Talk:William Evan Allan

Beramba
Beramba was a troop ship. We (unusually?) have no article that I can find. Rich  Farmbrough 14:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have many if any articles on Troopships from Australia yet. They may well be written though.--User:AYArktos |  Talk 20:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I have created a Beramba stub - the only information so far is from the Allen transcripts - a web search comes up with nothing more--User:AYArktos | Talk 21:18, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

"then British colony" vs. "then-British colony"
I removed the hyphen.
 * "then British colony": The "then" refers to "British colony", not just to "British". It means that NSW was a British colony at that time.  When you read on, you discover it later became part of Australia.  That's the meaning we're wanting to put across.
 * "then-British colony": Due to the hyphen, the "then" is now attached only to "British". It suggests this colony was British at that time, but later became a colony of a different country.  Definitely not the meaning we're after.


 * What complete nonsense. Read again.  Then British colony (did what?).  Without the hyphen, the phrase makes no sense.  If you want to, you can do "then-British-colony."131.96.15.42 21:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Au contraire, my anonymous friend. The phrase without the hyphen not only makes perfect sense, it makes exactly the sense it should mean. The phrase with the hyphen introduces an ambiguity as to what it could possibly mean - so why on earth would you do that, unless you were intending to be unclear? You seem to be reading "then" as an adverb, whereas it is obviously being used adjectivally.

Think of it like this: If you are now married to your 4th wife, and you are relating something that happened when you were married to wife No.2, you could refer to her (the 2nd wife) as "my then wife", to distinguish her from "my current wife". You should certainly not hyphenate either of those expressions (much and all as journalists are prone to do these days).

This is the same. NSW was then (meaning, at the time we're talking about, Evan Allan's birth) a British colony, so in "the then British colony of NSW", then performs the functions of an adjective that qualifies "British colony". Assuming the reader has no knowledge of Australia (as we should), "then-British colony" allows the perfectly reasonable interpretation that NSW was a colony of Britain at that time, but Britain was not always its owner before Federation, and some other unnamed country could have colonised NSW in the intervening period. From our knowledge of history, we know that would be a false conclusion to come to. It's certainly still a valid sentence grammatically, but far from valid as a true statement about history. Bad grammar leads to bad history. The hyphen must go because it is misleading. JackofOz 02:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Please don't fall for the new-fangled mania for over-hyphenating things. It is worse than unnecessary, it can be quite misleading, as this example shows.  Cheers JackofOz 15:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Last I checked, use of a hyphen goes back decades and centuries.131.96.15.42 21:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, I knew that, actually. I was talking about over-hyphenation, a relatively recent phenomenon.  JackofOz 02:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Reads strangely
The second sentence reads strangely "he was the last Australian to have seen action overseas" I know something else is meant to be there it already says he is the oldest. perhaps someone who has a little more knowledge could correct this typo, otherwise a great read.--Matt 09:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed - I've commented out the line until it can be fixed. Possibly, the author meant "Moreover, prior to his death he was the oldest Australian to have seen action overseas", or something along those lines. - Gobeirne 00:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not agreed: it's correct like it was, and so I reverted it => he wasn't the oldest left, but the last Australian to have seen action overseas. Extremely sexy 09:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you please clarify what is meant by the statement that he was "the last Australian to have seen action overseas"? - What about all those Australians who fought in wars subsequent to the two World Wars? - Gobeirne 21:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It is obviously implied that he was the last "Great War" veteran of such. Extremely sexy 15:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed the nonsensical, non-obvious statement, and replaced it with a fact and citation. - Gobeirne 23:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay: well done. Extremely sexy 13:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

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