Talk:Boule-de-Neige

Name
Where does the spelling Boule-de-Neige with hyphens and capital 'N' come from? Keck uses "Boule de neige", as does IMSLP (scores:Boule de neige (Offenbach, Jacques)), as do our French colleagues at fr:Charles Nuitter and fr:Boule de neige (opéra bouffe), and our list of operettas by Jacques Offenbach. The poster is in all caps, but without hyphens. I suugest the article should be moved to Boule de neige. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:05, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I now see that the libretto at Gallica uses hyphens and a capital for 'Neige'. I'm not sure the capital 'N' follows French spelling rules. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:17, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I perhaps should have made a comment. The spelling comes from the Yon book and his detailed list of works at the back; I think Yon is an authoritative source (Keck is of course the world authority on Offenbach but I sense that types of spelling are not high up for him). Une boule de neige is a snow-ball, but the title of the opera is not that but the pet-name of Olga's bear which as far as I understand, is Boule-de-Neige. It is true also that the person who prepared the livre de censure for OEK omitted the hyphens but my logic felt that Yon was the right answer.Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 13:15, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I'm aware of the term's general meaning and of its special meaning here. Whether that justifies the different spelling, I don't know. As you know, the intricacies of French spelling have often been discussed here, and many have adopted simplified rules for work titles, favouring lower case spelling. Others have insisted of the Académie française rules, others apply English title case, which seems to be the case here. My question here was spurred by the existing usage for this work in existing articles, none of which used the version used here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a minefield and I will do some more looking round to see what else there is on this opera. Thank you for your tidying today - I am usually so exhausted after doing a new piece that I want to come back later after a day or more to do necessary links and so on, so you have saved me some work. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 17:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)