Talk:Mary Toft

message: Is it known how Manningham explained her parturition of rabbit corpses? JFW | T@lk 09:22, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rabbits 

message: Discussed before at Talk:Mary_Tofts#Name, I want to see what the opinion on this is.  Just about all the early literature I have read on this subject uses 'Toft' instead of 'Tofts'.  I don't think there is any longer a rationale for retaining the use of 'Tofts', and therefore want to move the article to 'Mary Toft'. Parrot of Doom (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well providing that there is no further input, I'm going to move this tomorrow. Parrot of Doom (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toft or Tofts 

message: Do "hoax", "rabbits", "newspapers" and "porter" really need to be linked? This seems a little excessive to me. Graham Colm Talk 10:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Over-linking 

message: Since, apart from the prurient exhiliration it arouses, this story is about maternal impression, I was surprised to have to work so far down into it before the old medieval idea was first introduced. I'd have edited it into the opening, but I know Wikipedia's august Featured Article vetting committee has passed the article for the Main Page. So there must be a reason for its omission.--Wetman (talk) 03:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Maternal impression]]

message: This article has both American English (skeptical) and British English (coloured) spelling.  It should consistently use one or the other. 86.152.23.225 (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because some people in this world don't understand there is a difference.  These were recent changes today that I've reverted. Parrot of Doom 08:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: English variations

message: "... between twenty-four and twenty-five"
I don't like the way this is phrased.
"twenty-four or twenty-five" OR "about twenty-five" OR "approximately twenty-five" would surely be better. I'd like to re-phrase this. Any thoughts? Tigerboy1966 (talk) 12:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Age- phrasing 

message: This is a great article, but I'm curious how this played out in regard to the "childbed fever".  This story dates to a period when the disease had become rampant, but long before it was understood.  Did she have no fear of infection from all these procedures?  How is it that she did manage to escape infection, despite the attentions of so many filthy-fingered surgeons?
Also, the current version states that she went into labor in September 1726 and delivered a daughter in February 1727, a feat to rival the other.  This should be fixed - it would be interesting to know for sure that despite loose cat claws and all she still remained fertile.  (But isn't it a pity that this did not lead to the invention of the intrauterine device?) Wnt (talk) 18:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Did she have no fear of infection from all these procedures? Seeing as how "infection" was unheard of prior to late 19th-century discoveries in germ theory, I'm guessing she had no cause to worry.  The idea that physicians carried the infection from one patient to another was first theorized many years later, and was not verified until many years after that.  As for the rampant nature of the disease, many women had numerous children without ever contracting puerperal fever, while some unfortunate few contracted the disease after only giving birth once.  Puerperal fever has nothing to do with Toft, it would seem. María (habla conmigo) 19:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I spotted the Feb 1727 thing earlier today but didn't have chance to look at it.  I will re-investigate, I'm not sure if the year is incorrect, or if the source is incorrect.  Leave it with me. Parrot of Doom 21:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Puerperal fever? 

message: The parenthetical addition weighs down what had been a completely entrancing first sentence:
"Mary Toft (née Denyer) (c. 1701–1763), also called Mary Tofts, was an English woman from Godalming, Surrey, who in 1726 became the subject of considerable controversy (and minor celebrity) when she tricked doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits."
"Controversy" implies some degree of public attention, celebrity, or notoriety, so the added phrase provides no useful information (and is elaborated sufficiently later), interrupts the sentence's "pay off," and is not reader-friendly. It's the kind of diddling and over-nicety to which Wiki editors are prone. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comment would be likely to carry more weight if it were delivered without the slighting comment about Wiki editors, to which pedantic prats like you seem all too prone. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  first section 

message: The letter beginning with "Since I wrote to you" is written with long S, but it includes the word "Satisfaction".  Is the presence of "s" instead of "ſ" in this word in the original?  We either need to correct the text here or to insert a [sic]. Nyttend (talk) 21:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The paragraph is a direct quote of the source, which is readily available to anyone by following the blue links.  I note that some editors don't like the long s, but I see no harm in keeping it, indeed it somehow makes reading that section more authentic. Parrot of Doom 21:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long S 

message: Can't see the need for an edit war ovwr this, at the time the mass population would not even have heard of her, well known is more than plenty  see is not even famous niw, actually she is nit even "well known" now. Govindaharihari (talk) 10:52, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you reformat your question in English please? Parrot of Doom 11:29, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

text: It was good enough for FAC so PoD's choice of words seems perfectly fine to me. J3Mrs (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

text: "well known is more than plenty see is not even famous niw" - I have absolutely no idea what this means.  It's a simple enough request, rewrite it in English so I can understand it.  If you can't then I'm sure someone else will be able to help, but if this is typical of your English then might I suggest that an English history article is not something you should be editing. Parrot of Doom 17:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  well known or simply famous? 

message: I just wanted to give compliments to all the writers of this article. It is a fascinating and disgusting story that I couldn't stop reading! A good job, well done, ツStacey (talk) 21:45, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  What a story?!