Category talk:English proscribed terms

RFM discussion: June 2011–May 2017

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Category:English disputed terms

Template:proscribed returns (proscribed) and categorizes the entry into Category:English disputed terms. I think a better category name would be Category:English proscribed terms. --Daniel 20:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Proscribed terms are always disputed as far as I know, though. So if it exists it would be a subcategory of disputed terms. Is narrowing it down that far really useful? —CodeCat 20:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be better to change {{proscribed}} to return (disputed usage). I find "proscribed" a poor choice of word, since it implies to me that we are proscribing the term, that we are declaring the usage wrong. —Ruakh_TALK 21:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Some languages have standards bodies that prescribe and proscribe certain usages. Presumably the idea is that people who call something 'wrong' appeal to an authority such as that. And I suppose people will appeal to us, too, if they want to. —CodeCat 22:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Ruakh's suggestion, especially for or at least for English. Even the most authoritative sources have more nuanced approaches than mere "proscription". Garner's Modern American Usage, for example, has five grades of acceptability. They do not claim much authority for themselves, but claim to be reporting and synthesizing the views of others. AHD organized a board of authorities. We have a difficult time supporting our claims that something in English is "proscribed" by others. We have even less basis for such declaring such proscription ourselves. DCDuring TALK 00:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

If we follow Ruakh's suggestion, someone should first check all current transclusions to see if any won't make sense after the change. (This is always true, but I seem to recall about this template in particular that there will be necessary edits to entries.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm pretty certain that some entries have things like {{sometimes|_|proscribed}}, producing (sometimes proscribed); we don't want that to become (sometimes disputed usage). —Ruakh_TALK 13:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes disputed usage is not terrible (parsed as "{sometimes disputed} usage") IMO, but I think there are uses with even worse results.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Archiving as stale. - -sche (discuss) 19:14, 13 May 2017 (UTC)