Talk:Chernozemic

Seems like this is usually capitalized. DTLHS (talk) 04:18, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

RFD discussion: August–November 2016

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Chernozemic

Created by User:DTLHS. It was a move from chernozemic, which he converted into an alternative form entry. Some previous discussion can be found at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2016/August. To sum it up, though the majority of sources he found were used with the capital letter rather than the lowercase, I still think it's inappropriate to have an entry for it. I feel that this is an improper capitalization, and it happens a lot. As I said in the tea room, a lot, and I do mean a lot, of English speakers will capitalize common noun, adjective, or other POS words that they find complex, rare, or unique in some other way. This is nonstandard, however, and a misconception of what is supposed to and not supposed to be capitalized. I've seen this happen so much in all sorts of documents; on Wikipedia (especially), in books, essays, various websites and blogs, signs, and heck, it even happens here on Wiktionary definitions sometimes, in which case I try to change it so that it has the correct capitalization. It isn't more commonly done by "just some guy on a chat site or blog" either, I've seen this capitalization misconception done in so many professional documents by people of so many expertise levels, so this chemistry-related documentation case doesn't surprise me. What I'm telling you right now is what seems to be happening here at the sources that use "Chernozemic" rather than "chernozemic" which I believe would be the proper capitalization, since chernozem is not supposed to be capitalized at all, especially since it's not an eponym. I find this case interesting, since it doesn't seem to happen here often, and I feel like we should make some further guidelines on the capitalization policies as a result of this discussion. Philmonte101 (talk) 00:04, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This is not a reason for deletion. You can clearly see the widespread use of the capitalized form. We're not in the business of saying what is and isn't nonstandard. DTLHS (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

So, giving a hypothetical situation, should I add Lexicon as an entry, for example? Since this term has, I can almost guarantee without even looking, been improperly capitalized many times in the past in many documents. If I dig around enough, I could find 3 sources and add them, so it would be verifiable. But do we really need this kind of thing here? It's not proper English. You can find hundreds if not thousands of documents and webpages online that tell when it is and isn't appropriate to capitalize English words. I'd say, in the case of a common adjective that is not based on an eponym, that it is not appropriate to capitalize. Philmonte101 (talk) 00:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

On another note, you could say somewhere on the existing chernozemic entry that it is more often seen to be improperly capitalized. I feel like that would be appropriate. Philmonte101 (talk) 00:14, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think you can find citations of Lexicon being used in the manner you described. And if you can I would consider it worth having an entry since it seems unusual. DTLHS (talk) 00:19, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

And writers commonly capitalized common nouns before the 19th century, so modern citations please. DTLHS (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm not retracting my claim about Lexicon, but I'm just saying that maybe I gave a bad example, since the word lexicon is in much more common use than chernozemic. However, I'll add in another example. I'll see what I can find with these too. Antiliberal, Technophobia. Since these seem to be just a little bit less common, so people would consider them more exotic and have the urge to capitalize them. Perhaps I should look at some old entries I created for rare words as well. I remember a lot of sources improperly capitalized those words, so I feel it would be inappropriate to have an entry for those at all.

What I'm trying to say here is that if we included these improper capitalizations in Wiktionary even as "miscapitalization entries", then we would have tens of thousands of miscapitalization entries for the (estimated, not backed up by anything) estimated tens of thousands of rare words added here. One could even say the same thing as User:Equinox said about typo entries; "ridiculous clutter in a dictionary." Sorry to be so frank. Philmonte101 (talk) 00:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

So I'm going on a dumpster dive through Books, Groups, and News documents for modern uses of Lexicon, Technophobia, and Antiliberal, and capitalized forms of entries I've created in the past. I'll try to especially find ones that are used in the way I said rather than as parts of proper nouns. Be back in a few hours, likely, or maybe tomorrow! Philmonte101 (talk) 00:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I've decided that, since it will make a lot of clutter here on this discussion, I'm going to put my usage examples all on User:Philmonte101/Improper capitalizations, collectively, so check back there from time to time. Philmonte101 (talk) 00:41, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

@ User:DTLHS and anyone else who wants to comment, I've thrown in the towel for the night on User:Philmonte101/Improper capitalizations. You might wanna look these usages over, even though all except one example was from Groups. I'll probably add more examples later as I find them, but it drives my point to the ground about miscapitalizations being used for a great variety of terms; in the context of animals, mechanics, careers, medicine, etc. I found only one so far that is definitely attested (under our current miscapitalization entry standards); Chickadee. And that's unfortunate because that's one of my favorite words. Once I find enough examples of words used this way under our current standards, I should probably bring this up in BP. But for now, it's not enough for that. Although, it does give you a great view on common miscapitalizations and why they probably should or shouldn't be here as entries. Philmonte101 (talk) 02:11, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It is cool that you tried to do some research but your reasoning about what you found seems to be totally arbitrary and made up. I don't think your page proves anything. Equinox ◑ 20:32, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

What is "made up" about it? I give example quotations; those are 100% real. All I did was give my personal comments on them; those aren't what you should be relying on. The quotations themselves are more important than my own comments. In other words, I'm asking what the community's interpretations on quotations such as these are? What do you think about them? Philmonte101 (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You suggest that miscapping is a result of (i) copying a book title or (ii) some kind of typo or error, or (iii) things you're "not sure" about. You don't seem to address the idea that there is a difference in register between informal Usenet slang, possibly typed in a hurry, and technical books about soil science. If I had to come up with a random hunch, I would think that perhaps some people are under the mistaken impression that "Chernozem" is a place or a person, and therefore "chernozemic" needs capping like "Parisian" or "Einsteinian". But that guess would offer no more evidence of any kind than you have. Equinox ◑ 20:45, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

In particular, bear in mind that scientific and academic texts are usually proof-read by editors in a way that Usenet postings are not. Equinox ◑ 20:48, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I found a quotation from 1944 that suggests there is a "Chernozemic region". DTLHS (talk) 21:09, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It looks to me like they're talking about a region that is chernozemic, not to a specific entity called "Chernozemic" or "Chernozeme" or whatnot. But good find. Philmonte101 (talk) 21:25, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know, I've seen miscapitalizations of industrialization in my history textbook that I had a few months ago. And "Industrialization" was in two places at least in that book, I remember it clear and well. (If only the textbook were archived somewhere online where it could be viewed by anyone or if I had it on hand I could take a picture and show you on imgur). Plus, I gave an example from a video game manual, which was, as I'd say, supposed to have been proofread. They capitalized medical terms that don't need to be capitalized, and literally started capitalizing every word after the commas.

Why did I scratch that out? Well it seems that that is actually an okay thing to capitalize in some senses, since it was described as "the Industrialization era". Historical eras are generally capitalized. I retract my claim about Industrializaton. Philmonte101 (talk) 21:30, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay in that case, since I haven't driven my point across, I'm going to do some Wikipedia-like research, and write an essay/article for you on my user namespace with references from external sources about capitalization standards in the English language. I'm telling you guys, there are standards for capitalization, at least that many would agree upon, and I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. Once I find enough examples of miscapitalization, and complete the essay, I'm bringing this issue up in BP. You can find my essay later at User:Philmonte101/English capitalization standards. Philmonte101 (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

@Philmonte101 I think I know what's going on now. "Chernozemic" capitalized is the name of an "order" of soils (page 3), analogous to a biological taxonomic order. That's why it's capitalized. DTLHS (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

@DTLHS Okay. That's very good, and very informative. I'd originally thought that this was a miscapitalization such as ones you find in manuals, like falsely capitalizing disorders such as tendonitis. Is it okay to take off the deletion tag now? (Though I still think we should discuss further the issue of miscapitalizations on Wiktionary, preferably on BP) But if there's a standard of capitalizing this adjective to distinguish it from the uncapitalized form, I think it should be kept. Philmonte101 (talk) 23:16, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

• Keep per DTLHS. DCDuring TALK 18:01, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

It's suboptimal that both entries contain definitions when it seems like one could use {{altcaps}}, but the above discussion suggests that it's justifiable for both entries to exist (so, keep). - -sche (discuss) 21:41, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Kept per the discussion.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)