ont-) don't give really rise to any productive English "-on" suffix with significant common meanings shared between the words to which such a suffix would be attached. AnonMoos 09:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say it was all that productive or that it had any meaning of its own. There are plenty of words which end in -on that have a Greek origin. Macron is the relevant one here. My point is that there was nothing particularly "alien to English" about caron. Evertype 09:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, the word is not outlandishly alien to the phonotactics and syllable structure of the English language, and looks sort of like it could possibly come from French or Latin or Greek (though actually it doesn't).  So what?  It still doesn't give it a plausible etymology or ascertainable origin... AnonMoos 06:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is implausible about the folk-etymological suggestion that it could be a fusion of caret and macron? Most etymology begins with such guesswork. In the case of caron, which is doubtless a recent coinage, we will be lucky if we find its actual source though. But have you a better suggestion? Evertype 08:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Greek -on suffix commonly found in English"

message: I voted for 'háček' because that is what I learned when studying linguistics. However, opinion seems to be about evenly split here, which means no consensus, so I say that we make it clear in the article that typographers tend to use 'caron' and linguists tend to use 'háček', and let it go at that. And with that, I'm going to stop paying attention to this overwrought debate. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 11:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like this idea. Here's another suggestion I made earlier: redirect both to a more neutral name, perhaps caron/háček. Stephen B Streater 11:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved háček to second position in the first sentence of the article; it had been rather far from the front. Evertype 13:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  Might as well move it to ˇ then. -- Jordi·✆ 13:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Czech is not the only language that uses the caron. The term "hacek" has no notability to speak of. You could have the article under "Hacek" in the Czech Wikipedia, but not elsewhere. --Vuo 14:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Caron is not an English word either. Have you found any dictionaries that list it?   — Chris Capoccia  T⁄C 15:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course it's an English word. LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH CARON. I'm pretty sure that whole string is in English. It's not found in any dictionaries yet. It surely will be. :-) Evertype 15:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Japanese created a humanoid robot. The whole string is english. Or not? Well.. robot is kinda czech right? What if we create some new word for it.. like... maron. Yes, maron, that sounds perfectly english. And I think I have heard it before, maybe at Microsoft? Or Corel? I don't know, but I am pretty sure it is widely used. Well.. it's not found in any dictionaries yet. It surely will be. :-) I will now move the article "Robot" to "Maron", to make all you geeks happy with the new "geek" word. The above no-consensus supports me in this move. Long live the 1337. Azmoc 00:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Unabridged dictionaries (the ones that are about 6 inches thick) list all kinds of words. Find yourself an unabridged dictionary. Hacek will be there (with some variety of diacritics). Caron will not be there.   — Chris Capoccia  T⁄C 16:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think he already acknowledges that, what he is saying is that the word will be included in the future due to the usage. After all, English dictionaries are compiled by usage. - FrancisTyers · 16:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  True, because wikipedia is occupied by geeks who only know the computer-lingo, it is gonna help the new word to become listed in a dictionary. Bravo. Azmoc 00:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enough, already 

message: Can we please keep the opinions and comments out of the voting section? If you wish to reply to another person's vote do so outside of the voting section itself. The opinion spouting inside the vote section is what doomed the last votes. -- Jordi·✆ 13:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replying to votes 

message: *As a compromise, rename the article to "Háron".
*Wait for infinitely many monkeys to retype all of this discussion (including archives), and ask them for opinion. After all, "ook" is not that bad name for a diacritic.
*Move the article to "ˇ".
On a second thought, the latter could actually work. Oh well. -- EJ 15:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral solutions (a few more)

message: :(→Writing and printing carons - Chinese usage never reduce the caron)
To satisfy my curiosity, how does a tone mark in a language with rigid syllable structure and no syllabic consonants end up on t, d, or l? -- EJ 16:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't.  The edit was misguided.Derek Balsam 19:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To clarify: the reduction of a caron only occurs as noted in the section, i.e., in conjunction with "tall" characters.  Reduction never occurs with vowels in any usage. In addition, the proposed edit apparently misused "accent" for "tone". Derek Balsam 21:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that you quote it: the expression "tall letters" was introduced by me there, and it is also misguided. To begin with, capital letters are tall and get a normal caron (except Ľ). I'll fix it. -- EJ 22:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Guess my "misguided" was misguided.  Thanks.Derek Balsam 13:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pinyin 

message: i just came across this page, and i'm truly amazed to see the amount of effort expended over this ...  on the other hand, maybe i shouldn't be, as it totally pales in comparison to the fighting over "gasoline" vs. "petrol" (see also "alumin(i)um" and for a real laugh, "cat flap", to which i'm guilty of contributing).  at least the other cases are clear us vs british; i have absolutely no idea what's motivating the fighting here.
just the throw some fuel on the fire, though ...  my dictionary (Webster's New World, which proudly declares itself to be an "American English dictionary" and goes out of its way to put a star by every word or meaning that originated in the US) has "haček" (spelled as such, no accent over the a) but no "caron" in it (and no star by this word!). Benwing 05:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you go back and read the archive, you'll see that a good number of people here don't care about dictionaries. Many people (including myself) pointed out that no dictionary included caron, and dictionaries included hacek with various diacritics. Apparently encyclopedias should use industry-created words instead of dictionary words.   — Chris Capoccia  T⁄C 12:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the fact that caron is not in a single dictionary was a large factor in the votes (as well as that it's only prevalent in a miniscule field that is over-represented here), but yet the caron supporters won. There isn't much point in arguing over it anymore, with every vote the typographers will summon more and more oblivious users who will follow Unicode blindly through hell and back. Many users arguing have not even got a single edit in the article. +Hexagon1 (t) 13:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Of course we should use words that are used in industry over words that are merely prefered by lexicographers who aren't in the industry. If this were the French wikipedia, I might disagree, but English dictionaries are supposed to be descriptions of how the language is used, as is Wikipedia. We should not be dependent on other general reference works. Hexagon1, I'd really appreciate it if you tone down the abuse; a little grace in losing is a useful skill, and dismissing other editors as oblivious and blind is quite rude.--Prosfilaes 18:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The term háček is used by the field of linguistics, as opposed to caron's users, the field of typography. Linguistics is by far the prevalent field, I've never seen anyone with a PhD in Typography, nor do expect to see that anytime soon. The poll was biased towards typographers, of which there is apparently more on Wikipedia, and users that just voted according to whatever Unicode said. +Hexagon1 (t) 06:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. —Nightstallion (?) 19:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  christ almighty! 

message: Regardless of what any Wikipedia user prefers, regarding "caron" versus "hacek", most style issues, content issues, and naming issues, are subject to Wikipedia's established policies. The policy quoted below, as a subsection to this section, is applicable to the caron/hacek issue. If there is discussion of "hacek" in peer-reviewed journals, then that discussion can be cited as a source of information in a Wikipedia article named "hacek". Likewise, if discussion of "caron" occurs in peer-reviewed journals, then that can be cited in a Wikipedia article named "caron". Note also that if there is no such discussion of "hacek", then "hacek" should not be the name of a Wikipedia article, and likewise, no journal discussion of "caron" dooms that word as the article name.
I began studying linguistics decades ago, and earned an MA and PhD in the field. Professors sometimes used the word "hacek" during classroom discussions involving the symbol. They never used "caron". Before today when I looked at this talk page, I had never seen the word. But I don't doubt that there are people who have known the word "caron" for a long time, and have never encountered the word "hacek". Ultimately, I don't care whether "hacek", "hacek (caron)", "caron (hacek)", "caron", or something else is used for the name of the article.
However, here is a proposed solution:
#If both words are discussed in journals, then use both words in the article name. Let the word with the longer lifespan in journals come first, the other second. At the beginning of the article's lead section, have a sentence telling that both words are used as a name for the symbol. Thereafter, in the article text, use "caron" for all cases where the supporting source text uses "caron", and likewise, use "hacek" for all cases where the source text uses "hacek". (Enjoy peaceful coexistence.)
#If one word is discussed in journals, but the other is not, then let the word discussed in journals be the name of the article. In the lead section, the other word may be mentioned once as an alternate name for the symbol. However, it will not be possible to "verify" any information on the word that does not appear in journals, so the nonpublished word should not be used in the article, at all, after its one-time-only mention as an alternate name.
Agent X 11:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you please keep the words down and not lecture us about Wikipedia policies? If you want to cite a policy, do so tersely and link to the policy. Journals are not the sole source of verifiable information; as I pointed out above, the international standard on the naming of textual symbols uses caron, not hacek.--Prosfilaes 18:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not say that journals are the sole source. However, Wikipedia policy indicates peer-reviewed journals as the best source, and self-published sources (including websites) as undesirable sources. If the "international standard" you referred to above is an organization's own website, then it does NOT qualify as a legitimate source under Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia wants third-party publications as sources. Your comment to "keep the words down" is hypocritical, in light of the total number of words that YOU have added to this talk page. According to what's currently in the caron article, the name hacek has been in use longer than the name caron, by about 30 years. If the name hacek is discussed in journals, or other "legitimate" sources, while the name caron is not, then "caron" must be eliminated from the article. Bear in mind that the entire article is subject to deletion. Agent X 13:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the entire article is not subject to deletion. I know of no reasonable editor who would delete the whole article. You're welcome to look at ISO and Unicode to learn more about the international standard (ISO-10646) referred to was.--Prosfilaes 20:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia articles are subject to Wikipedia policies

message: One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they must refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by reputable publishers. The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and reliable encyclopedia. Editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors.
"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is thus verifiability, not truth.
A good way to look at the distinction between verifiability and truth is with the following example. Suppose you are writing a Wikipedia entry on a famous physicist's Theory X, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is therefore an appropriate subject for a Wikipedia article. However, in the course of writing the article, you contact the physicist and he tells you: "Actually, I now believe Theory X to be completely false." Even though you have this from the author himself, you cannot include the fact that he said it in your Wikipedia entry.
Agent X 11:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verifiability, not truth

message: I wrote my comments above without looking at the article first. I should have looked first, but knowing that most of the Wikipedia articles I've looked at do not have even ONE citation to even ONE reference, I assumed that there were no supporting references for the Caron article. Now that I've looked it over, the assumption was correct. However, the very lengthy discussion above, on this talk page, also indicates that nobody has cited published articles on the caron/hacek symbol. So I applied the "references" tag, and added a "References" heading. Technically, the entire article can be justifiably deleted by any editor, because it is entirely unsupported by citations to published sources. But it looks to me like a decent article, other than the lack of references, so I'm not going to delete content. (The "Faggin Nazzi" thing looks suspicious though. See next section.) Those who contributed content need to back it up with citations and references. For example, the bit on TeX can cite to the TeXBook by Knuth, with the relevant page numbers.
Agent X 12:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: References