Talk:Peter de la Billière

Cleanup?
Not a bif fan of cleanup tags without explanation on the talk, I chose to add an explanation here rather than remove the tag. The article seems to contain some redundant info. Each step in this individual's career is probably not interesting. // Konvalj 18:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed the cleanup tag as I believe I have worked this article into reasonable shape. Let me know what you think. Blair - Speak to me 09:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

French?
Does anyone know how close his connection to France is? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 23:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The Gulf War
What is THIS: "Prior to this, Schwarzkopf was resistant to the use of special forces due to his experiences in Vietnam where US special forces (in this context special forces refers to all US special forces, not just the Special Forces - ie the green berets) performance was generally poor"?

Sources?

Schwarzkopf's view at the time was widely known. For example http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/billiere/2.html Norman's argument is two-fold. (1) SOF's light infantry nature makes them vulnerable to a well-conducted defense. Twice the US Delta Force has been completely routed on missions that could have been handled by a heavier force. (2) SOF's links with covert intelligence has lead to unsoldierly behaviour which has placed the entire mission at risk. For example, SOF's behaviour during the Vietnam War's Project Phoenix. Billiere overcame Schwarzkopf's objections (1) because the Gulk War was suited to light infrantry operations and (2) the example of Billiere's own behaviour with the SAS. Gdt 07:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

use of 'Sinecure'
The use of the expression 'Sinecure/Sinecurist' frequently indicates a negative sense or nuance. A suitable alternative may be 'honorarium' (not honorary) which I think would be better in this case and propose to change the word in the main article but would like to know the views of other readers before doing so.Miletus (talk) 08:54, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know the details of whether he performed duties in this post. In any case he had been set for retirement as a lieutenant-general, but on completion of Desert Storm was promoted to general with this ad hoc posting (meaning a significant salary increase) and then retired shortly thereafter (with a significant pension increase over what he would have received had he retired as a lieutenant general). Meanwhile, he was the in-theater commander of British forces but for the purposes of British command structure relating to the Gulf War he was answerable to Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine so should he really be called "Commander-in-Chief"? LE (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

clash of the generals
he appeared on the show using Hannibal's tactics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.173.73 (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Request Move to "Peter de la Billiere"

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was


 * the request was withdrawn by the nominator

On the basis of the printing
 * of the copyright notice and his acknowledgement inside this preview of Storm Command – A personal account of the Gulf War,
 * of his name and signature facsimile in the Foreword at pg. vii of this preview of Richard Boswell's Weapons Free – The story of a Gulf War helicopter pilot, and
 * of the cover and copyright notice of this preview of Supreme Courage – Heroic stories from 150 years of The Victoria Cross,

it seems apparent, despite a general lack of independent sources for confirmation,
 * that General Sir Peter de la Bellière continues to spell his name according to the hereditary French style, with the accent grave, and
 * that Harper Collins Publishers, London, Crécy Publishing Ltd., and Little, Brown, an imprint of Time Warner Book Group UK, support such spelling; and
 * despite numerous sources to the contrary in the form of London Gazette supplements, which must be deemed, at best, suspect, and at worst misleading, on the basis of what appears to be common practice in France and England to intentionally omit diacritics in situations where the text is capitalized, and
 * given that this therefore leaves a single source of the not particularly official, or in any way sourced, Army Commands PDF reference versus the general's own hand,

it must be accepted as the most common English spelling, and, in accordance with Wikipedia naming conventions under WP:UE, WP:EN, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:DIACRITICS, is therefore the proper title for this English Wikipedia article.

Accordingly, as I see no obvious indication that conflicting sources are available, and given that I don't, based upon these facts, anticipate any substantial objection to such action from other editors involved in this discussion, I will remove the RM tag from this article and close this discussion with a decision of No Move. —  Who R you?  Talk 03:45, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Peter de la Billière → Peter de la Billiere – The 11 linked source documents and 3 pages of Amazon books are clear, in accordance with WP:UE, WP:EN WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:DIACRITICS, the common English spelling is Billiere (without diacritics). English Wikipedia should properly reflect this English spelling. —  Who R you?  Talk 16:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The proposer is mistaken. There is no doubt that some English sources systematically drop all accents for technical reasons. Where these technical problems do not apply, as in professionally prepared books such as those authored by the subject, the name appears with the accent. When researching such questions on Amazon it is important to look at the scanned cover pages and inside the books (where possible), not to rely on Amazon's own rendering of a name. The latter often drops diacritics that are present on the cover page and in the book's metadata section, as is the case for all of de la Billière's books for which I could check this. One book even contains his signature complete with the accent.
 * All of this is not even surprising, given that England has a strong (Norman) French tradition and among the English speakers in England there is no sense of foreignness w.r.t. French comparable to how French speakers feel about English. Educated English (as in English, not American) literature often has many French words and phrases, all spelled correctly including with the original accents. It would be pretty absurd for an educated English person with a French name not to spell their name according to well known and familiar (to them) French orthography rules. Hans Adler 19:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Spelt with the accent in his own books, on the Amazon page and in Who's Who (whose entries are written by the subject). He clearly spells his own name with a grave and since he is a British person we should follow suit. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The books on Amazon are SPELLED with both an accent and without. So that's not definitive at all. I can't see any technical reason why they would drop the accent on the FRONT COVER on one of his books. I'd suggest that we need more than the two examples to give a proper judgment. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 22:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not a technical reason, it's a typographical reason: A lot of typographers, though not all, subscribe to the rule that French accents on capital letters are always dropped. This rule has its root in historical typefaces that did not include accents on capital letters. The technical restriction no longer exists, but survives in obsolete practices. Same as with the illogical swapping of commas/periods and quotation marks in American English, which was once necessary to protect vulnerable tiny lead sorts from breaking due to exposure. By the way, you can see this at work in the case of "Storm Command: A Personal Account of the Gulf War". His name is spelled "PETER DE LA BILLIERE" on the cover, but further insicde it's spelled "General Sir Peter de la Billière" on the inner title, then "Sir Peter de la Billière" in the copyright notice and "Peter de la Billière" in the signature to the acknowledgements. Hans Adler 22:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, that's a possible explanation, certainly. Looking over the sources cited in the article, I only found one spelling (at Farm Africa) using the form Peter de la Billière. So the spelling of the current article title is not properly supported, I'd agree with the nom. I'm not sure how we'd get a proper cite, or just use the books for the spelling's sake. Some of the cites point to old docs, and one is a web site. So, they are not high quality. I'd have to lean to using Billière at this point, but we really need a wider set of sources to be sure. Certainly the current article title spelling is not a big issue, or it would have attracted a RM sooner. I'd like to see some stats on newspaper and media usage. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 22:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You must be aware by now that this British citizen spells his name "de la Billière" and that this name has been in use, with this spelling, in the UK branch of his family for centuries. More specifically, you are aware by now that all Amazon-provided covers of books that are authored by him spell his name with the accent, except for some which use capital letters and no accent (=> no information), including one which uses the accent consistently within. No further information is required, and in particular a survey of misspellings and technical restrictions would be completely useless. Hans Adler 23:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, the article's sources must support the spelling. The amazon pages could be gone tomorrow. As it stands, I agree with you about the familial spelling, but I must agree with the nom to move it. This is no different than pushing for a stub to be deleted, even if there is some small bit of evidence that the subject is notable. I don't know where to look for RSs for this person, I don't live in England. That would be where to look for appropriate references, I suggest. As for your comment about misspellings, we don't know until there are facts. I believe that the media are a good indicator of the common spelling. If there is a shift towards using the accent in today's references, then that will matter more than old references. I've stated that I think the references for the spelling without the accent are weak. But to overturn the policy of commonname, (if such is the case) must surely require clear facts, sourced in the article. &#x0298;  alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 13:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Who's Who is pretty definitive. And that spells it with the accent. I'm sure some editors here would say that since that's not an open-access online sources it doesn't count, but Wikipedia policy states that print sources are as valid as electronic ones. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you do the actual Who's Who reference? (use cite book?) Just saying it in a ref is not enough. Maybe my library system has a copy. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 17:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment The only rule for Wikipedia is to follow the practices of the preponderance of most-reliable, high-quality English-language RSs. Perhaps his name has been effectively Anglicized through frequent and familiar use in English-language press, and perhaps not. Debate and discussion about the typographical and societal reasons underlying why diacritics ought to or ought not be used are beside the point. It is not the domain of mere wikipedians to debate with pouted lip whether they like and approve of any particular language practice, such as whether Wikipedia is being suitably reverent to the rights and entitlements of Mongolian yak herders and their spelling conventions. Wikipedia follows the RSs—right or wrong (or politically correct or incorrect). All someone needs to do to make a solid case for a move here (or a solid case to oppose the move) is to convincingly demonstrate what the RSs are doing; that’s the only evidence that matters. Bring on real evidence or hold your peace. Greg L (talk) 02:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 17:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment – Obviously if RS are cited to demonstrate that the most common English spelling of the name is 'ère' then that's what the article title should reflect. The fact is that a cursory review of the linked sources, the Amazon list, the covers of the books, the vast majority of the RS indicate that it is spelled without the accent.  If a more indepth review of the sources indicates that not to be the case, then I don't think anyone, myself included, is opposed to the en.WP article title containing the accent grave.  Putting aside the OR of what a lot of typographers do, if the sources show that the accent is used, then so be it.  But when one reviews the sources, and finds the autobiography and the personal account (which includes his [presumably official] nametag in the photo) and all the other references given showing the name without the accent, I at least tend to assume that the most common English spelling is what I'm seeing as being the most common spelling in English.  If it's spelled other ways, in other places, by all means cite those sources and the foreign spelling stands.  If the original move had included a comment on the Talk page that indicated reliable sources for the move, there would, of course, never have been an issue; but since it is currently common practice on en.WP to move articles to non-English spellings contrary to all sources, and since the review of the only sources cited here overwhelmingly indicates that the common English spelling is without diacritics, the RM was made.  And given that I tend to dismiss smug, pompous, arrogant British ass as a source, and therefore am forced to review the available sources, it still looks like only the available sources can be used to make the determination of what is the most common English spelling.  And of course the definitive sources are the British Army, SAS, British Armed Forces, and most definitively the British Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Information (United Kingdom), with, of course, the ultimate determination coming from the National Identity Register; but then as with the earlier reference to Who's Who, we as wikipedians should probably just follow actual RS rather than concocting some convincing sounding BS with references to places that don't prove a damned thing.
 * And, as an aside, it's unfortunate to see such anti-American sentiment from someone who apparently considers themself to be so greatly superior to others; personally while I don't think America (or anywhere else) is perfect, I have a great deal of respect for their historical role of having helped liberate the world from some rather ignorant, arrogant, self-righteous pricks (not to mention the Nazis and Russian Communism); and more to the point in this case, I certainly respect their right to determine what is, or isn't, the common English spelling of names in their country; rather like I'd treat England with the same respect in determining what she does&thinsp;/&thinsp;doesn't consider proper English spelling of names for her subjects; but it would appear that some simply love to hate everything American; pity. Cheers —   Who R you?  Talk 10:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * To quote your own userbox: "This user recognizes that even if 300,000,000 people make the same mistake, it's still a mistake"! I see little sign of you following that particular pearl of wisdom here. Since the man himself is a native English-speaker and clearly spells his name with an accent (in his books, as opposed to on the cover, and the biography he wrote about himself in Who's Who, which, despite your claims it doesn't prove anything, is pretty definitive) we can assume that that is the correct form and any other form is a mistake. Incidentally, I have no idea where your claims of anti-Americanism or your irrelevant comments about American involvement in world history come from. Wikipedia is international, not American. American names are spelt in the American manner, British names in the British manner, any others are determined by discussion. Oh, and Britain has no National Identity Register. It was an experiment which has failed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow. Schools obviously encourage development of self-esteme nowadays. I acknowledge that it’s not your userbox, Necrothesp, that has the “300,000,000 people make the same mistake” business; but you used that as the crux of your argument here. You, as a mere wikipedian, are not an RS and are therefore not qualified to declare that the rest of the English-speaking press is fouled up as if you have some sort of keen insight the rest of the world lacks. Wikipedia’s policies are designed specifically to circumvent arguments predicated on such presumptions. Your post severely undermined the only legitimate basis upon which an argument on Wikipedia can be based when it comes to deciding this issue. If you want everyone here to overlook what the RSs do and first consult User:Necrothesp to see if he declares the RSs are unwise, please get WP:RS revised to declare as much. Until then, try to find another argument that doesn’t require everyone to eschew our most fundamental principles. By the way, I know my spelling of “self-esteme” in the second sentence of my post *looks* improper, but just because 300,000,000 people make the same mistake and spell it “self-esteem” doesn’t make them right. Greg L (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Well now, had the Who's Who link above been a link to some reference that indicated that, in fact, there exists a Who's Who article wherein General Sir's name was demonstrably written with an accent grave, then I suppose my response (and those of everyone else here) would've been, well then, we have solid RS that indicates the name is actually spelled with a diacritic so the requirements of WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DIACRITIC, etc are satisified and the name should remain with diacritics. But instead the link points to a wiki article indicating that such a thing as a who's who list exists.  So in response to a snypy derogatory link to who's who I thought I'd return the favour with an equally prickish link to, amongst others, the failed national register, which a quick review of the linked article obviously indicates was discontinued.  And while you may think that your pomposity means that I, or anyone else, will take your word for it that a) Billiere's in Who's Who, b) that he wrote it, and most importantly c) that his name actually appears with an accent grave in it, in reality, as mentioned in the Use English thread, I, and the other people showing sceptacism here, have been dealing with several other discussions in RMs where the people involved blatantly lie, create links to documents which, upon reviewing the linked document, one finds don't support the claims made, and create their own documents in userspace, stylized as WP Policy documents, and then create links from WP space to the middle of those documents so as to mislead other editors, this all in the goal of keeping articles in a form with diacritics, despite the fact that there is zero English RS to support that spelling, all because the WP editor/admins, and the people in the articles in question, are Czech; and these Czech editors don't like that the RS, and WP, have dropped the diacritics.  And this isn't one or two articles, and this isn't about someone of French decent, this is about hockey players, and tennis players, and whatever other atheletes have moved to North America, and the WP editors from their homelands wanting to keep the names in their foreign spellings despite the fact that the RS don't support it.
 * As a result, here, in this case, if you can prove that his name is in fact spelled with a French accent grave or a circumflex or whatever then by all means I'll be happy to remove the RM template and consider it settled; but there's not way in hell I'm taking anyone's word for anything after having dealt with the group of admins that are trying to re-write the English WP into Czech with regards to these various figures in North American sports. That is what the 2,000+ discussions over the past years about diacritics have generally been about; this small group moving articles, starting these discussions all over, and creating proposals, that diacritics should be added regardless of RS because some editor somewhere knows for a fact that the name should contain such and such a diacritic.  I looked at the links on Billiere's article and all showed the name without the accent grave except one book in the Amazon where Belliere wasn't the author but wrote the forward, I looked at the covers of the books written by Belliere and again one had the accent grave and the rest didn't, I provided the links above to a couple of those covers, his autobiography and a his story coverage of his time in the Gulf; and personally I would expect someone to ensure that their autobiography spelled their name correctly, and if that meant with an accent grave then I would think that the cover of the book would have an accent grave.  And while you keep spouting off how you know this, and you know that, and you know that typographers don't use diacritics on capital letters, and you know that inside the book his name appears with the accent grave, and you know that he wrote an article in Who's Who that shows his name as such, the fact is that I don't take your word for it.  So by all means, if you can provide it, provide some link(s) to Reliable Sources that demonstrate that the common English spelling of the name, in English, contains the accent grave and I'll be happy to acknowledge, upon reviewing it, that it does in fact say what you say it does; until you provide some actual proof that what you're saying isn't the same kind of BS that I've been seeing in other WP discussions on this general topic of late, I have no intention of taking your word for it, regardless of how superiour you and Hans Adler apparently consider yourselves to be.  As an American might say, put up or shut up; in other words, provide some proof that the article is currently titled correctly and I'll willingly acknowledge that I was wrong and remove the RM template; keep posting again and again how you know because you're convinced by your educated British high society values that Britain's accept Norman culture and consider French to be such a wonderous thing and la-dee-da, and I'll keep coming back and posting well that's really nice that you think that you've so special, but I couldn't give a rat's ass about how superiour you believe yourself to be, and feel free to follow WP policy and cite some references that back you up. —   Who R you?  Talk 15:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * So, I am according to you, a liar, untrustworthy, derogatory, prickish, pompous and superior. And all because I disagree with you and asked you not to attack other editors. May I suggest that you actually read some of our policies and guidelines, such as WP:AGF and WP:NPA, before you enter into discussions in the future. At the moment you are going the right way to be blocked. You are at perfect liberty to disagree with other editors, but not to make personal attacks upon them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:42, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's frustrating to all of us. Everyone needs to chill out. We have the time, and I hope, the will, to figure out the best spelling for article titles. Really, it's so much fighting over something I doubt Wikipedia gets many complaints about from external sources. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 17:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Support as this is the english language Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 16:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Why am I not surprised? :-) &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 18:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Request for clarification To User:Who R you? , you wrote at the very top of this petition as follows: The 11 linked source documents and 3 pages of Amazon books are clear. I’m sorry for being dense (or for arriving so late at the wedding reception that the booze table has been folded up and now leaning against the wall), but where are those links? My first comment here on this page was an appeal for evidence upon which to settle the issue of what is the most common English-language practice. I still find the evidence to be elusive. Greg L (talk) 18:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I was referring to the References section from the main article (prior to the recent addition for Who's Who). Unfortunately the source that is repeatedly cited as the majority of those, the London Gazette supplements, list all the last names in small-caps font variant; and thus, according to Hans Adler's OR, would be subject to typographer's dropping and diacritics; and the Army Commands PDF, while it spells names in typical mixed-case and repeatedly lists Billiere without the accent grave, doesn't (based on a scan of the first 100 pages) contain any names with diacritcs; hardly surprising in a list of English names, but also less that conclusive proof.  A list check of Google is inconclusive with zero news articles (rather surprising for the second-in-command of Desert Storm), and the books investigation shows the list has only one occurance with the accent grave and the book covers, such as the autobiography and the personal account (including the photo of [presumably his official] military nametag), which were claimed above as the proper source to check, don't contain the mark but are in upper-case so again, not 100% conclusive.  Other than that, every response is, trust me I'm looking at it and his name appears with the diacritic; claims the sort of which I suspect we're all becoming rather wary (I certainly am anyways).  And meanwhile I should apparently just suck it up when I'm referred to as laughably arrogant, inexperienced, and immature, but then of course I'm a big boy and don't need to go sulk about it.  Perhaps rather than telling us how the Oxford Dictionary is filled with diacritics (I'm assuming that's the same list as the July proposal to ignore all RS and add diacritics to the names of anyone not born in a former commonwealth country; with words like naive, because of course according to Oxford [or at least that citation of it] it's spelled naïve which apparently some think everyone is), maybe we'll be provided with some actual citations to actual sources to show that the most common English spelling of Billiere is with the accent grave; such as one would certainly expect on, for example, the cover of the man's own autobiography; but again the OR would tell us that's an intentional, repeated, typographical error. —   Who R you?  Talk 21:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Just saw this: "Hans Adler's OR". Well, how about this? For your convenience I have chosen a non-reliable source in English, but it quotes the Académie Française on this very topic. The French quotation explains that there is a tradition to drop accents on capital letters, and that it is deplorable and should not be continued. Hans Adler 23:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for proving the link for this. As I trust you can imagine, what with Canada being fully French/English bilingual for a good many years, a claim that England (and France) commonly drop accents from all capital letters seemed rather incredible.  As it happens, every product label and government document generated in this country has both English and French and in no case are French accents ever dropped from capitalized text or anything else; not before the advent of digital typography and certainly not since.  Merci pour votre assistance sur ce point. —   Who R you?  Talk 03:45, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * It's actually all pretty easy. As I have said before, many of Billière's books have previews on Amazon. If you open any of them, you will see that his name is consistently spelled with the accent inside, including where he signs his name (in one case with facsimile of his signature), and including the copyright notice. It's also spelled with the accent on the cover pages of many of his books, and the only ones which drop the accent are using capital letters for the name. Hans Adler 22:09, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * You will all note that I haven’t voted (or to use the wiki-PC form: “!voted”) on this RfC. As I wrote above in my comment, the only rule for Wikipedia is to follow the practices of the preponderance of most-reliable, high-quality English-language RSs. It is beginning to appear that his name has not been effectively Anglicized; which is to say, it hasn’t had the diacritic dropped through frequent and familiar use in English-language press. Unlike Hockey players who come to the U.S. and play in the NHL (and who invariably adopt conventional English-language spelling themselves besides merely wearing a jersey with spelling sans diacritics), Peter de la Billière’s name appears to be intact and is most properly written as Peter himself no-doubt still writes it. I motion that the nominator withdraw this RfC unless someone can produce compelling evidence to support the premiss of the RfC. Greg L (talk) 22:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * ''The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Post-RM discussion
I guess I arrived late to the party, but I'll say what I have to say anyway. I get 2,100 post-1990 English-language Google Book hits for this subject's name, of which 379 contain the diacritic. That's a usage rate of 18 percent. This is an extremely high rate for diacritic usage. Compare this to 1,040/160,000 ===> 6.5 percent for "Björn Borg". As I favor a threshold of 10 percent, I would have voted "opposed." Kauffner (talk) 10:10, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

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