Talk:Royal Marines

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RFD discussion: January–February 2016[edit]

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.


Like United States Marine Corps (which failed RfD), isn't it? DCDuring TALK 01:43, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it were British Royal Navy, it'd be like the USMC. I'm inclined to keep, because a layman wouldn't know this is a British organization without a definition. Purplebackpack89 04:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A reader would know from context or by looking it up in an encyclopedia. We could use {{only in}} to speed to WP any errant wiktionary user unable to grasp the meaning from context and unaware of WP. I don't know whether other historical meanings exist but fictional-universe meanings are also possible, either of which classes depend on context for their correct interpretation. DCDuring TALK 04:21, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might as well save them the trip: I have a hard time believing that defining the Royal Marines as something along the lines of "the naval soldiers of the United Kingdom" is a definition that is overly encyclopedic. Purplebackpack89 04:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
More like Marine Corps, in the sense that some countries use that phrase, while others use "Royal Marines" or some other designation. If the primary (or a principal) usage is the British Royal Marines, then that can't be intuited from the name, which suggests that it be included; otherwise it's an alternative for "Marine Corps" used in at least some countries with a monarchy, which also argues for inclusion. I'm not convinced that redirecting readers to Wikipedia is the best solution. We have to assume that readers encounter phrases without sufficient context to define them, even if they're often found with adequate context. If all that's needed is sufficient context to know what the term refers to, then an encyclopedia entry seems unnecessary—which is why we have Wiktionary. P Aculeius (talk) 14:29, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]