Talk:Hugues Cuénod

message: Please do NOT edit "mélodie" to "melody" AGAIN. A mélodie is NOT a series of notes, it is a French poem set to music. The word cannot be translated any more than its German counterpart the Lied. S.Camus 19:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Mélodie'' / melody 

message: We seem to be having some trouble agreeing on a form of words that everyone's happy with, about his recently becoming 107 years of age
Prior to 26 June (his 107th birthday), it had been:
* Cuénod celebrated his 106th birthday in June 2008.
On 26 June, an anon updated the age and the year:
* Cuénod celebrated his 107th birthday in June 2009.
I changed it to:
* Cuénod turned 107 on 26 June 2009.
I had 3 reasons for this:  
* it gives a more specific date
* it's the idiomatic and normal way of reporting the age of very old people.  At this age, every birthday could be their last.  In fact, every day could be their last.
* "celebrated" seemed to be something we don’t actually know.
Objecting to "turned", TFBCT1 changed it to:
: As of 26 June 2009, Cuénod is now 107 years old.
To me, that's ungrammatical, mixing "as of" and "now".  I asked TFBCT1 to explain his edit, and he said "[Turned] might be used in the colloquial vernacular, but it's just not proper English".  He provided a very long technical explanation that I was not prepared to read.  I asked him to point out exactly where it said my phraseology was "not proper English", but he declined and simply deleted the discussion from his user talk page.  So I reverted it back to my version.
TFBCT1's latest version is:
: Cuénod is age 107 as of June 26, 2009.
I'm not at all happy about that.  It should be "aged 107", and the date format should be "26 June 2009", to be consistent with the lede.  But the main objection is that it's a completely unidiomatic way of reporting that someone has recently had a birthday.
Can we come to a consensus about this matter, by discussing it here rather than continuing to change it?  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: His recent birthday

message: Firstly, vale Hugues Cuénod (26 June 19023 December 2010).
Now, according to List of centenarians (musicians, composers and music patrons), Cuenod seems to be the oldest notable composer/musician ever.  He was a few months older than Leo Ornstein, who also got to 108.  Is this something we could state in his article, or is it OR because it's from another WP article?  --  Jack of Oz  ... speak! ...  10:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Oldest musician - OR?

message: Currently, we have the Telegraph plus one other source saying he died on 3 December, and the NY Times plus one other source saying he died on 6 December.  Obviously they can't all be right.  I guess we'll just have to wait for someone to come along who knows for sure, and is able to specifically refute the wrong date.  --  Jack of Oz  ... speak! ...  16:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of death

message: I think an IPA transcription of his name might be helpful for readers. What about:
:Hugues-Adhémar Cuénod () (26 June 1902 …
Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation

message: Huguie (a friend) did not spell his last name with an accent. I tried to correct this, but Jack of Oz deemed the correction "utterly irrelevant" and undid the correction in multiple instances. So now Wikipedia joins the New York Times and others misspelling Huguie's name.
Here's a photograph of a wine label that Huguie gave me from his vineyard, with his name spelled correctly. Note that the other words on the label have all their diacritical marks where they ought to be: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8_tgPop9ryg/TP8HlE0OI5I/AAAAAAAAAQQ/J5VqKrdUf-A/s1600/wine.jpg
I'm puzzled why the correct spelling of an entry's name is considered irrelevant.
Paulfesta (talk) 20:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Why?  Because you want the label on a bottle of wine(!!) that could have come from anywhere, and has no obvious connection with the singer, to dictate how we spell his name.  He's been given an accent in multiple reference works going back to at least 1954 (Grove's Dictionary, 5th edition).  Maybe they're all wrong, but I'd rather be guided by those sources than by a wine label.  Also, you may well have known him, in which case I'm very jealous - but with the greatest respect, who are you?  An anonymous editor is not a reliable source.  The French WP article uses an accent, so they're all misguided as well, apparently.  --  Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

text: PS.  Of the 7 other-language versions that WP has, only the Polish article dispenses with the accent.  The Poles know a thing or two about diacritics, so one assumes it was conscious choice - but maybe it was just a typo.  Poles are no more immune from such things than others are. --  Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

text: No, I am not.  I will happily and immediately accept what you say if you can verify it.  The threshold for Wikipedia is not truth but verifiability - please read Wikipedia:Verifiability if you want to get an idea of how the rules apply here.  --  Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Paul Festa does make a prima facie convincing case. However, I have to agree with JackofOz regarding Wikipedia principles favouring verifiability over truth. Wikipedia will follow the spelling in accepted reliable sources. I don't even know how a footnote mentioning the alleged alternative spellling could be phrased. "According to private communication by Paul Festa, his name was spelled 'Cuenod'."? That would never survive. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Any suggestion how this intriguing treatment could be incorporated into the article? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:12, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how we can incorporate it without a source. There seem to be plenty of sources that spell his name with the accent and plenty without, and quite a few that mix both spellings, but I haven't seen any source that discusses the spelling or explicitly claims one spelling to be correct. --Deskford (talk) 22:18, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling of his name 

message: Regarding  by 62.235.146.48 and  by JackofOz: I also almost instinctively was about to revert those edits until I came across the his family's death notice in the first source added by 62.235.146.48 where it unequivocally states: 6 December. Maybe this will settle the matter.
By the way, the family's death notice spells the name without an accent – Cuenod – but the obituary itself, the Geneva Opera, the City of Vevey and the well-wishers spell it with an accent. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Deate of death (2)

message: The article fails to say what was special about Cuenod's voice – and it certainly was special. "Unique vocal registry" is not enough. Was he an example of an haute-contre? If so, the link should be made. If not, how should his voice be characterised? (Cf. the Russell Oberlin article.) EEye (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Vocal character