Talk:The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain

Spelling
Wouldn't the correct spelling be with a small caps "but" ? --AchimP (talk) 11:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ffynnon Garw
Why is this name translated as ‘Rough Fountain’? If I understand it correctly, ‘ffynnon’ is a feminine noun (see Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, s.v.) and adjectives or nouns describing feminine nouns (when following them, in a nucleus+satellite construction) are mutated in Welsh. Therefore, it is not ‘ffynnon’ (a fountain) + ‘garw’ (rough), but ‘ffynnon’ + mutated ‘carw’ (a deer, a stag). Cf. ‘ffynnon fedydd’ (fountain of baptism, baptismal font; GPC, s.v.), ‘ffynnon’ + mutated ‘bedydd’ (baptism).

Is my analysis wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rumpelstilzchen (talk • contribs) 23:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say that I agree with this analysis - if it was Rough Fountain, surely it would be ffynnon arw - So ffynnon garw means The Fountain of the Stag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.46.70 (talk) 15:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Although I don't doubt the accuracy of the Welsh translations mentioned above, a little local knowledge may put this in some context. To any locals of Taffs Well, where Christopher Monger grew up and where the story is 'set', it would seem "obvious" that the name Ffynnon Garw was derived by combining part of the names Ffynnon Taf (the Welsh name for Taffs Well, where ffynnon refers to the hot mineral spring/well in the village, rather than a fountain) and Nantgarw. The latter is a village adjacent to Taffs Well with close community links eg same primary school catchment area, same GP coverage (incl Dr Monger, Christopher Monger's father, who attended to many patients in Nantgarw in the 1950s and 1960s). Nantgarw is usually translated locally as 'rough stream' (eg see https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZCRZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false), even though as 'nant' is also feminine, presumably that is also not grammatically correct and it should be Nantarw (if my possibly-faulty memory of soft mutations is correct)? I have never heard any suggestion that it should be Stag Stream (Nant + mutated carw). But bear in mind that historically, this was not a strongly-Welsh-speaking area, and some names seem to have been formed by people who knew a little Welsh rather than being fluent. As another similar example, there is a house in Nantgarw which has for hundreds of years been called 'Ty hên', even though I think the correct Welsh, would be 'Hen dŷ'. Going back to Ffynnon Garw, I have never seen anything from Christopher Monger clarifying where he got the name from, so none of this is encyclopedic and would presumably count as original research. However I would suggest that the appropriate translation of Ffynnon Garw - not that it was ever intended to be translated - would be 'rough spring'. JA 1961 (talk) 22:32, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

first mountain of Wales
If I recall correctly, the importance of the mountain being a mountain, is that is the first mountain in wales. Not only would its demotion remove the village of this title, but is seen to essentially move the border, making the hill, village and its inhabitants English. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 06:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2 October 2015

 * The following is a closed 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. The reasoning of Darkday and George Ho about phrasal verbs sounds convincing. EdJohnston (talk) 01:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain → The Englishman Who Went U u p a Hill but Came D d own a Mountain – "but" is used as a coordinating conjunction, which conjoins independent and subordinating clauses in the title. It should be lowercased per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CT. George Ho (talk) 04:40, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Support for lowercasing "but", per MOS:CT. However, "up" and "down" are prepositions here, with less than five letters, so I think it should actually be "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain" according to MOS:CT. Darkday (talk) 18:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Darkday, "went up" and "came down" are past tenses of phrasal verbs, respectively, "go up" and "come down". Uppercasing "up" and "down" is tolerable and okay as long as it has "went" and "came". --George Ho (talk) 21:17, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * George Ho, I don't think so. Yes, "go up" can be a phrasal verb, e.g. in "go up in flames", but in "go up a hill", "go" is a verb, "up" a preposition, and "a hill" the object of the preposition. See "up", section 3 ("up" as preposition), which has the example sentences "Go up the street and turn left" and "She had to walk her bike up the hill". Same with "come down". Darkday (talk) 22:49, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Changed proposal accordingly. --George Ho (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Support The Englishman Who Went up a Hill. Sources, including the official site, are inconsistent with a comma after "Hill" and the substitution of "and" for "but", and title shortenings.  The poster makes use of visual cues, font, size, colour, to substitute for punctuation.  There is no important nuanced meaning in the title involving capitalization and punctuation.  So, go for the frequently used concise form that avoids several unimportant options.  Don't support "The Englishman" even if it is available as too short and loses words important for recognition.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:26, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * @SmokeyJoe: Limiting to just 21st-century sources, I found ones using just the full title: . I could not find recent ones using the short title, so I'll oppose the "concise" but less used title. George Ho (talk) 14:30, 10 October 2015 (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.

novel?
Why does it make a vague reference to being based on a novel near the end of the article, but the lede says nothing of the sort? Either the later claim isn't true, or mention should be made early on...
 * 70.67.192.223 (talk) 18:38, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You're right. The novel is simply the story as told in the film - I've altered the wording accordingly.  (Also provided another citation.)  Hogyn Lleol (talk) 20:44, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

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