Talk:Historical figure

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DYK
This article has been nominated for DYK. Warden (talk) 11:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And, for a change, a DYK article looks like it's both of a good size and fully-expanded. So many DYK articles are just barely long enough to qualify, and clearly incomplete, that this is a welcome change.  Well done, everybody! --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Indefinite article
Let me be the first to identify what may become the most disputed aspect of the article: whether it should open with "A" or "An", i.e.


 * "A historical figure..." or
 * "An historical figure...".

My understanding of general practise is that the first of these is more common now and that's what we see in the first draft: "A historical figure is a person who lived long ago."

Warden (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "An 'istorical figure" is of course correct, as is "A historical figure". In the ex-colonies some people pronounce "Herb", short for "Her Bert", as if it were the French word "herbe" (air-b), but more like "urb" as in sub-urban. They would consider that "an herb" (an urb) is correct.  I am not sure where this is leading. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Another editor made this change recently. Editors can be quite determined about this sort of issue - see Talk:Strand, London, for example.  It seemed best to start a discussion to forestall any edit warring. Warden (talk) 10:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My vote is for "A", since the aitch is not silent. That seems the simplest rule. H. W. Fowler opens his book with the following:"a, an. 1. A is used before all consonants except silent h (a history, an hour); an was formerly usual before an unaccented syllable beginning with h and is still often seen and heard (an historian, an hotel, an hysterical scene, an hereditary title, an habitual offender). But now that the h in such words is pronounced, the distinction has become anomalous and will no doubt disappear in time.  Meantime, speakers who like to say an should not try to have it both ways by aspirating the h." Haymatth2 (talk) 12:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I note that we're now back at "A historical" and I endorse this reversion. Warden (talk) 09:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Concept and usage
I like this new section about the ideas of Hegel and others. Please note the coincidence that the article Zeitgeist was also recently at AFD and so I added some material about Hegel's ideas to that. We should perhaps include some cross-linkage between that article and this and also do the same with Great Man theory, pulling the latter into the main body from the See also section.

In Zeitgeist, I wrote that "the concept counters the Great Man theory popularised by Thomas Carlyle...". In the section here, the two are shown to be pulling in the same direction, "Hegel, Thomas Carlyle and others noted that the great historical figures were just representative men,". This seems to be something of a contradiction but I suppose it's mostly a matter of perspective - how one approaches and views their writings.

Warden (talk) 09:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The sense I have - and I knew next to nothing about it before working on this article - is that Hegel saw the world-historical figure as appearing when the time was ripe, expressing the mind-spirit of the time. The figure has huge impact, but is bound to appear. The "representative man" idea is from Moses, the cited source. I suppose it is possible to reconcile a view of history as a tale of great men with a view of it as a tale of the inevitable progress of ideas. But this section does not give enough about other philosophers' views.  The note on Hitler's self-identification as a world-historical figure belongs somewhere in the article, but I am not sure if it is in this section.  Ditto the note on politicians identifying themselves with historical figures of the past.  I have been following the random approach of a Google "preview available" search to see what different books have to say about "historical figure", and putting that in where it fits, or starting new sections.  That has the advantages of finding the main aspects of the subject that should be covered and of resolving the AfD discussion, but the drawback of giving a rather incoherent effect.  The article may be reaching the stage where it needs a more deliberate approach, looking for sources that discuss specific aspects. I will probably keep tinkering for two or three days. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Citations in the lead
The expanded lead was recently a summary of the rest of the article but now contains supporting citations. My general understanding is that citations are not normally expected in the lead, as it summarises the main body of the article, where the citations will usually appear. This article may require strong support for its statements though, as some may disagree with them otherwise. But we risk the lead diverging from the rest of the article if it appears to stand by itself and I have seen this happen in other controversial cases. I have no clever solution to offer but just wanted to document the issue which may arise later at places like GA review. Warden (talk) 09:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree. The citations can and probably should be dropped. I have seen some articles where the lead became a battlefield. That seems very unlikely here. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Examples in the lead
The current examples in the lead are Florence Nightingale and Napoleon. I chose these originally as they were the first two examples in the BBC source. I was also concerned to ensure that we had some gender balance and so this would include a woman. Gender bias is something which the article comments upon and so we should be sensitive to this ourselves.

Another editor added Muhammed at the front of this list but I have just removed this for several reasons. One is that the choice might be controversial and I don't want the article to be politicised. Another is that we don't want the lead to turn into a top ten, in which everyone's favourites jostle for attention. A third is that adding another man tips the gender balance. Note that the picture of Lady Godiva has recently been moved down so that the lead picture is now a man, not a woman and that picture is then followed by a string of other dead white men. A fourth reason is undue weight or representation: the article focusses upon Jesus and Joan of Arc more than any of these examples and so, if we were to change the lead examples, those two might be a better pair.

As this issue is likely to recur, I'm getting discussion started so that we can document it.

Warden (talk) 08:51, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * IMO those who have done the hard work building up the body should have the most say in the wording of the lede. But for me it would be good to include Muhammad in the lede, for several reasons. Even the white nationalist Hart ranked Muhammad as the world's no 1 most influential historical figure. Its goood to have ethnic as well as gender balance, and historically men were generally over represented in the public domain (women having instead dominion in the domestic sphere). Three is a better number than two.


 * To compensate on the gender balance issue, you could maybe have Ada Lovelace as the lede pic . Since 2011 she's been used by a number of orgs as their no 1 historical figure to help get women more involved in tech, including editing wikipedia. As for including Muhammad in the lede rather than Jesus, its good to be aware that Jesus is not principally a historical figure, the living Christ is in fact still here with us today, imperceptible to most, but closer than breath. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It looks like categories have been added to the main article but these are not addressed in the lead, such as "political appropriation" and "in branding." I think it could be helpful to rework the introductory section to reflect these additions. Niortega (talk) 09:06, 29 October 2019 (UTC)