Talk:Jack Spratt (fictional detective)

Comments
Has Fforde acknowledge any connection between the Jack Spratt from Caversham Heights / Big Over Easy and the one mentioned in Eyre Affair? (End of ch 9 "Can I get down? It's time for Jack Spratt's Casebook.") Ralphmerridew 19:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC) I believe 'Caversham Heights' was Fforde's unpublished first novel (hence its appearance in the 'Well of Lost Plots') and so preceded 'The Eyre Affair'. I think it's another example of Fforde seeding plot developments and in-jokes with quick one liners. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.12.255.25 (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

What was the move for?
I undid your move. There does not seem to be any point, and you gave absolutely no reason. Choor monster (talk) 19:49, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's due to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, the majority of book refs refer to the original Jack Spratt, not the detective character based on Jack Spratt. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. User:In ictu oculi provides convincing evidence (in the form of 5,670 Google Books hits) that the nursery-rhyme Jack Sprat is sometimes spelled as Spratt. A parallel search for Jack Spratt intended to find only the fictional detective gets only 865 hits. So the primary meaning of Jack Spratt can't be assumed to be the fictional detective; it's got to be the nursery rhyme guy under an alternative name, whether we decide to call that a misspelling or not. EdJohnston (talk) 04:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Jack Spratt → Jack Spratt (fictional detective) – Jack Spratt should redirect to Jack Sprat, this is a common variant of the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC meaning. 5,670 raw results in Google Books compared to Jack Spratt detective In ictu oculi (talk) 23:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. There is a hatnote on Jack Spratt. Why bother?  I believe WP:2DABS (weakly) and and WP:NCDAB (strongly) favor the existing arrangement. Choor monster (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Because at the moment when someone searches using the right hand box for the nursery character two spellings come up and there's a 50/50 chance of being misdirected to the fictional detective which is an unlikely subject. Likewise on Android or iPhone, there's no clue which of the two Jack Sprat(t) is the nursery rhyme. This is why we have WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for cases exactly such as this one where an uncommon use misdirects from the usual/primary topic. The same applies the other way, the lack of "(fictional detective)" means that for the minority looking for that article 50/50 will go the wrong way as well. While titling the article clearly per WP:CRITERIA does no harm to anyone. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:NCDAB in fact supports a recognizable title: "For disambiguating specific topic pages by using an unambiguous article title, several options are available:" In ictu oculi (talk) 08:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and then it concludes by saying "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation".
 * The underlying questions here are whether (1) "Jack Spratt" is, in general, a misspelling of "Jack Sprat", and if so (2) can a misspelling be a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? I agree that the nursery rhyme is, other things being equal, primary.  I disagree with how far that goes.  Since there are only two topics, I think two mutual hatnotes should suffice, and yes, some people will click twice.
 * So far as I can tell, Spratt is a misspelling. Sources I've checked include the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, The Annotated Mother Goose, and Gutenberg online. Choor monster (talk) 15:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * True but for "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation" in this case we'd have to use Detective Jack Spratt to achieve what is both natural and disambiguation.
 * Yes a variant spelling can be and often is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Particularly for something from 1639. The fact that Jasper Fforde "misspelled" his detective is an illustration of what is shown in Google Books, that the primary for both is the nursery rhymes and the book far from primary topic. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Variant spelling, yes, misspelling, I'm quite dubious. As is, Jack Spratt is both natural and disambiguates.  Further comments are in a new section below, separated out for length, and because it contains material worth incorporating into Jack Sprat. Choor monster (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per nom WP:PT if the fictional character is not the primary topic, it should not occupy this location when there is a different article on the primary topic. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sprat versus Spratt
I'm not sure what you mean by 1639. Spelling in those days was non-standardized, and pretty much everything existing in multiple variants. I'm citing dictionaries and reference works, treating them as WP:RS. Almost all of them are coming up exclusively "Jack Sprat", with no hint of a variant "Jack Spratt". The OED2, for example, has an entry for "Jack sprat", meaning a little fellow, and two citations: "Hard you euer such a counsell of such a Iacke sprot?" (1570) and "Jack-sprat, a Dwarf, or very little Fellow, a Hop-on-my-thumb." (1699). dictionary.com lists "jack sprat" only. Merriam-Webster does not seem to have any entry whatsoever.

Note that "sprat" is a real word, meaning some kind of little fish. That's why it's "Jack Sprat".

A fascinating variant is in Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales: A Sequel to the Nursery Rhymes of England (James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, John Russell Smith, 1849) comes the following. The author gives a very condensed comment on "Jack Sprat would eat no fat", and cites the following 1659 printing:
 * Archdeacon Pratt would eat no fatt,
 * His wife would eat no lean;
 * 'Twixt Archdeacon Pratt and Joan his wife,
 * The meat was eat up clean.

The same authors go one step further in A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century, Volume 2 (1872) and say (under the entry PRATT) that "Jack Spratt" is a common substitute for "Archdeacon Pratt".

The Dictionary of Proverbs (George Latimer Apperson, 2006) considers, instead, that the Archdeacon Pratt version is an oddity, and his other citations all involve "Jack" or "Jack Sprat". His 1639 source cites Jack and Jill, no last name, but in Apperson's next entry, he cites (from the same 1639 source) "Jack-Sprat teacheth his grandame." (This is part of my bewilderment regarding what you were referring to by 1639. A version of the rhyme goes that far back.)

I found these by doing a Google book search for "jack sprat" dictionary. If you just do a book search for "jack sprat" versus "jack spratt", you'll notice the former has many more reference sources than the latter. It's this, plus the sources I've already cited, which convinces me "Jack Spratt" should be thought of as a misspelling instead of a simple variant. Choor monster (talk) 12:34, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Newest move doesn't make any sense
Jack Sprat of nursery rhyme fame is just as much a "character" as Jack Spratt of Fforde fiction fame. Using "character" to dab flat out doesn't make any sense. Choor monster (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Is Jack Spratt notable?
A WP:BEFORE search today for "Jack Spratt" -Sprat turned up no discussion of anything related to Jasper Fforde. It did turn up another book with the same title by Joshua Robertson.

This leads me to believe Jack Spratt is not a notable character and does not merit a standalone article. It might be worthy of a merge with Jasper Fforde. Rhadow (talk) 19:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)