Talk:H. W. Fowler

Birthplace
My Cambridge Biographical Dictionary says Fowler was born in Tonbridge, Kent. Can anyone clarify? PedanticallySpeaking 15:23, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)


 * As well as Britannica and Chambers (which I mentioned on the Reference Desk), his obituary in The Times implies Tonbridge (giving that as the home of his father). --Heron 16:37, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * MacManus (cited in the article) is unambiguous: "Here [HWF's father was teaching at Tonbridge School] their first two sons were born, Henry Watson Fowler [...] on 19 March 1858" (p. 4, 2001 ed. hardback). She gives no source for this information, so there is no PROOF of the birthplace; but schoolteachers even now commonly live in the town where their schools are.  And in the nineteenth century 'public' school (see below), it was usual for teachers to be accommodated within the school grounds.  So it is a reasonable assumption. MacAuslan 18:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Schoolteaching
I have added a note about Sedbergh School being a 'public' school, which is a specific British usage for a fee-paying school for the sons (as it was very largely in Fowler's time: Sedbergh was boys only until this centure) of the comparatively well-off. This is not just pedantry: it will help to give a clearer picture of the sort of teaching he was doing. To make tyhat more visible to readers those who may not know about the system, I have added 'Latin and Greek' to the article as among the subjects he taught. I have also deleted 'grammar' after 'English. This is because the teaching of English - which certainly included then (and ???should now) the teaching of grammar - involves far more than mere grammatics, which the unamended article implied to my reading. MacAuslan 18:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Why the disambiguation notice?
Why is there a disambiguation notice here for Henry Weed Fowler (and vice versa)? Is this a relic from a time before Henry Fowler was a disambiguation page, or what? Ruakh 21:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The Oxford International Dictionary of the English Language
Was this one of his works also?
 * No. Not his sort of thing at all. Fowler disclaimed any knowledge of American English and "by implication" (according to Burchfield) "the varieties of English spoken and written in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere". Tim riley (talk)

Picture
It would be great to find a picture to use of Fowler. There is a poor-quality photograph of a young Fowler that seems to be floating around the internet; on this page, it is sourced to "WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc." The Jenny McMorris biography has several nice photographs, but I don't think any of them would fall into the public domain. Otherwise, we'll just have to make do with book cover scans and random location pictures like the ones I added. Lesgles (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If I correctly understand the Wikipedia rules one can post a single copyrighted image of the subject of an article in such circs as we have here, under the "fair use" heading. The pic you mention will probably have to do unless you have a better one from the biography. Tim riley (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's even better than that: Any photo of Fowler that was published prior to 1923 is public domain in the US and can be uploaded with the PD-US license. Also, any photo where the photographer has been dead for more than 70 years can use the PD-70 license. If the photo was published after 1923 and the photographer lived past 1939, then, as Tim notes, you can still use at least one "fair use" image, so long as you have a good "fair use summary", such as the one here: File:Coward with-cigarette-holder.jpg -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * True; my point was that for none of the pictures currently available do we know whether they satisfy either of those PD requirements. I agree about going with fair use; when I have the time, I'll scan one in from the bio. Lesgles (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that there are two photographs here, one crouching with his dog and another standing in exercise gear. No dates given unfortunately. Opencooper (talk) 11:06, 19 November 2020 (UTC)