Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of companies with spelling mistakes in their names


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. postdlf (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

List of companies with spelling mistakes in their names

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This article is fundamentally unsound because it applies nebulous and debatable rules of spelling and grammar to proper names, which simply cannot stand. There is no evidence that these are "mistakes" rather than intentional style choices, and we cannot assert that companies must adhere to any particular person's idea of what is "proper" and "improper" spelling or grammar. Strunk and White is not holy writ.

PROD was contested by the article creator. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete A whole bunch of SEO opinion that doesn't really address why this is such a sin for commercial operations. We're not Grammar Girl, folks.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 08:45, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article does address why it's a sin - it causes a loss of revenue! There are many operations trying to encourage correct use of apostrophes and every English textbook I've used for GCSE all agree with me. At some point I'm going to go through and try and find some of them to source.-- Laun  chba  ller  09:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * A school grammar textbook is not a suitable source for defining a proper name as misspelled.
 * You are failing to recognize that there is no international arbiter of spelling, and what you claim as "misspelled" is, rather, an entirely intentional stylistic choice. Would you claim that eBay is "misspelled" because the first letter isn't capitalized? Is FedEx "misspelled" because it's been contracted with intercaps? This is silliness. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would - eBay should be ebay (eBay is short for electronic bay and why does 'bay' need to be capitalised?) and FedEx, as a conjunction, should be Fed'Ex.-- Laun  chba  ller  13:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, you just proved my point. eBay is not "short for electronic bay" - as our eBay article helpfully explains, it was a domain name borrowed from one of the founder's other projects and is not an abbreviation of anything - it's effectively a made-up word. As for FedEx, nobody, and I mean nobody applies apostrophes to CamelCase words and to do so would be entirely original research. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, almost nobody. Or does the presence of the apostrophe make it non-camelcase? davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  20:20, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * According to our impossibly-well-sourced CamelCase article, the apostrophe would make it non-CamelCase... then again, there's no international definition of CamelCase either, so who's to really say? What I meant is that no one has ever tried to apply an apostrophe to intentionally-CamelCased constructed words and proper names such as PowerPoint, iPhone or FedEx. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - Completely agree that this article is basically flawed. Company founders can choose to spell the names of their company in whatever way they want, whatever the opinion of the Apostrophe Protection Society. Several of the other news articles used to create this article are talking about general spelling mistakes in company literature/websites. Sionk (talk) 12:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete - totally useless list article. Thomas.W   talk to me  15:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC) (What about the most obvious spelling mistake of them all, FCUK?)
 * Delete The Apostrophe Protection Society's campaign against Harrods might merit a line in their article, but this page seems to exist purely to puff their quixotic (to be kind) campaign to get more apostrophes into the world. A list article with 2 entries would generally be deleted at AfD purely on the basis that it's not a worthwhile list, regardless of the content. From its beginning this article has been about apostrophes rather than misspellings - the topic of misspelt words in company names does have some claim to notability. But to write such an article I'd want to Blow it up and start over under a different title. I'm not even sure if misuse of the apostrophe counts as misspelling. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you look in the history you will see that there were a LOT more than two entries there.-- Laun  chba  ller  13:54, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. A page containing a list of "misspelled" names without any authority defining "misspelling" is WP:Original research pretty much by definition.  A page called List of companies with spelling mistakes according to XYZ where XYZ is a recognized authority on such things and - and this is key - such a list is itself notable - would be okay, but the article would have to be about the list, not the list itself.  Having "the list itself" as a list-article might be okay if being on the list was somehow encyclopedic.  For example, we have lists of sports teams that have won XYZ championships or who play for XYZ leagues, because such information is encyclopedic.  Since we aren't talking about any particular XYZ spelling-authority, it's premature to say whether I would approve of a list of companies that this authority would consider having a "misspelled name."  Come to think of it, I can't think of any recognized authority that has rules of what is and is not "correct spelling" in a proper name in the English Language, at least not one that is recognized in the United States.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  20:18, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete as a complete pointless article!. →Davey 2010→  →Talk to me!→  20:50, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment If e.g. SealSkinz says we are going to spell our name with a "z" and capitalise the second "S", then it is how they have decided to spell their name, and it is not a spelling mistake.Martin 4 5 1  21:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. Too subjective.  There is no central authority on English spelling, and WP:LISTN requires that this concept itself be notable. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:28, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete, because of national variations in spelling and because it imposes an implied value judgement on the companies in question. Wikipedia is not a place for criticism of corporations.  Cogito-Ergo-Sum (14) (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.