Talk:Zhang Jingfu

Requested move 6 August 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: no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 10:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Zhang Jingfu → Zhang Jinfu – The person's name can be spelled both ways, but "Zhang Jinfu" is more common. See official announcements of his death on Xinhua and China Daily. As for the Taiwanese politician Chang Jin-fu, his name is rarely spelled in pinyin, so a hatnote will suffice. Zanhe (talk) 17:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 08:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The Chinese character 劲 is a noun when pronouncing jìn and an adjective when pronouncing jìng (see a Chinese dictionary). 劲夫 means strong man and its correct pronunciation is more likely jìngfu than jìnfu. And we can also find the spelling Zhang Jingfu at both Xinhua and China Daily. --Neo-Jay (talk) 22:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that's WP:OR. We follow WP:COMMONNAME, not our own interpretation of which name is more "correct". Google search for "Zhang Jinfu" finance minister returns 609 results, whereas "Zhang Jingfu" finance minister returns only 215. Both spellings are correct, but "Jinfu" is more common. -Zanhe (talk) 22:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. Even if we forget about my interpretation of the meaning of 劲夫, Zhang Jinfu is still not the more common name. 张劲夫 is pronounced as Zhāng Jìngfu in the Chinese news reports such as this and this. And many Google results for Zhang Jinfu come from Wikipedia, which as a wiki site is not a reliable source. By Bing search (since I am in mainland China and Google is blocked), the results for "zhang jinfu" finance minister -wikipedia.org is 13 and "zhang jingfu" finance minister -wikipedia.org is 16. --Neo-Jay (talk) 23:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Jinfu is more common according to Google, and it's also used in the official government announcement. I almost never use Bing and am surprised at how few results it produces. I understand Google is blocked in China, let's wait for other users to verify the search results I provided above. -Zanhe (talk) 23:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not questioning the numbers of the Google search results you provided above. I just said that many Google results come from Wikipedia, a wiki site and not a reliable source. Could you please do me a favor to search for the results "-wikipedia.org" by Google to verify my conclusion? And for your information, searching The New York Times website nytimes.com by Bing, I found 7 results for "zhang jingfu" and 0 for "zhang jinfu". --Neo-Jay (talk) 23:54, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Certainly. With "-wikipedia.org", I get 512 for "Zhang Jinfu" and 195 for "Zhang Jingfu". -Zanhe (talk) 00:14, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The ratio has decreased from 2.83 (609/215) to 2.63 (512/195). Since the results still cannot exclude all the unreliable sources, could you please search for the same terms in Google Scholar and Google Books? Sorry for the inconvenience. And as I noticed, Zhang Jingfu is the more common name in The New York Times, and the two spellings are both used in Xinhuanet and China Daily. --Neo-Jay (talk) 00:29, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For your information, I just called Xinhuanet news office (86-10-63070925), telling my "original research" that 张劲夫 should be correctly spelled as Zhang Jingfu, not Zhang Jinfu. The gentleman answering my call replied to me that he would inform the relevant persons at Xinhua News Agency and ask them to discuss this issue. Maybe they will think that I am wrong, or maybe nothing will happen. Just let you know that I have tried. --Neo-Jay (talk) 01:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And, I just sent an email to Xinhuanet (xhwjc@xinhuanet.com), also telling my "original research" that 张劲夫 should be correctly spelled as Zhang Jingfu, not Zhang Jinfu. Maybe my opinion will be rejected or ignored. I will wait and see. --Neo-Jay (talk) 02:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your effort. But now 11 days later, the high-profile Xinhua announcement of his cremation (attended by President Xi Jinping, no less) still uses the "Zhang Jinfu" spelling. -Zanhe (talk) 00:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your moving proposal. But you have not proved that Zhang Jinfu is the clearly more common usage in reliable sources. Now 12 days later, I just searched for the terms in Google search in web proxy and found that the results for  "Zhang Jinfu" finance minister were 385 and  "Zhang Jingfu" finance minister 230 (since the results are from web proxy, I cannot provide links). The ratio 385/230 is not a clear evidence to prove that Zhang Jinfu is the more common usage. It's evident that both Xinhua and The New York Times historically used Zhang Jingfu as his name's spelling. I strongly oppose Wikipedia adopting Xinhua's certain young editor's recent stupid misspelling as the article's title. --Neo-Jay (talk) 09:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The current name ain't original research. The nominator didn't read closely what WP:COMMONNAMES says: even when commonly used by sources, an inaccurate name shall not be used. Of course, Chinese language can be mispronounced. However, it's "jing", not "jin", in pinyin, a current official standard used in China. George Ho (talk) 07:01, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, you really need to brush up on your Mandarin. "Jing" and "jin" are both correct Mandarin pinyin spelling for the character 劲, see dictionary entry. There's no mispronunciation involved here. And I've never said the current name is original research, only that it's less commonly used than Zhang Jinfu. -Zanhe (talk) 07:28, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd still oppose this proposal. Taking 'g' out wouldn't help much. The Cantonese pronunciation is 'ging' or 'king' (for Mandarin pronunciation "jing"), not 'kum' or 'gum' (typically for Mandarin word "jin" or "qin"). --George Ho (talk) 08:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm perplexed by your reasoning. First you say "jin' is the wrong pinyin, which I demonstrated to be untrue. Then, disregarding the dictionary listing and hundreds of reliable sources (including his official obituary), you try to use Cantonese to deduce the "correct" Mandarin pronunciation. If that's not original research, I don't know what is. -Zanhe (talk) 00:24, 19 August 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.