Talk:Blackdown Hills

Transport
We've covered roads, presumably we can say that there aren't any other forms of transport, like railways or canals, passing through?Pyrotec (talk) 16:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know of/can't find any evidence of others - apart from the airfield mentioned in the section above.&mdash; Rod talk 17:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added the Grand Western Canal and the Reading to Plymouth Line, as a point of info, as they are both near to the M5 motorway. However, I've just discovered the Culm Valley Light Railway, its not needed for the GAR, but it (or its remains) may lie within the AONB. Pyrotec (talk) 20:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You are right it does cross the hills & should be included.&mdash; Rod talk 20:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Blackdown Hills - plural
The Rocky Mountains, Mendip Hills, Chiltern Hills, Pennines, South Downs etc. are all referred to as plural in their respective articles. Cannot see why these should be different - despite what is said in the GA comments. --TimTay (talk) 20:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Depends on how the "Blackdown Hills" is defined. Nothing to do with the Rocky Mountains or anywhere else. Blackdown Hills is defined as a range in the lead. Is there some doubt that "range" is singular? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * They are hills which form a range, just as the Rocky Mountains are: "The Rocky Mountains ... are a broad mountain range ..." from its lead. The only case where I could imagine "The X Hills" or being treated as a singular entity is where it is the name of a local authority district, like "Tower Hamlets". PamD (talk) 23:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I find the singular awkward. It's theoretically possible, but unusual. There's a little scope in English to emphasise the parts ("the crowd applaud") or the whole ("the crowd applauds"). I suspect that the plural is usual for these Hills. Tony   (talk)  01:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Consider this snipit from the web: 3. Subject-verb Agreement Subject-verb AGREEMENT or CONCORD relates to number agreement (singular or plural) between the Subject and the verb which follows it: {{bquote| ... The government is considering the proposal The government are considering the proposal Here, the form of the verb is not determined by the form of the Subject. Instead, it is determined by how we interpret the Subject. In "the government is...", the Subject is interpreted as a unit, requiring a singular form of the verb. In "the government are...", the Subject is interpreted as having a plural meaning, since it relates to a collection of individual people. Accordingly, the verb has the plural form are. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That appears to me to be nonsense. How we interpret the subject determines whether it is singular or plural; the form of the verb then matches that interpretation. I've got no strong feelings either way, but I do find inconsistencies such as: "The Blackdown Hills are a range of hills along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England. It was designated ..." to be jarring. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Presumably one of the sources of confusion is that the AONB is always singular. Are we clear, in each instance, whether we are talking about the hills in general, or the precisely-delimited AONB?  almost - instinct 18:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Not having read this talk page, I baulked at the opening sentence in the main article - the use of singular or plural was the problem, which has already been discussed. BUT... in any case, I question that the Blackdown Hills is (or are) a RANGE of hills - they are not a 'line or series', which is an OED definition of 'range' of hills. Is there a single-word definition of plateaux with promontories and deep valleys? Tony in Devon (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

What else is needed to get this article to FA
This article has now been a fairly stable Good Article for over a year and I am looking for ideas about what would be needed to get it to meet the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria? This is one part of the Featured topic about Physical geography of Somerset. The rules about FT's have changed and we need to get one of the GAs included in the topic up to FA status or the whole FT will be demoted to a Good topic. Any ideas appreciated.&mdash; Rod talk 20:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Reversion of Geodesy addition
I recently reverted a good faith edit to this article but my edit summary didn't properly explain why. The addition said "The Hardy Monument near Portisham in the Blackdown Hills was the origin (meridian) for the 6 inch and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps for Somerset and Dorset". I believe the site being referred to is at the Hardy Monument, Portesham on Black Down, Dorset rather than the Blackdown Hills described in this article. It can be confusing as there is another Black Down, Somerset not that far away.&mdash; Rod talk 08:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Requested move 6 July 2024
Blackdown Hills National Landscape → Blackdown Hills – The article was renamed from "Blackdown Hills" to "Blackdown Hills National Landscape" earlier this year by, along with several others, at least one of which has since been reverted (North Wessex Downs). Unfortunately it seems I can't just revert this change, because the redirect has since been modified, so I'm going to have to do a requested move.

There are a couple of problems with this move:
 * 1) This article has always been about a range of hills that is a National Landscape (or AONB as was). The move has turned this into an article about a National Landscape that contains some hills. Except that in reality the majority of the article is still about a range of hills, the Blackdown Hills, that have existed long before they were designated as a National Landscape. The crucial difference can be seen in the fact that the standfirst sentence of this article no longer makes any sense. At the start of this year it read: "The Blackdown Hills are a range of hills along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England, which were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1991." Now it reads "The Blackdown Hills National Landscape is a National Landscape along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England, which were designated in 1991 as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)." This is especially a problem for this article, which reached "Good article" status having explicitly addressed the issue of it needing to be very clear about the difference.
 * 2) WP:CONCISE: there are no other Blackdown Hills articles, there is no need to disambiguate this one or make it more complex than it needs to be.

The argument for naming it "Blackdown Hills National Landscape" appears to be that this is an 'official' name, but (a) that argument only holds if this article is purely about the National Landscape conservation designation area, and not more broadly about a range of hills which still are simply called the "Blackdown Hills", and (b) that wouldn't trump the CONCISE guideline. We don't name of the Lake District article "Lake District National Park". Joe D (t) 17:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Clear common name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support move back to stable, concise, common name. Dekimasu よ! 02:44, 14 July 2024 (UTC)