Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 9

= October 9 =

Racking my mac Brain
I'm thinking of creating a list of Irish kings named "mac Brain", e.g. Cellach mac Brain. Should the page be classified as a surname or a generic dab or is there some better category for it? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could borrow a format used for other royals - for example, if someone types "King Henry" in the search box they get List of rulers named Henry. "Queen Maria", on the other hand, just goes to Queen Mary. 184.147.131.85 (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The trouble is, it isn't a first name. I doubt if anybody called them King mac Brain. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:44, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this kind of thing would probably be nominated for deletion as being composed entirely of partial title matches: no matter the fact that it might be useful to some and wouldn't be an actual problem to any, because your idea wouldn't really comply with disambiguation standards. A perfect example of why we need to take a WP:NOTBURO axe to most of the Manual of Style.  If you can figure out how to help readers in a way that won't get caught by the MOS police, use these six names I found: Cellach mac Brain, Cennselach mac Brain, Máel Muad mac Brain, Muiredach mac Brain, Murchad mac Brain Mut, Ruarc mac Brain.  Nyttend (talk) 13:06, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Doctors Without Borders
Is there a reason why this article is in italics? It's a French NGO but does the French language (or the organization itself) call for italics to the name and/or refer to itself in italics? hbdragon88 (talk) 05:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello . According to MOS:ITALICS, "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English." I think that it is safe to say that most English language speakers are either unfamiliar with this organization, or know it as "Doctors without Borders". Internationally and in high quality sources, it is referred to by the French name. In this case, the italics seem appropriate to me. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:18, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * This may be a US/UK difference. Here in the UK, I've hardly ever heard mention of "Doctors without borders": on the news it's usually referred to as "Medecins sans Frontières" --ColinFine (talk) 08:09, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree with ColinFine, MSN is the common name in the UK, Canada, Ireland, and Europe. "Doctors Without Borders" is the English translation common in America. SW3 5DL (talk) 23:39, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "MSF", right? "MSN" would be Microsoft Network. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:08, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Rather strange! The parallel page in the Albanian Wikipidia, presents the article under its English name; Whereas the English Wikipedia - which probably tries to be more catholic than the (muslim) Albanians - presents the article under its French name (France is Catholic, isn't it?), although most English speakers know the organization by its English name only.
 * Anyways, this article has versions in 69 languages of Wikipedia, and almost all of them (actually more than 60) - including the page in Simple English - present the article under its name translated into the reader's language. The only exceptional pages that present the article under its French name (besides the English page and...the French page of course), are the Wikipedia pages in: Javanese (approx. 82 million native speakers), Bosnian (approx. 3 million native speakers), Welsh (approx. ¾ million native speakers), Irish (approx. 1  /  7 million native speakers), Scots (between 1  /  8 - 1  /  9 million native speakers), and Ido (no native speakers). HOOTmag (talk) 07:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not relevant to the OP's question, but Talk:Médecins Sans Frontières has four requests for a move to the translated title, all of which have been declined - the title of this article has been the subject of controversy for many years. An equally controversial decision the other way is Ivory Coast (not Côte d'Ivoire). Tevildo (talk) 09:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Their own website uses the French name for the UK version and both the French and the English translation for the US version. Alansplodge (talk) 10:04, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia Sans Frontiers, anyone? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was going to add that MSF probably didn't feel the need to translate their name in the UK because of decades of prime time exposure to Jeux Sans Frontières, a silly pan-European television gameshow. Although shown in the UK under the title "It's a Knockout", there would have been few Britons in the 1970s (when MSF was founded) who were not familiar with the phrase, even those who had slept through their school French lessons. Alansplodge (talk) 11:33, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * One couldn't edit Wikipedia on one's smartphone in those days, could one? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:37, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Alansplodge, I now understand Peter Gabriel a smidgen better. —Tamfang (talk) 05:32, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * With regard to the italic-title question, the WP MOS (like most style manuals with which I'm familiar) distinguishes between most foreign words and foreign proper names: "Proper names ... in other languages, however, are not usually italicized." I see no particular reason why "Médecins Sans Frontières" should be italicized in the article title; it certainly is not italicized in the article's text. Deor (talk) 10:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have been bold and removed the italic from the title (no pun intended). The italic doesn't appear anywhere in the prose, anyway. If it's italicized in the prose, then the title could be italicized since it's a foreign term, but the foreign term doesn't seem to be italicized here. Epic Genius (talk) 00:12, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems that the italics were added just two days ago, in this edit. Epic Genius (talk) 00:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Discussion should move to article talk page now, since someone seems dedicated to edit warring about it. --jpgordon:==( o ) 22:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)