User talk:CraneInHand

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Hello, CraneInHand, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Sherd. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Ibadibam (talk) 23:10, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
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Sources for Sherd
Thanks for adding some general references at Sherd. We rely heavily on inline citations to verify article content. If you have a chance, could you add some specific citations for the two sources you've added? Ibadibam (talk) 23:15, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

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Ideas for editing "sherd"
I've been able to find only hints on the internet that sherd is standard in US archaeology while shard is used by other English speakers. The canonical ceramic texts by Shepard (1954) and Rice (1987) (both US) consistently use sherd but neither defines it, presumably because they felt the term was in such broad use no definition was needed. I was able to find a definition in Banning, E. B. (2000). The Archaeologist's Laboratory: The Analysis of Archaeological Data "Shard See Sherd. Sherd A fragment of broken ceramic vessel." As an archaeologist specializing in ceramic analysis, I have consistently heard and read the term sherd and usage of shard is reserved for broken pieces of other materials such as glass. Unfortunately, dictionaries do not reflect this professional usage and I have been unable to find other scholarship on the history of the term though the OED traces the use of sherd in potsherd back quite a ways. The OED still lists sherd as an alternate form of shard.

Perhaps it would be useful to find confirmation of the use of shard by other English speaking archaeologist outside the US, but all of the references in my possession that I surveyed today, including UK sources, consistently used sherd, so I can't address that.

I'm not sure how to reply to what you have posted on my talk page, sorry! There is so much to learn about Wikipedia and I can only dedicate a small amount of my time to this project. CraneInHand (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That's fair enough. It's helpful as it is that you provided those sources. Hopefully we can get some more work done on those sooner or later. Ibadibam (talk) 07:34, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

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I think you mentioned you were having some trouble with messages and user talk. Here's a few tips that may be helpful: Ibadibam (talk) 23:16, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
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