Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 October 2

= October 2 =

Spelling: "wapenshaw" or "wappen-schaw" (or something else)?
Hi. I'll use the term "spelling-1" to indicate wapenshaw, and "spelling-2" for wappen-schaw.

In the Wikipedia article Old Mortality, spelling-1 occurs once, and spelling-2 twice, with spelling-1 being a link to the Wikipedia article Wapenshaw, i.e., also spelling-1. So I changed spelling-2 to spelling-1 in the article, for consistency. Another editor reverted the change, arguing that "Scott's spelling [spelling-2] is as good as any of the alternatives". Normally, I'd agree, but Wikipedia has that "Wapenshaw" (spelling-1) article, and spelling-2 is not part of any quote in the Old Mortality article.

Now it gets more complicated. Scott, in this printing of Old Mortality, actually uses spelling-1 zero times, spelling-2 seven times, wappenschaw (i.e., spelling-2 but without the hyphen) twice (call it spelling-3), and wappinshaw (spelling-4) once. Also, the word occurs twice, hyphenated, on a line boundary, so it could be spelling-2 or spelling-3; ignore that.

Wiktionary prefers the spelling wapinschaw (spelling-5), as per Webster's Dictionary 1913, and gives spelling-1 (but not spelling-2) as alternate spellings. It also offers alternate forms: spelling-6, spelling-7, spelling-8 and spelling-9!

So what do you think: spelling-1 or spelling-2 in the Old Mortality WP article? -- Doktor Züm (talk) 04:31, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I would say use Scott's spelling in the novel, which based on the digitised Gutenberg text, seems to be mainly "wappen-schaw". When counting the usage in the novel, it would be useful to note which instances are in reported speech as they could reflect the dialect of the speaker rather than the narrator. Variant spellings are not surprising for an archaic English or Scots word. TSventon (talk) 07:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The question is: when writing a modern article about an old text, which uses an old spelling for a particular concept, should be mention that concept in the spelling used in that old text or should be use the modern spelling? Most of the time, we would use the modern spelling. The regular, modern English spelling of this word is weaponshow (or weapon show), but Scottish people may have reasons to use a different spelling. I'm not fully aware of any sensitivities in that regard. On the other hand, for some archaic concepts, people appear to prefer old spellings anyway. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:57, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks, TSventon and PiusImpavidus, for that useful feedback. I've decided to leave the spelling as is, and add a footnote, with a brief definition of the word, and a link to this discussion. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 16:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)