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Manual of Style

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Template:MOS/R

For a list of suggested abbreviations for referring to style guides, see this page.

Plot and secondary sources

The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible. If a plot summary includes a direct quote from the work, this must be cited using inline citations per WP:QUOTE. Sometimes a work will be summarized by secondary sources, which can be used for sourcing. Otherwise, using brief quotation citations from the primary work can be helpful to source key or complex plot points.

(Emphasis mine.) Do we really not prefer secondary sources for the plot when they feasibly exist? It's just all the same that it's sourced or unsourced? – czar 22:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction is a ghost town, so I'm bringing this here. Does anyone have more information on our general/historic practice of leaving plot sections unfootnoted (with the assumption that it is sourced to the work itself)? I understand that the footnote is omitted because it's sourced to the work itself (which has its own issues), but I don't understand how this is reconciled with due weight, in which we cover an aspect of a topic in proportion to its degree of secondary source coverage. Why do Plot sections get carte blanche for paragraphs of unsourced detail in situations where not a single secondary (or, hell, primary) source found the plot aspects worth covering? My watchlist is littered with IP editors deciding of their own accord what plot details are important rather than, as we do with everything else everything on the encyclopedia, looking to secondary source guidance on the work's important plot points. I don't see why plot is exempted from our standard practice. At the very least, are we not in agreement that we prefer to source plot sections to reliable, secondary sources over primary sources like the work itself? czar 04:03, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Czar, my only contributions to fiction pages have been rock operas (not sure, possibly only one rock opera, and I did not source the plot summary), so I'm not pretending I know. I'm just responding on principle to the valid point you raise. I think there are at least two reasons secondary sourcing can be important in a plot summary. The first is the issue you raised about what plot points should be included. Without external guidance, it's just opinion vs. opinion, unless an actual consensus can be formed. We cannot consider ourselves authoritative on this issue, so no individual should be the gatekeeper for plot summary content. That would beWP:OWN anyway. It sounds like a little WP:BRD is the only option without secondary sources or existing consensus, unless there is actual guidance on the matter that I missed when I wrote my one plot summary.

The second reason secondary sourcing can be important is when things are implied or in some way not made explicit. We cannot interpret things without violating WP:OR, so interpretations have to be sourced. Some writers use ambiguity intentionally to give readers their own experiences, or to prolong interest in the work once the reader has finished reading it. Character motivations are often obvious, but if the author does not connect the dots explicitly, that also has to be sourced. (I recall reading this in some guideline... I think. It was a while back.) Anyway, that's my $0.02 worth. Spend it wisely :P Dcs002 (talk) 05:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I've done TV shows and episodes, so I think I can comment here. It's easy to find secondary sources if the sources actually cover plot points. If they don't, what should be used in lieu to it? You can't just omit the plot summary because it would be unsourced. The TV's MOS group had developed a set of guidelines which allows the episode to be used as a primary source without it developing into a free-for-all. SciGal (talk) 14:25, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Dcs and SciGal are both right. I've worked on some episodes for books and TV shows, and both those issues are real.

The plot description is considered "straightforward observations of facts," which are allowed under WP:PRIMARY and, let's face it, WP:COMMONSENSE. Including basic summaries of works of fiction in articles about those works is just something that encyclopedias are expected to do, and, like SciGal says, most of the reliable sources include reactions to the plot, not summaries of it. In most cases, some plot summary is necessary to the article. How is the reader supposed to understand the social impact of Frankenstein if we don't tell them that it's about a doctor who makes a monster and that the monster was actually well-behaved for most of the book? Now, I could say, in one sentence, "The monster was naturally good and only turned to violence after years of rejection, which only happened because its creator had abandoned his responsibilities," and that's concise, but am I right? Even if I am (and I am), it's still original research. It is far better to simply relate the events of the book: where the monster went, what attempts he made to make friends, how people reacted to him, and let the reader come to his or her own conclusions.

For the plot section, the big editorial decision is how much detail is warranted and which facts and events are important enough to earn the space (fans of a book or show tend to want to include a lot of information). This is where secondary sources come in. If multiple articles or reviews mention the scene in which the monster reads the Bible, then you can use that as evidence that the scene is important enough to mention in the plot summary, that it is not an excess or inconsequential detail. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:57, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

To come at it from a different angle, it is recognized that encyclopedic coverage of a work of fiction is not comprehensive without a concise plot summary. However, rarely do published works outside of classics and popular contemporary works do detailed analysis of a plot come from secondary sources. Since the work itself is primary, but verifyable, a concise plot summary with implicit sourcing to the work itself is reasonably acceptable. As long as the plot does not engage in OR, the plot can be verified by anyone that otherwise can access the work. But if OR is needed, or additional information that is not clearly obvious to the causal viewer (eg we're not going frame-by-frame to capture one tiny plot detail) then that does need sourcing even if to, say, a director's commentary or an extra featurette that is not part of the primary work. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Precisely. I'll explicitly cite plots of works to secondary sources when the work may be lost etc. But if I have the work in question, and I have read it, I do not explicitly state that the reference is the work itself, as that is already implied. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:22, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

it is recognized that encyclopedic coverage of a work of fiction is not comprehensive without a concise plot summary

My question is mainly about proportionality. I think MOS:PLOT should reflect the weight premise of the encyclopedia that a plot is covered in proportion to its importance as determined by secondary sources. This is to say that the Film WikiProject's guideline of 400 to 700 words makes sense for their plot-heavy feature films, and perhaps even for a book or game that has sources that reaffirm the plot's central importance to the work (ideally with a litany of think pieces discussing elements of the plot, for modern media at least). But for other novels, academic books, games, and art films, for example, the plot—or whatever exists of one—may have no central importance to a work, and which directly opposes the quoted statement's declaration of plot importance to all fictional works. Not all fictional works need plot summaries: the plot summary should be proportional to the plot's degree of coverage in reliable, secondary sources (and if that's not enough, then also proportional to the standard for the medium, e.g., that early fighting games rarely have plots). czar 05:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction is not a ghost town; well, not completely one. I saw you there, but editors have been over the sourcing aspect of plot sections a lot, which is why MOS:PLOT addresses it. Also see Misplaced Pages talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on fictional works?, which shows a recent discussion concerning this topic. The television show, film, play or book is the source; therefore, we usually do not need to add inline citations to plot sections. If someone engages in WP:OR, it is usually fixed by someone who has seen or read the material. The WP:OR policy is not simply about material being unsourced. The reference currently in its introduction states, "By 'exists', the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source." As for WP:Due weight, that can apply in some plot cases, but I don't think we should state that we shouldn't add plot material because sources aren't interested in covering the plot detail in an in-depth way. Sources are usually more so focused on the WP:Real world content in relation to the fictional content. And WP:TVPLOT and WP:Film plot are guidelines that exist partly to keep plot summary lengths under control. I think "art film" can fall under WP:Film plot. I'm not sure about the "other novels, academic books, games" aspects you are worried about; you can see how WP:BOOKS, WP:Games and WP:Video games do things, but I would think that academic books and games that are not video games do not need a plot section. Our video game articles (and their characters) do have plot sections, though. See, for example, Metal Gear Solid and Cloud Strife; those are sourced. Video game plot summaries are commonly sourced with inline citations, often to the video game itself. Popcornduff recently tagged the Metal Gear Solid Plot section as too long, but that is a long game and I don't see what can be safely cut from that section. Then again, it's been a long time since I played that game. Soap opera plot summaries can also be a different story, for reasons I noted in the "How wide is the 'original research' exception for articles on fictional works?" discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Readability is more important than plot comprehensiveness, IMO. If making sections a reasonable length (ie shorter) means cutting even significant details, so be it. Besides, in my experience, plot summaries are often overlong thanks to bad writing as much as too much detail. Take the opening sentence of the MGS example, for example: "The story is set in 2005..." can simply become "In 2005...". That's over half the words from that sample cut right there. (I'd trim the summary myself but I haven't played it in years either.) Popcornduff (talk) 16:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff, that's where we disagree. I'm all for readability, but usually not at the expense of important detail. Leaving out important detail is not reasonable to me unless there is simply too much plot to cover all the big points. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I think you're right. If a detail is significant, then by definition it needs to be covered. On further reflection, I think I painted a false dichotomy in the first place: it's rare, really, to have a story of such length and complexity that it can't be summarised in a reasonable length. So I put my money where my mouth is and significantly trimmed the MGS summary, and yeah, I think the problem was dodgy writing, not the story's length or complexity. There are still some issues with it, but they'd be better discussed on the article's talk page than here. Popcornduff (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff, thanks for clarifying. And, yeah, I saw that you trimmed the Plot section of the Metal Gear Solid article. As for "it's rare, really, to have a story of such length and complexity that it can't be summarised in a reasonable length.", like I've stated on my talk page, including to Bignole, and in the aforementioned "How wide is the 'original research' exception for articles on fictional works?" discussion, I've found daytime soap opera plot summaries difficult in that regard; this is because, in America at least, daytime soap operas commonly air five days a week with a new episode each day, and usually don't play reruns (if the reruns happen, it's usually on holidays). Soap opera characters have commonly existed for decades with so much plot information to cover. When it comes to the Todd Manning article, which was recently elevated to featured status, I came around to wanting a plot section (I'd previously rejected having one) and Figureskatingfan was against having one. We came to a compromise: I should include Todd's most significant plotlines, and leave the rest of the plot information to other sections in the article that discuss the material with a WP:Real-world context. I considered having the plot section have a lot of real-world context, so that it's similar to the Pauline Fowler article, but doing that would have been too much work and Figureskatingfan and I wanted to go ahead and finish up our work on the Todd Manning article. So I settled for the Appearances style noted at MOS:TV (see WP:Manual of Style/Television#Role in "SHOW NAME"), which is seen with articles like Jason Voorhees and Jack Sparrow, except that the Todd Manning article uses the "Storylines" title, has years as subsections, and two real-world quotes. I know that you probably think that is a lot of plot in the Storylines section of that article; I considered pinging you to that talk page for advice on how to trim the material. But Figureskatingfan and I knew that I was more familiar with Todd's plotlines, and we had confidence that I could relay his most important storylines without having people (at least not too many) complain about that section's length. So that's what I did. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:43, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll just add that the Plot section doesn't need a running string of references, but character articles and lists, even if they have a Plot or Role in series section, should have references to the appropriate chapters, episodes and profiles where it is not a singular work referenced. For example "Darth Vader reveals that he is Luke's father." without the surrounding context would require a reference, but "In The Empire Strikes Back, (other general plot) Vader then reveals that he is Luke's father." would not require the ref. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 01:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC) 01:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

AngusWOOF, you know that I always appreciate your commentary. But why do you feel that the Plot or "Role in show" section in a character article should have inline citations? Many articles do that, especially as far as primetime shows go, and especially if they are WP:Good or WP:Featured. But some don't. Same goes for some television series articles. For example, the Jason Voorhees, Jack Sparrow and Darth Vader articles all do that. So do the Buffy Summers and Cordelia Chase articles (the Cordelia Chase article is a WP:Good article). But the Friends, Lewis Archer, A Town Called Mercy and 420 (Family Guy) articles don't (they are also all WP:Good articles; the latter two are episode articles). And in the case of daytime soap opera articles, like Todd Manning or Lewis Archer, it is difficult to cite the episodes in the plot section because there are so many episodes...far more than any primetime show dishes out. Trying to locate the airdate that a daytime soap opera character did something can be daunting. For daytime soap opera characters, the most we can usually hope for when it comes to sourcing such a section is a character profile that is not a fansite. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the Friends article, you can look at Rachel Green and see how in her Plot section whenever there is some major event or something out of the blue that there is a cite episode attached to it, and when there's general stuff over the flow of the series, it isn't really necessary. For Jason Voorhees, it's overkill to state the movie, present the plot and then cite the movie. Details such as "he kills X and then Y, but dies when Z kills him are not needed as that's just rehashing play-by-play plot. But I see a lot of character descriptions where they write details that could be contested like "lives with his mother" or "is actually a former smoker" and there the citation helps. The citations can be vague though or span multiple episodes if it's a soap opera where details are hard to pinpoint. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 08:16, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I would disagree that it's "overkill". It's overkill to have 5 sources when one would suffice. In this case, the inline citations contain information about the film (release, credits, etc). Maybe as a "researcher" (and you have to take this approach and not ignore it simply because it's film) I'm not familiar with any particular film. Instead of forcing them to go to every single film page to find that information, it's all right there in the inline citation. Otherwise, you're argument would be if I give you the journal number and date, then who cares who wrote it, because you can just look that up yourself. This is even more true for TV articles, because most people don't know where "Episode X" falls, because most episodes have an actual title. It's a little unprofessional in writing to constantly say "Christmas time, the third episode of season five, featured...."  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

• This may be off-topic here. If we want to change the sourcing requirements for plot summaries and synopses, that's a WP:CORE matter and should be raised probably at WT:V (though WT:NOR could also be a valid venue). The MOS subpage on fiction isn't setting a sourcing standard, it's applying existing ones (namely WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:PSTS – a primary source is sufficient for non-controversial material about itself, and no citation is actually required for non-controversial material; the material has to be sourceable, not sourced). As soon as someone inserts something dubious into a plot summary (most often something that is a subjective interpretation of something the author left vague, i.e. it's potential original research), it's no longer non-controversial and no longer auto-sourced by the work itself, so more detailed sourcing would be expected. Most notable works of fiction have been summarized in various abstracts and reviews. It's probably enough to cite the original work itself, up to the point of the controversial material, cite third party sources for the controversial claim about the plot, then cite the work itself again for the rest of the summary. When it comes to including trivial details that aren't controversial, but which don't seem encyclopedically relevant, that's more a poor vs. good writing matter, not a style matter in the sense usually meant here, and is a matter for editorial discretion at the article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

double vs. single quotes

I notice that WP:MOS#Reasons to prefer double quotation marks to single quotation marks is different than it was a year ago (when it said "... double rather than single quotation marks as primary" ). Now (and for most of this year), it says they're recommended for quotes: "In most primary or top-level quotes double rather than single quotation should be used." But then it gives an example that isn't a quote:

Searches for "must see" attractions may fail to find 'must see' attractions.

So, which is it? Does MOS recommend double quote marks (except for quotes-within-quotes and a handful of specific exceptions) for all the usual uses of quote marks, or only recommend them for quoted material? (I'll be happy either way, I just need to know.) - Dank (push to talk) 04:05, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I've heard no change from the advice, nor noticed any. Not sure who has been hacking on the "reasons" section. Ah, here is the problem. See if you can patch it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for researching that. Although some clarification at WP:MOS would be nice, I can live with it as is (since the example given makes the point clear, I think), as long as I know how people interpret it here at WT:MOS ... I know that in the articles I've copyedited the past year for FAC, there's been no change in practice. I was reverted in some work I did at FAC yesterday, and I want to make sure I'm on solid ground before I say anything. - Dank (push to talk) 15:10, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

It's recommended in general, not just for quotations in the literal sense. There are exceptions, such as non-interlinear glosses, that we already cover. We definitely are not implying that people should use double quotation marks for quotations and single ones for 'scare quotes', or something to this effect, though incautious changes to the wording have probably made this less clear. I'm not sure whether we should just revert to the older wording, or fix the current wording in some way, but the current wording is clearly problematic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:02, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

degrees Kelvin

See the featured article section of WP:ERRORS. Does any MOS page have something to say about "degrees Kelvin"? I'd also be open to dropping the "Kelvin", and linking "degrees" to Kelvin, if that would help. - Dank (push to talk) 05:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Errors in use of SI unit#Unit names are not a matter of style. Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Or perhaps I'm too hasty, after ready Dank's comments there. I'd say that WP style is, or should be, to use SI unit names correctly per the prescriptions of the BIPM since 1968: . I've never seen anything in WP suggesting otherwise. Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Going with kelvin, still interested in feedback. - Dank (push to talk) 06:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's a bit of feedback: "degrees kelvin" is always incorrect and should never be used. Period. The unit's name is the kelvin. It is not a disambiguator to indicate which scale, it is a fixed quantity in and of itself. If you ever see "degrees kelvin" in an article, fix it immediately. oknazevad (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

PS, dropping "kelvin" and linking "degrees" to kelvin is ass backwards, sorry.

PS, this isn't a style issue, it's a factual issue. oknazevad (talk) 18:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, the answers have been loud and clear. - Dank (push to talk) 18:56, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems to have been resolved. Just to confirm there's a degree Celsius and a degree Fahrenheit, but degree Kelvin? No way. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Concur it's a factual matter, though MOS:NUM also addresses this already.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

"winningest" in sports articles

It seems that some sports writers like to use pet words like "winningest" which are not familiar to many readers, even American English readers. (I have lots of athlete friends from college and I have never heard them use that word. I am also a photographer who has worked for student newspapers at the University of Virginia.) To me, it's apparent that they should be redacted to standard form along the lines of "best-performing coach/team/etc. by wins" especially since winningest is often used for both absolute number of wins and winning percentage. For that matter, I note we have placed a filler boilerplate on the wikilink winningest, and that we do not use the word "winningest" in the titles of any articles. I would like to solicit consensus on the use of this word. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 02:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Note: Even the University of Virginia student newspaper for which you worked commonly uses the word. E.g., here, here, and here. Cbl62 (talk) 04:00, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a perfectly cromulent word.oknazevad (talk) 02:45, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• "Winningest" is a well-established word in the American English language recognized by such sources as Merriam Webster (here), Los Angeles Times (e.g., here), The New York Times (e.g., here), The Wall Street Journal (e.g., here), Newsweek (e.g., here), Associated Press (e.g., here), Reuters (here), Chicago Tribune (e.g., here), The Boston Globe (e.g., here), The Washington Post (here), USA Today (here), The Dallas Morning News (here), Atlanta Journal-Constitution (e.g., here), The Philadelphia Inquirer (e.g., here), and Newsday (e.g., here). IMO, the word is appropriately used in articles about America sports topics, where the word is commonly recognized and used by dictionaries of American English and by the nation's most prestigious media outlets. Cbl62 (talk) 03:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• It's a perfectly legitimate word in formal American English. One person's personal lack of knowledge of a subject is not the grounds for rewriting the entire English language. As noted by Cbl, all major dictionaries and and reliable sources use it without any indication that it's anything except perfectly acceptable formal English. I have no reason to why the OP has never heard it until recently, but that's why we don't base Misplaced Pages guidelines on one person's personal experience. We base it on reliable sources. As noted by the sources cited above, it's a fine word and thus is perfectly acceptable in any article. --Jayron32 03:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Your claim of universal acceptance of this as "formal English" is flatly untrue. The American Heritage Dictionary , Oxford dictionaries , and dictionary.com all show "winningest" as "informal". WP articles should be written in a formal WP:TONE.

"Winningest", like many informal words, is also potentially imprecise and ambiguous. Is the "winningest" coach or team the one with the highest average number of wins per season? Or the most lifetime wins, period? The "winningest" pro golfer or race driver could be the one with the most games or races won, or the highest total earnings won in a year's tour (or lifetime), or etc. This is another reason for avoiding it. Jeh (talk) 05:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

There is no ambiguity. It means "having the greatest number of wins" (see here), not having the highest winning percentage. This is how it is used on Misplaced Pages. The fact that it can also be used in other ways (e.g., "winningest smile") doesn't mean it must be stricken. Many words have alternate definitions. Cbl62 (talk) 05:18, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Winningest?!? I've never heard the word before and I can think of no situation in which it is not possible to convey the intended meaning with widely (and internationally) understood vocabulary. Remember the principle of least astonishment. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 06:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"Most wins" when? Per season? Per career? (A strange and even meaningless way to compare people, since different people have different length careers.) Note that dictionary.com doesn't define it as "most wins" but rather "winning most often"; AHD says "more successful or winning most often"; Oxford simply says "Having achieved the most success", which again is vague (how do you define "success"?) Just because you haven't encountered uses other than the one you think of doesn't mean the other uses aren't prevalent. A sports commentary column in a newspaper is one thing, but an encyclopedia should always use the most precise, unambiguous wording possible, and "winningest" is very far from that. Nor have you answered the "informal" point. Jeh (talk) 07:20, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Without even looking it up (to see what it means), I'd judged it to be too informal for normal use in WP articles. Also has a cheap ring about it. Tony (talk) 08:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a good approach. Let's just ban words "without even looking it up", because to one's ear, it has a "cheap ring about it." Forget about the fact that Encyclopedia Britannica and The New York Times use it, it sounds "cheap" to me. Brilliant analysis, Tony! Cbl62 (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I generally try to avoid sarcasm and apologize if my comment appeared pointy, Tony. I actually felt that the term had a dissonant quality when I first began encountering it on Misplaced Pages, but when I learned that the word had gained widespread acceptance in virtually every major American media outlet, I concluded that the term is appropriate, at least when used in the context of American sporting topics where its usage has become common and accepted. Cbl62 (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Tony1: I agree completely. Jeh (talk) 08:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• It is clearly a valid word in American English, but per WP:COMMONALITY alternatives that work in all varieties of English should be used in place of it where possible (which I imagine would be most situations). Jenks24 (talk) 13:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• The word is used in an informal context in the US (where I live) but no way is it encyclopedic enough to use in Misplaced Pages articles - even sports articles. I support the removal of the term and replacement with more formal wording in all articles. Perhaps someday in the future it will be considered formal, but that's certainly not the case as of now. Rockypedia (talk) 15:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• I particularly appreciate the arguments and evidence provided by Cbl62 and Jeh and it would be helpful if others could provide similarly substantive contributions to support opinions on this topic. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 16:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• Encyclopedic/unencyclopedic is too ill-defined be of any use. It's another way of saying "I like it/don't like it". The closest policy we have is Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not, which contains nothing suggesting we can't use words like "winningest". There is no policy or guideline saying formal English is mandatory. WP:FORMAL/WP:TONE is from a mere essay, that is, advice or opinion "for which consensus has not been established." We have citations saying this is standard or informal American English, not slang or a neologism. H.W. Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, p. 146, says winningest is "without stylistic taint." The New York Times has used the word hundreds of times for the last ~100 years. The Columbia Encyclopedia uses "winningest" in its entries for Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Eddie Robinson Lenny Wilkens and Bill Belichick. Encyclopædia Britannica uses "winningest" on Bobby Bowden, Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils, and sixteen other articles. Encyclopedia Americana uses the word in its Michael Phelps article. Surely actual encyclopedias can tell us what is encyclopedic, rather than mere opinion? For some six+ years (until this issue became a few editors' pet peeve) the Featured Articles 2005 ACC Championship Game, 2008 Orange Bowl, Roberto Luongo, plus 3 Featured Lists and 9 Good Articles used the word, with nobody complaining on the talk pages, "I don't understand what winningest means!" The meaning is unmistakable even if you've never seen it before (unlike petrol, lorry, or other UK English we use frequently). A couple talk pages have comments from UK editors who erroneously claim it's "not a word", but the suggestion it is ambiguous is not supported by any facts. Every proposed alternative is more wordy without offering any more precision. Words like "successful" and "victorious" have the same ambiguity as winningest, none of them telling us if it is best win/loss ratio, or most absolute wins. Successful also can imply commercial or other success, while winningest at least is about contest wins. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Some editors are continuing their campaign to excise the word from Misplaced Pages. This edit from today is an example that belies the professed concern over ambiguity, as the word "winningest" (a word with a clear meaning: having the most wins) is replaced with "most successful" (a word that is utterly unclear and completely muddies the meaning). I realize that many individuals "don't like" the word (especially Brits, where the word is not widely recognized), but it is a word that has wide acceptance in American media sources and is applied with clear meaning in sports context by the country's leading media outlets. I don't advocate trying to impose the word on other parts of the encyclopedia, but in the context of American sports, but it has a clear meaning there, and efforts to excise a perfectly valid and widely-used word from our Misplaced Pages vocabulary is simply a case of 'I don't like it'. Cbl62 (talk) 20:36, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I want to add that we don't need an entry in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style saying "You are allowed to say winningest". But when you note the fact that the encyclopedia that uses the word more than any other is the more British than British Brittanica itself, it underscores how much we need to ignore, and hopefully stop posting, mere opinion about what is a "proper word". Even if you're from the UK, I think Brittanica is a WP:RS, not some random editor. So we should be drafting language for the MOS which says that the tone and level of formality, and word choice, we use is guided by sources, like dictionaries, and style guides, and examples, like real encyclopedias and respectable media. A similar discussion at Talk:Volkswagen emissions scandal agreed that while the NYT, BBC, CNN, WSJ, etc are highly reliable for facts, many editors thought the actual words found in our best sources, "cheated", "caught" were mere "tabloid" and "slang". Why? Because they said so. The MOS should give respect to sources when it comes to word choice. Similarly, FAs and GAs carry some weight, since they represent consensus, far more than a mere essay. WP:OSE is releant to low-ranked articles, not Wikipeda's best content as judged by many editors, and this should be reflected in the MOS as well. At the very least, it should say we aren't going to toss a word under the bus because an editor with no reliable sources doesn't like it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• As this word is most commonly used in American sporting articles, we ought to notify the relevant American sporting projects so that they can provide any input they may have. I left a neutrally-worded note on two talk pages here: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject College Basketball#"winningest" and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject College football#"winningest. Other relevant pages should probably be notified as well. Cbl62 (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• "Winningest" is an abhorrence of a word. But if we accept that its usage can be limited to American sports articles, then we can probably cope. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Entirely reasonable. We Yanks have always been a little rough around the edges, and nobody is trying to impose the word outside of its accepted context (i.e., we shall not reference Tony Blair as the "winningest" Prime Minister). Cbl62 (talk) 21:00, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it's a reasonable compromise if we can be assured that it is indeed a word whose use is limited to the U.S. context outside of Misplaced Pages. ElKevbo (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• • "Winningest", while perfectly cromulent, is informal in usage.

    Misplaced Pages articles, and other encyclopedic content, should be written in a formal tone. Standards for formal tone vary depending upon the subject matter, but should follow the style used by reliable sources, while remaining clear and understandable. Formal tone means that the article should not be written using argot, slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, legalese, or jargon that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a businesslike manner.

    This may change for this particular word, but as we see from comments in various locations, attracts a lot of negativity right now. "Most successful" is too vague to be a good replacement, but "most victorious" is exactly right. There can be no complaints about usage or meaning. --Pete (talk) 20:59, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• As a count of victories potentially includes moral victories, you proposed phrase has a different meaning than the word you are attempting to replace. --Allen3  04:28, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Come on, now. It is not too informal for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nor is it too informal for serious reporting (not just opinion pieces) in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and every other major American newspaper -- I didn't realize that Britannica and every major American newspaper were verbal ruffians. Cbl62 (talk) 21:06, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, Pete, the essay you quote concedes that we "should follow the style used by reliable sources". America's most reliable and respected media outlets use "winningest" (not "most victorious") in American sporting contexts. Cbl62 (talk) 21:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

If we look to specialist writing areas, we also encounter jargon. Sports articles are full of terms which are incomprehensible to an outsider. We should aim for clarity overall. --Pete (talk) 21:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Understandability is not the issue. Nobody has ever seriously asserted that they don't know what it means. The fact that everyone who dislikes the word was able to rewrite it, without having to ask what the original author meant, is proof that nobody has misunderstood the word. The real objection is that it "sounds wrong" based on a prescriptivist English point of view. We should look to style guides, like Fowler, and models like Brittanica and the NYT, to tell us what is an isn't "proper English".

I would be persuaded to change my mind if anyone could show evidene that this word is any harder to understand than the rest of Misplaced Pages. This isn't Simple English Misplaced Pages, after all, and even if it were, "winningest" would probably be the preferred word to achieve clarity for readers with smaller vocabularies. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:36, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"Winningest" only recently attracted attention as a sideshow to an unrelated conflict among editors. Prior to that, where is the evidence among these many, many articles that it attracts "a lot of negativity"? I've seen poorly written Misplaced Pages content that drew many questions from readers, but not this word. And while everyone is entitled to their opinion that Misplaced Pages should be formal, are you aware that no policy or guideline says formal English is required? No matter how much you quote WP:FORMAL, it still lacks widespread consensus. If it had such support, it would be a guideline.

And as Cbl62 suggests, what constitutes a proper tone has to come from somewhere, and I would think Brittanica, NYT, Columbia Encyclopedia, H.W. Fowler, etc are the reliable soruces we have always looked to to settle everything. Not opinion, not voting. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

That's what bothers me most: I don't know how much of this is (the edits, not the discussion here) is driven by a sincere objection to the word and how much is driven by a petty desire to foment conflict among editors who dislike one another. The fact that the word was recently raised in several ANI discussions between and about editors who apparently dislike one another and the fact that the word has been used in FAs and GAs for many years now without objection makes me suspicious and wary. ElKevbo (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm quite concerned at how many veteran editors are willing to argue with total confidence that we can't use a word (whether it's winningest, or cheated, or caught) based on totally unsourced, and demonstrably false opinions. I've edited for years grounded by the basic idea of verifiablity, "verifiabilty not truth" etc. Yet here none of these editors will cite a single thing, and they casually toss aside our most serious, most respected sources. Leaving us nothing to base our decisions on. That's why it matters, not this one word.

Ground your arguments in reliable sources and I will happily change my mind. I've been proven wrong many times before and I'm grateful to anyone who shows me evidence of my errors. But not to those who do nothing but cling to opinion and expect that to carry weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll used "curiouser" (s:Alice's Adventures Under Ground/Chapter 1), but "more curious" is correct in standard English. Likewise, "most victorious" is correct in standard English.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:27, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Curiouser is a neologism -- nonstandard English, in isolated usage after being coined by one author. Winningest dates to 1804, over 200 years, according to our sources, and is in widespread use in serious writing. If you had sources saying winningest was a neologism like curiouser, you'd have a strong point. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

See "curiouser" (1865) at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=curiouser.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Lewis Carroll playfully made it up. The word is used almost exclusively in playful references to Carroll's work and ideas. Winningest is nothing like that. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:22, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• "... we do not use the word "winningest" in any articles": Contrary to Yanping Nora Soong's claim, a search on Misplaced Pages shows usage of winningest in American sports articles. WP:PROPOSAL suggests that guidelines "documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to them". While winningest is American English, it is acceptable per MOS:ENGVAR. Moreover, the term is specific to the sports domain, which seems too much of a niche for MOS to get involved. Instead of banning words, something like "Wile E. Coyote was the winningest coach in Acme history with 550 career wins" could help bridge any gap that might exist.—Bagumba (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

  Sorry, I meant that we do not use it in the titles of any articles -- namely, any article or list "winningest" in the title always redirects to a more formal name. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 22:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• User:Reyk is on a mass campaign today, during the pendency of this discussion, to remove the word from as many American sporting articles as he/she can find. The status quo ante should be maintained until this discussion has reached a conclusion. Accordingly, I intend to revert Reyk's mass edits pending the outcome here. Cbl62 (talk) 22:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
  • User:Skyring is doing the same thing. I wouldn't recommend to edit warring with these guys. It seems like bait for a 3RR trap. But if this has a clear resolution, we can probably return to the stable versions of these articles. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
    • I've notified Reyk and Skyring about this discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. It would be totally uncool for any editor who knows of this discussion to continue making edits that may or may not have consensus on such a non-time-sensitive issue. ElKevbo (talk) 22:57, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I think some may have accidentally tacked their manhood to this word. It's almost painful to hear the yelps when someone has a contrary opinion. I agree. Discussion is far better than edit-warring, and a lot more fun. Perhaps we should look at an RfC: hard to find a consensus in what this is turning into: a rough tangle of short and curly posts. --Pete (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

You have made what, two hundred edits in the last week or so, on 30 or 40 different pages, all related to "winningest"? You claim it's WP:LAME, yet it's almost all you do now. But it's other editors who have a problem? Not you? Seems like quite a personal attack and violation of WP:AGF to (repeatedly) post that "some may have accidentally tacked their manhood to this word". Is that supposed to be helpful in this discussion?

Creating an RfC -- a whole NEW discussion of the same topic -- would be forum shopping. We're resolving this right here. We don't need to start over. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:46, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, but I'm enjoying the discussion. What I mean - and you should understand, after all you've been around since Misplaced Pages was in short pants - is that an RfC is a more structured mechanism than a discussion such as this. The way it's going, there are a range of intertwangled opinions, regrettably a few short fuses and bruised egos, and it's hard, very hard, to come up with a good result mutually satisfactory to all parties. An RfC has the advantage of a well-phrased question, structured responses, and a closing admin. Even if we don't all like the result, it's a bed we can all lie in. --Pete (talk) 23:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

At an appropriate time, someone can request closure. If the admin says there's no consensus, then perhaps an RfC is the next step. But first see if this reaches a good consensus, before shifting to a new forum. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• I've been following this discussion for the last couple of days, and doing my best to avoid the massive time-sink that this discussion is sure to become before it concludes with more heat than light. Having made that disclaimer, I've got to say that I believe that the word "winningest" is awkward, inelegant and imprecise, and its exact meaning is ambiguous without further elaboration. It is a colorful Americanism that no doubt originated in American sports-writing, a genre well known for its often creative use of Shakespeare's English. Personally, I try to write my way around the word whenever possible because I know in my writer's heart of hearts that the good Professor Strunk would not approve. That said, the word is sometimes almost unavoidable in describing the win-loss history of career coaches and the like, and it is often part of the most concise wording available to express the intended meaning. Yeah, I know, that sounds like gibberish, but it's the truth. I've reconciled myself to using it only when absolutely necessary, and then only in sports articles. To my mind, it's a bit like the malapropism "normalcy," the use of which once led to a U.S. President being mocked in the mainstream media of the 1920s, but is now used more frequently in every day writing than the "correct" word "normality". That's the nature of the evolving language. I'm not particularly fond of the word, but I see no reason why MOS should try to micromanage its use by banning or restricting it, nor should individual editors make it a quest to purge it from Wikipeda. Our volunteer editing time is better spent elsewhere. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
• I don't follow sports, but I'm perfectly familiar with the word and its well-established use in North America. The MoS should avoid this micromanagement of the language. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

• Since Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Contested vocabulary says "Avoid words and phrases that give the impression of straining for formality", we could say that the MOS already has this covered, along with WP:ENGVAR. Perhaps the real problem is the essay WP:FORMAL needs to be changed to bring it in line with the real guidelines. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:01, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• At this point is it even about the validity of winningest or witch word better informs and educates the reader. Just like the fact that the word encyclopedia comes from the greeks. How do they express wining victory as in the greek goddess of victory nike. And are they not the first creators of sport as in the olympics. They also did not name a shoe after winning its nike victory . So how is winningest a better choice over victorious. 72bikers (talk) 04:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
• I've long been of the opinion that "winningest" is bad English, an annoying affectation, and too informal for an encyclopedia, and jarring for non North American readers. It's frequently vague. I have never yet come across a use where it could not be replaced by more elegant and precise English. I see it a lot in articles on college sports coaches, some of whom have even, or even losing, records overall and only have managed a lot of wins because they were there for a long time. Describing someone who loses more often than he wins as "winningest" is downright stupid and borderline misleading. This silly gimmicky thing should be taken out of articles and replaced with better language. Reyk _YO! 07:48, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Gauging consensus

The above discussion has many tangles and opinion, but perhaps we might find some small parcels of common ground:

1. "Winningest" is a perfectly cromulent word with some decades of use in American sportswriting.
2. It is seen as awkward and informal by many. Some regard it as a nonsense word, slang at best.
3. "Most successful" is a vague and ambiguous alternate wording.
4. "Most victorious" is a precise and formal alternate wording, albeit five characters longer.

If I can ask editors to refrain from commenting on the motives of others, but to restrict their contributions to the word(s) and usage in Misplaced Pages articles in general, please. --Pete (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

My preferred alternative to "winningest X in Y" is "best-performing X in Y by wins" Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 08:43, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

However, "best-performing" is subjective, but winningest is objective i.e. most wins.—Bagumba (talk) 09:34, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

That's why it's "best-performing .... by wins". Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 09:53, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I've seen it used in terms of most championships, best winning percentage, and winning frequency (per week or per month or whatever). Reyk _YO! 10:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• I favor precision, such as "highest win percentage" but it's a real word, and "most victorious" is actually vague - you can be "victorious" if you are valiant in defeat, for example. Montanabw 23:13, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Poll: Is "winningest" a MOS issue?

I think a poll is in line to gauge if this is seen as an MOS issue or not.—Bagumba (talk) 02:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

What I meant to ask was whether the existing MOS needs any specific changes to handle winningest.—Bagumba (talk) 03:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Support - Guideline changes for "winningest" are needed in MOS

1. Support -- I think the project could definitely use some clarification on this issue. Perhaps an MoS update for a single word would be excessive, but it could be added to a subpolicy page (with other words included). Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
2. Suport There are enough sources to support claims that it is an informal term, to fall foul of WP:FORMAL unless used in the context of a direct quotation. While I agree that MOS:ENGVAR doesn't have preferences regarding variations of English, MOS:COMMONALITY makes it clear that when we have a suitable term that is universally understood, it should be used instead of terms that are less than universally understood. most victorious has the correct tone for an enclyclopedia, without any hint of informality and in universally understood. It's a far better choice than a term that has claims of informality and is not universally understood. However, I'm not sure if MOS needs to put this on a bad words list - it's no big deal, I think that WP:FORMAL & MOS:COMMONALITY make it pretty clear that in most cases, we should use something else. But either way, it's a horrible thing to read unless you want to give Misplaced Pages the tone of a cheap tabloid publication. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:52, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   I hope "most victorious" is not a serious contender for preferred alternative. Holy cripes. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:13, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   @Spacecowboy420: Yanping Nora Soong moved your response from the "Oppose" section below, presumably since you began with "Support". However, you appear to say the existing guidelines cover the case of winningest. Can you reaffirm your support !vote, and state what changes you are seeking. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

3. Suppport. It is our duty to ensure, in the average, two letters "p" per support in a MOS vote. Otherwise, such a MOS-singest discussion would become laughtingest. Pldx1 (talk) 08:06, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   @Pldx1: Yanping Nora Soong moved your response from the "Oppose" section below, presumably since you began with "Support". Can you reaffirm your support !vote, and state what changes you are seeking. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

4. Support/moot point- of course it is a MOS issue that universally understood English is preferred to slang terms and regional colloquialisms, but the MOS already makes this clear. Perhaps Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Words to watch needs a section on avoiding words that make Misplaced Pages sound like a low-brow tabloid. Reyk _YO! 08:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   To be clear, and since "winningest" is commonly used in Encyclopedia Britannica, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc., I assume you consider these highly esteemed publications to be "low-brow tabloids"? Cbl62 (talk) 08:49, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   I think this sort of language is beneath them, yes. If they occasionally want to use a slang term for dramatic effect they can, but that does not mean we should follow. I also point out that a lot of these uses are direct quotations, or non sports-related uses like "he has the winningest smile". Reyk _YO! 08:53, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   It's not slang. If you believe it is, then the onus is on you to provide evidence. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   I just checked a bunch of online dictionaries. Oxford dictionary describes it as "North American informal". In Wiktionary it's described as "US, sports". It has an entry in Marriam-Webster but Chambers, Longman, Collins American, and Cambridge do not recognise it at all. I think referring to it as regional slang is accurate. If you believe it is suitable in tone for an encyclopedia, you need to give some evidence for that claim. Reyk _YO! 11:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   In other words, you've found nothing that looks like evidence that it's slang. Onus is still in your court. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Um, yes I did. In fact, I showed that a majority of dictionaries seem not to think it's even a word. You seem not to be paying attention. The onus is on you to prove why a vague, informal regional term is better than more precise, less informal terminology understood by English speakers worldwide. Demonstrate why it would be a good idea for Misplaced Pages to adopt the tone of a low-brow tabloid newspaper. Reyk _YO! 12:05, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Okay, let's count the pieces of evidence you have that it's slang: ... uh ... zero. Right, that's right: zero—and your closing sentence is a non sequitur. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Um, yes, er, a regional informal term not even recognised as a word by a majority of reputable dictionaries, is most definitely slang. I'm sorry that you don't like that, but the facts are what they are. Please don't respond. I have no time or patience for your continual "nuh-uh! nuh-uh! nuh-uh!", and you still have not even attempted to explain why you think Misplaced Pages needs to adopt the low tone of sports editorials when more precise, universally understood, and more elegant terms can be used. Reyk _YO! 12:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Nor do you have the patience to back up your claim, apparently. "nuh-uh! nuh-uh!" indeed. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   You asked for evidence, I provided it in the mistaken belief that you're here to discuss constructively, and you're just responding with "Lalala i cant hear you" and refusing to back up your own opinion with anything. There is no point continuing to talk to you. Good day. Reyk _YO! 13:02, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Not one source calling it "slang" equals zero evidence. That's empiricism. Whether you stop talking to me or "stop talking to me" will not make the evidence less nonexistent. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

5. To answer the question asked, no, no changes are needed. However, I find the use of the word on Misplaced Pages incorrect, per WP:JARGON. To quote, Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do. This phrase is invariably specialized to American sports writers. We are not writing for American sports readers but for all English readers, and so I find this word fails to meet the intent of the guideline. --Izno (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose - Guideline changes for "winningest" are not needed in MOS

1. Oppose: "Winningest" is an American sports phrase, probably used in Canada too,, and MOS does not have a preference on an English variety per MOS:ENGVAR. This also does not fall under Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Words to watch, as it does not violate the core content policies of Neutral point of view, No original research, and Verifiability. This word is used in the niche of (North) American sports, and is not otherwise generally used. At best, this can be dealt with outside MOS, perhaps among editors of (North) American sports articles and their respective WikiProjects to determine whether "winningest" is considered well written or not.—Bagumba (talk) 02:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
2. Oppose: perfectly common word in sports writing in North America (including Canada—the Montreal Canadiens are frequently referred to in print as the "winningest" team in the NHL, and have been as far back as my memory goes). It is not slang. The whole issue can result in no more than fatiguing editors without improving a line of prose. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
3. Oppose: Since there is no evidence the meaning of winningest is not obvious, it does not fall under the current MOS discouragement of jargon. We have reliable sources that it is an Americanism, and sources don't agree on whether it is standard or informal English, so it should be kept in US-related articles per WP:RETAIN. No sources support that it is a neologism or slang. The current MOS discourages "straining for formality" and "unnecessarily complex wording", thus discouraging awkward attempts to replace winningest, because "Plain English works best" according to the MOS. Essays subordinate to the MOS, specifically the "explanatory supplement" Misplaced Pages:Writing better articles#Tone, should be modified to correctly reflect that awkward writing in the service of formality is not desirable, and formal English is not mandatory. Claims that a word is or isn't "proper English" should be subject to verifiability. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
4. Oppose: It not a winning word in my book, but we can't put every losing concept into the MOS. Maybe it make sense in sports, if sources use it so much. Dicklyon (talk) 04:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
5. Oppose on the narrow question, on the basis that it's too small a point to be covered in the MoS. But strong exception to the sort of legalism that says we have to source every reaction to words. In my opinion it is clear that "winningest" is far too informal to appear in encyclopedic writing, and if others agree with me, that is enough. There has to be room to edit based on consensus of editors. Also, yes, formal English is mandatory in encyclopedic writing. --Trovatore (talk) 04:13, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
6. Oppose. As stated above, "winningest" is a recognized and proper word in American English and is routinely used in virtually every major America media outlet, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, etc. There is no valid basis for a rule proscribing its usage, as applied in the context of American sporting subjects where it is commonly used. Cbl62 (talk) 08:45, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
7. Oppose, it's a fine word. Just because some folks don't like doesn't make it bad English. older ≠ wiser 11:51, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
8. Oppose, ENGVAR already covers it. There's no need to call out or itemize specific words which are valid in some dialects and reliable sources, but not in others. --Jayron32 17:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
9. Oppose per my comment above @22:58, 14 January 2015. MOS should not engage in this kind of selective micromanagement. Ample evidence has been presented of the word's common use and acceptance by mainstream American publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Attempts by non-American editors to dismiss or discredit use of the word by these highly respected publications is misguided, and some of the comments border on pseudo-intellectual with a less-than-subtle whiff of anti-Americanism. The word may not be preferred by some editors (including myself), but as long as its use is largely confined to sports-related subjects these attempts by a small handful of editors to remove the word en masse or use MOS to universally ban the word from Misplaced Pages should be denied. Enough. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Sorry, your attempts to construe this whole thing as an "anti-American" effort is a bad faith accusation, given that many of the editors with objections (including myself) are American. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC) I don't know if English is your first language or not, but I urge you to re-read my comment, and focus on the meaning of the words "some" and "small handful" in my comment. As for AGF, I don't need to make any assumptions; I only need to read the "anti" comments in this thread, several of which speak for themselves in terms of their own biases. As an American, you are certainly free to express your own preferences, as I and many others have already done. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:48, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

   Whereas all the unsourced pejoratives "stupid", "childish", "rubbish", "slang", "cheap", "abhorrence", "affectation", "jarring", "nonsense", "annoying stupid non-word", "low-brow"... that's not bad faith? That's some passionate invective to be using with zero sources' cited to support it. It's not totally implausible that nationalism is the real motive behind these unsourced attacks and insults, given that support for use of winningest has yielded a carpetbombing-level of citation overkill. It's almost like the less your sources support you, the louder you have to bleat. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

   The difference is that we're describing a disliked terminology- you and Dirtlawyer are attacking people. Reyk _YO! 10:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC) Recant, Reyk: I attacked no one. And several of the "anti" comments are over the top, and their biases speak for themselves. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:48, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

   "Childish", "stupid", "low-brow", and "abhorrent" are then personal attacks on the poor word. You owe it an apology. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:36, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

10. Oppose per Dirtlawyer1. This is a tempest in a teapot. Let's move along. Montanabw 23:13, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
11. Oppose per Cbl62, Dirtlawyer1 and the fact that the proposed replacement language would sound absolutely ridiculous in the context of North American sports articles. Saying things like Joe Paterno is the "most victorious" coach in NCAA history sounds unbelievably pompous and affected. I really think we need to recognize this for what it is: a simple American English/British English issue, draw a line under it, and leave it at that. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

    That's why I've been using "most successful X in Y by wins". This seems elegant and non-problematic. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

    Actually, it sounds kind of awkward to me, but to each his own. . . Ejgreen77 (talk) 01:26, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

12. Oppose Winningest is a word used by all american sports fans, writers, and all media outlets as the most wins of whatever era, season, career, team, coach, or player. Success, victorious(which rarely hear), or best performing can be measured in many more different ways. Winningest is purely most wins in a given time period. Simple as that and is less confusing to the reader.Littlekelv (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
13. Oppose per Dicklyon. It's enough to say that words recognisable by a majority of WP readers are preferred. This one clearly does not qualify as "preferred". Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Comment – It's not a word that needs to be covered by MoS. I think our guidelines here aim higher than that. It is American sports jargon, about as informal a word as one can find, and phrases such as "winningest coach" are best replaced by "most victorious coach" which has the same meaning without the grating jargon and is not the contorted "straining for formality" that WP:FORMAL advises against. "The coach who wins the most" or "coach with the highest number of wins" is straining. Perhaps we can throw this to another forum, such as one dealing with sports in general? Otherwise, we can handle usage on a case by case basis. --Pete (talk) 07:02, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
2. Comment this all seems rather pointless and lame, Dennis has already argued against the use of this word on the relevant article talk page, and in ANI. It's a disputed word and there is a suitable alternative, why waste more time on this silly little word? Spacecowboy420 (talk) 08:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   It affects a wide swathe of articles, not just a single article. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

3. I don't see why this isn't covered adequately by ENGVAR. If I saw this word used in a BritEng article, I would kill it on sight. However, I understand completely that this abhorrence is accepted in USEng. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   The whole discussion stems from the removal of this term in one article, (as did too much time wasting on ANI) - the "use another word" comment applies just as much to other articles, as it does to the article in question. It's pretty much the perfect example of making a mountain out of a molehill. If it was a case of removing an American term and replacing it with a British term, I would agree with the comments regarding ENGVAR - however it isn't, it's removing an American informal term, and replacing it with a universally understood formal term, as per MOS:COMMONALITY and WP:FORMAL Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:07, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   oh. for anyone with doubts that it might not be an informal term: Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   While the word is vile, there's clear evidence that it is used broadly by US mainstream reliable publications. I can't really see how that can be disputed other than to offer a personal disliking of the term. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   I think that fact that it is used is not disputed. (well at least not by me) Usage does not equal formality, or suitability for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Also, the fact that there is an equally descriptive and unambiguous, less informal and more universally understood term available, makes it seem like a no-brainer to avoid "winningest" Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Yes, I'm an American, and I really don't buy ENGVAR arguments for the word. It's used in sportswriting in the United States, absolutely, I agree that is true. If people say it's not used in sportswriting in the UK, fine, I have no grounds on which to contradict that. But that doesn't make it an ENGVAR issue. We are not sportswriters; we are encyclopedists. A completely different linguistic register is called for here. --Trovatore (talk) 10:03, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   We are encyclopedists? You mean like Encyclopædia Britannica? The Columbia Encyclopedia? Encyclopedia Americana? We're supposed to act like encyclopedists, write like an encyclopedia, look like an encyclopedia, but not those encyclopedias? Because... reasons? What does 'encyclopedic' even mean if you're going to arbitrarily ignore actual encyclopedias whenever they don't serve your argument? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Dennis, could you provide cited examples of the usages in these publications, please? It occurs to me that "winningest" can be used appropriately in some antique cases which have nothing to do with modern English. --Pete (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   I listed the article titles above. They're all modern, North American sports topics: Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Eddie Robinson, Michael Phelps. You want to see quotes from all 19 Brittanica articles, 6 Columbia articles and the Americana one too?

   It's ironic to see this mountain of sources being challenged this way when those saying the word is a "childish invention", "nonsense", "not a word", etc. have not cited one single thing.

   I access paywalled encyclopedias like these via my public library's online system. Other editors who want to verify these can use the Misplaced Pages:Reference desk and Misplaced Pages:The Misplaced Pages Library. I will gather quotes if need be, but keep in mind the policy of WP:AGF when it comes to offline or paywalled citations. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

   Here is the list of quotes and citations. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:19, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

4. Not the right question. All style and usage matters on WP are MOS matters in a general sense. But most potential ones are ones that MoS does not address in partiuclar, on purpose, because the consensus is to leave most usage matters up to editorial discretion, and to only be prescriptive/proscriptive about matters that cause problems. So, no, MOS does not need to specifically address this word. It doesn't even qualify for WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch. This is basically American sports jargon, and it's OK to use it in that context all other things being equal. We would never go to snooker articles and say "you can't refer to 'potting the black', but must instead write 'legally sent the black ball into a pocket'", or change all references to "the provenience of the artifact" (BrEng: "artefact") in archaeology articles to "the exact location of the discovery of the item in question". WP:JARGON is not license to exterminate all field-specific terminology. If people think that American sports articles have jargon in them understood fine by Americans who are into sports but not by all other readers, the solution is obviously to write a glossary article and link to it, just as I did with the snooker jargon, above. That said, "all other things being equal" doesn't appear to be satisfied. I agree with Dirtlawyer, Spacecowboy420, et al., that this term is amateurish and should probably be avoided. We just don't need a formal guideline saying so specifically about this word. WP:TONE and WP:COMMONSENSE cover this already, as a general principle. The fact that dictionaries descriptively include the word (usually labelled informal) does not magically make it encyclopedic. They all also include "ain't" and "motherfucker", after all, but we don't pepper our article with those character strings. As for the alleged ENGVAR matter, it's not one; no one is proposing replacing an American term with a British one or whatever, just replacing a silly and obtuse construction with a more encyclopedic one. "Winningest" isn't formal sports jargon, it's really sports slang, a "dude-bro" usage, and the fact that some sports journalists use it to appeal to that audience doesn't magically make it formal English. Sports journalism is very near the bottom of the totempole of writing quality in professionally produced journalism, slightly above tabloid gossip reporting and just below entertainment news. As yourself, would we ever parrot the slangish usage of people writing in those topical areas, e.g. "The leggy chanteuse was spied gnoshing with hunky star Foo Barly at NoHo's hottest new bistro ..." Of course not. There's no reason for us to import similar wanky wordplay from sports journalism. Seriously. Just go read the sports section of any major newspaper for five minutes and try to count the number of cases of emotive slangy gibberish WP would never use. But that has nothing to do with this one particular word.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Some who have acknowledged MOS:ENGVAR have brought up MOS:COMMONALITY. However, MOS:TIES states: "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation." This would apply to subjects about North American sports, but perhaps less for a topic like Harley Davidson, an American-based company whose products are used worldwide. In American English, "most victorious" sounds decidedly British in relation to sports. There might be other alternatives, but that isn't it.—Bagumba (talk) 09:29, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I just try to look at things from the perspective of the reader and understand that different articles attract different readers. Doing so, I think you have a good point, Bagumba. An American football article is unlikely to be read by many users of non-American English. While a Harley article (despite being an American company) has far more international appeal. I do however, have no opinion regarding "victorious" sounding British. It sounds pompous - agreed and Brits are known for being pompous at times. "Prize-winning" ? Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

This isn't an issue about "American English" -- in fact, most American English speakers are unaware of this term. It's argot used by a very small subsection of AmE speakers. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 09:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on American English, I wouldn't know. Even more reason not to use it. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 09:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

We are talking about it's use in AE sports articles. WP:AUDIENCE advises: "When jargon is used in an article, a brief explanation should be given within the article." Personally, I'd use a more verbose phrasing in the lead, but don't see a problem using winningest in the body if the topic was already introduced in the lead and context is provided in the body e.g. "the winningest coach in Acme history with 550 career wins". Not to discourage the efforts of laypeople, but it's problematic in this specific case if a person unfamiliar with American sports doesn't collaborate with a domain expert to avoid replacing a single-word with a clumsy phrase.—Bagumba (talk) 10:21, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Sportswriters have a completely different aim than we do. Their prose is meant to be, first and foremost, entertaining. They use informal terminology freely, "breezily" you might say. I am not criticizing; those are the conventions of the genre and what the readers expect and pay for.

The conventions of encyclopedic writing are completely different. While it's certainly a virtue for the writing to be interesting, it is not primarily aimed at entertainment, but at providing reference information. The writing is expected to be in a very high register; I think probably the only higher registers are formal society announcements and diplomatic communications.

So our sources may well use such terms, but we have to take into account how the nature of the sources differs from our nature. A word that is appropriate for a sports column, even in the New York Times, may not be appropriate (except maybe in a quotation) in Misplaced Pages. --Trovatore (talk) 10:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Good point. There is also the context of usage. Headlines are a prime example. Language pared down to its most succinct and eye-catching. "Sticks nix hick pix" might be a great headline but appalling English. Sports articles are often one step up, dealing with repetitive descriptions of similar events; jargon and shorthand are used to avoid boring the regular reader who doesn't want shining prose or wordy explanations, just the facts, names and numbers. Some of these things are all but unreadable if you know nothing of the sport or its conventions. Americans reading about a ODI, for example. Without pictures, most would have no idea of which sport was even being played. (Cricket, for the seppos here.) A baseball article may be just perfect for USA Today, but jarringly inappropriate for Misplaced Pages. --Pete (talk) 17:07, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You keep using terms like "tabloid" and examples like USA Today for vulgar writing. What is a proper model? You reject the New York Times and Encyclopedia Brittanica. What's left? I don't see how you can argue "that's good enough for X, but we have higher standards!" if you won't tell us where you're getting these standards. You seem to think everything from the Daily Mirror to the Wall Street Journal is tabloid trash. What publications do you respect? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Does Misplaced Pages want to cater to the lowest common denominator? If so, use "winningest" and while we're at it, we might as well recommend "kicked their ass" and "they sucked" for inclusion on sports articles. I would prefer to let the tabloid fed masses stick to their tabloid sources, and encourage those who are willing to learn a little to come to wikipedia. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 10:44, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

If you think that "winningest" is in the same register as "kicked their ass" then perhaps you should put a few more hours into your ESL classes. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:21, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

If you think that this is the place for personal attacks, then perhaps you should be editing reddit, rather than wikipedia. "winningest" and "kicked their ass" are both informal, ugly, lowbrow terms. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 11:28, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

One is a term with established usage in a large number of mainstream newssources, the other is vulgarity from the bleachers. One of us can tell the difference, the other cannot. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:03, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Or perhaps one of us is aware of the phrase "thin end of the wedge" and the other is not. Use in tabloid news sources doesn't mean it's formal or suitable. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 12:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You apparently think that "spaces" jibe makes you look the more intelligent. Then you follow up calling the NYT and Encylcopaedia Britannica "tabloids". I think we've heard enough from you. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:59, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems surprising that the MOS doesn't seem to actually state anything like "Use formal language rather than informal". It does say (under "Vocabulary") Avoid words and phrases that give the impression of straining for formality, that are unnecessarily regional, or that are not widely accepted., of which the last element seems a good reason not to use "Winningest". There's also, under "Opportunites for Commonality", the wording Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms, and as a Brit I'd certainly never heard of "Winningest", which sounds like a childish invention. Perhaps the MOS should start with a single paragraph defining the style it's aiming at: Clear above all; unlikely to be misunderstood by, or to antagonise, users of any variety of English; formal enough for a serious encyclopedia but not unnecessarily so; avoiding where possible, especially in the lead section, the use of jargon, technical language, regional terms, etc ...". It would be a challenge, but we seem to have a large collection of rules about specific elements of style but without an overall philosophy to which questions about individual words or other detailed issues not explicitly covered could be referred. PamD 11:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• It's too fine-grained for a MOS rule, and writing in definitions of acceptable windows on the formality–informatlity spectrum would be cumbersome and too restrictive. However, if encountering this tinsle made-up word in an article, I'd zap it. A major argument against its use is that if you're unfamiliar with it, the meaning is unclear. Trovatore: I agree that we should resist specious categorising into ENGVAR. TRM says: "While the word is vile, there's clear evidence that it is used broadly by US mainstream reliable publications." Indeed. We don't have to sink to the lowest level, do we? Tony (talk) 12:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

In addition to The New York Times, the word is also used, in articles about American sports, by the Columbia Encyclopedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Encyclopedia Americana. Accordingly, the contention that the use of the word would see us "sink to the lowest level" is baffling given its widespread use, including other major encyclopedias. Cbl62 (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

• RE: "...but perhaps less for a topic like Harley Davidson, an American-based company whose products are used worldwide." I just want to point out that the Harley-Davidson XR-750 is strictly a North American racing motorcycle; it participates only in AMA Flat Track racing because of peculiarities int the rules that favor a peculiar design. The road racing version only competes in the US. The whole history and existence of the bike revolves around the politics US-made vs imported motorcycle brands. Flat track in Europe uses all sorts of other off-road bikes but never XR-750s because the XR-750 is too technologically primitive. While Harleys might be worldwide products, the XR-750 thoroughly American. The bikes other claim to fame is its use by Evel Knievel and Bubba Blackwell, who, well, literally dress in American flags. The XR-750 is a highly national topic. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
  • "Primitive", you say. I think that's a pretty good description of the word as well, and why it is not seen in regular text, just tabloid sports articles. Oh yeah, and, as you say without giving an example, the Britannica. I like to think we have a better encyclopaedia right here - we don't have to drop our standards. --Pete (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Misplaced Pages's core policy of verifiability is the foundation that these "standards" rest on. You're tossing verifiability out the window and replacing it with upvoting. If enough editors say "that's stupid", you want those votes to trump the highest-quality sources we have. The NYT and Brittanica are now "tabloids" and H.W. Fowler is nobody to you. You've turned Misplaced Pages upside down. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
      • Do tell. If one wants sources for opinions that "winningest" is a hideous word, they are not difficult to find.
        • "Winningest may well be a real word (or at least in the US), as in “winning most often” but is a very ugly expression."
        • "I guess it's real, but frankly I find that appalling in itself."
        • in "A Dictionary of Despicable Words"
        • "Winningest" is as much a word as "sdgklgjrw9svd".
        • "Winningest. Stupidest and worst word ever"
      • The list goes on and on. That's just for combining the word with "appalling" and "awful". When I looked at "atrocious", I found this gem: "Horrible horrible lazy word, borne of sports journo-jock stupidity. I guess the English language is the “losingest” in all this… Pathetic". People who like words tend to hate this one. Easily verified. --Pete (talk) 17:48, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, so you've found 5 bloggers or website posters who don't like the word. Contrast those with Encyclopedia Britannica, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Columbia Encyclopedia, and dozens more mainstream sources (not blogs) which universally use the word and deem it perfectly appropriate in American sporting contexts. I would venture to say that the latter group is a better model for Misplaced Pages than 5 bloggers. Cbl62 (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

One of the blogs you cite simply offers the blogger's view that he finds these words disgusting: nugget, dilate, secretion, fondle, dangle, waft, chunks, lesion, sopping, ligament, and soiled. Here, here, let's just ban all these words on the ground that they are considered disgusting to the ear of an anonymous blogger. Cbl62 (talk) 18:05, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I have no idea what to make of this. Pete/Skyring dismissively says "that might be good enough for USA Today", but when asked for reliable sources, we get a bunch of bloggers that would never be citable. Fowler's disagrees with your august bloggers. This whole debate is not about one word, it's about whether we respect Misplaced Pages's core policy of verifiability or we use crowdsourcing and upvoting. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm off for more travel, so I don't have time. The examples above were a few from what is a huge collection of people expressing their dislike of that word. If I looked longer and harder I'd find columnists from major respected outlets in the list. As you can, if you look. Cheers, mate. --Pete (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

That Skyring/Pete would resort to the opinion of a blogger who would will away "dilate" confirms a cognitive dissonance that will not be penetrated, but for the benefit of the rest of us, here are samples from five of 23 hits at Encyclopaedia Britannica (which is paywalled only after the first hundred bytes):

• Bobby Bowden, in full Robert Cleckler Bowden (born November 8, 1929, Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.), American collegiate gridiron football coach who was one of the winningest coaches in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history.
• Martin Brodeur, (born May 6, 1972, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Canadian ice hockey player who is the all-time winningest goaltender in the National Hockey League (NHL) with 691 career victories.
• Pat Summitt, née Patricia Head (born June 14, 1952, Henrietta, Tennessee, U.S.), American collegiate women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee (1974–2012) who was the winningest coach in the history of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball.
• Kay Yow, (born March 14, 1942, Gibsonville, N.C.—died Jan. 24, 2009, Cary, N.C.), American basketball coach who was a legendary figure in women’s college basketball who served (1975–2009) as the head coach at North Carolina State University and became one of the winningest coaches in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I history.
• Bobby Allison, byname of Robert Arthur Allison (born December 3, 1937, Miami, Florida, U.S.), American stock-car racer who was one of the winningest drivers in National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) history and ...

Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I've started Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/List of winningest citations so this page doesn't get too unweildy. Note that right at the top, as a gift and evidence of good faith, I'm sharing the one (1) and only reliable source that opposes using winningest, the AP Stylebook. For me, again, this a about verifiablity, and that means trusting reliable sources and ignoring opinion. I think it would be extremely disingenuous for anyone to seize on this single AP Stylebook citation and choose to ignore the obvious acceptance of the word at the NYT and many other prestige news media, as well as Fowler's and many encyclopedias. More to come. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

The AP Stylebook is odd in that AP articles routinely use the term at issue. Is the referenced Stylebook older? Cbl62 (talk) 00:23, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It's "from Mount Pleasant, Iowa on Jun 07, 2014", so the AP was using the word both before and after this. It appears the editor was answering questions from the general public. Apparently the Stylebook itself doesn't mention winningest, even if the Q&A editor here dislikes the word. I could add a long list of books of new words and slang that don't mention winningest, indicating that the "controversy" or claimed opposition to this word doesn't exist beyond the handful of non-reliable bloggers cited. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

References

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/winningest
2. http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/winningest
3. https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=4XycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1655&lpg=PA1655&dq=winningest+informal&source=bl&ots=S35M7E7cqP&sig=__8Pk6JrVTp0E41b0n2dew_P3-4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix4qLbu6vKAhVFlZQKHbzpCEAQ6AEIRzAI#v=onepage&q=winningest%20informal&f=false
4. https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=winningest

Template:Infobox US university ranking

There is a discussion about a possible formatting change to {{Infobox US university ranking}}, here. It was suggested that I get MOS input. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Wavelength and "at five years old"

I noticed this morning on the Tim Buckley album that User:Wavelength had corrected "at five years old he began listening to his mother's progressive jazz recordings" to "at the age of five years he began listening...", with the edit summary "(rewording: "five years old" (adjective phrase) —> "the age of five years" (noun phrase) after "at" (preposition))" and I reverted it because "at five years old" is perfectly good English, and "at the age of five years" is awkward, not at all how a native speaker of English would express it. We might say "at the age of five", but "at the age of five years" is rarely heard. I looked at the user's contributions page, and it seems he/she has been making scores of similar edits over the last few days, removing "x years old" and replacing it with "the age of x years", with the same rationale. Looking at Wavelength's user page suggests someone for whom English may be a second language, and who has an interest in the Manual of Style. Perhaps someone with some standing here might have a word? --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:18, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of English, but my editing is more prescriptivist ("by the book") than descriptivist ("by the street").

—Wavelength (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

There are other editors who use the form "at the age of ... years".

• "at the age of six years": 41 search results
• "at the age of seven years": 44 search results
• "at the age of eight years": 49 search results
• "at the age of nine years": 42 search results
• "at the age of ten years": 32 search results

—Wavelength (talk) 20:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

IMO, it's more important to sound natural to a native speaker than to be strictly correct, especially when that strict correctness is itself a matter of opinion. We're not talking about slang here, and both "at the age of five" and "at five years old" sound more natural to my native ear than "at the age of five years". Also IMO, if someone makes widespread edits of this kind, they shouldn't object to equally widespread reverts per WP:BRD. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Wavelength, your searches show that others have used the phrase, but don't show that others have used it well in the context of good English writing.

For example, the second article in your search for "at the age of six years", Julia Willand, uses it in the following context: "Willand was born in Nuremberg, West Germany, and came at the age of six years with her family to South Africa." That looks very like a literal translation from German, and certainly isn't good idiomatic English. Likewise for another German, Marc Zwiebler, who "started at the age of six years to play badminton", or Sabina of Bavaria, who "was promised at the age of six years for strategic reasons by her uncle, King Maximilian I, to Ulrich of Württemberg".

Another example is Björn Runström: "He started playing football for Enskede IK at the age of six years, Runström's time in Enskede went well and at the age of 12 years he was rewarded with a move to a bigger club; Hammarby." I don't know any Swedish so I don't know if there's a translation issue, but that's a run-on sentence with a misused semi-colon, so it's not good English. Or we have the fictional character Sam Vimes, who "was born at the end of the events in Night Watch, is about fourteen months old by the time of Thud!, and at the age of six years by the time of the events of Snuff", another pretty rotten bit of writing, with "at the age of six years" being the most egregious part of it. The first example in your "at the age of seven years" search is Ralph Evans (boxer), where it appears in the sentence "At the age of seven years the family moved to Waterlooville, Hampshire, where later his father set up and ran the Waterlooville boxing club (still in existence today)." That's a pretty badly written sentence, quite apart from the phrase in question.

"At the age of x years" is poor writing. If the grammatical rule you are attempting to apply leads to poor writing, then either it's a bad rule and should be discarded, or it is misunderstood or misapplied, leading to hypercorrection. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Nicknack009, your second paragraph mentions three articles, and the expression "at the age of six years" is used correctly in each of the excerpts you cited. (I would use such forms in a letter or in a résumé or in a speech or in a telephone conversation, and perhaps I already have done so.) Your third paragraph mentions three articles, of which the first uses the prepositional phrase "at the age of six years" correctly, despite the misused semicolon. The second one uses the same phrase incorrectly. The third one uses the phrase "at the age of seven years" incorrectly, because it is a dangling modifier. Please see Modifier Placement.

Although it has been used incorrectly in some articles, the phrase itself is correct English and naturally agrees with the principle that a preposition should be followed by a noun or a noun phrase or a pronoun or a nominalized adjective. If the incorrect form ("five years old" after "at") seems natural to you, then probably you have been influenced by people who have not learned how to use prepositions correctly.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to play you at your own game, not because I agree with it but because it's the only way I'm likely to get through to you. You say a preposition must be followed by a noun a noun phrase, a pronoun, or a nominalised adjective. Your edit summaries show you object to "at x years old" because "x years old" is an adjective phrase. So: it's a nominalised adjective phrase! Problem solved.

However. This section of Misplaced Pages is the Manual of Style, not the Manual of Grammatical Correctness. We are not discussing which of "at the age of x", "at the age of x years", or "at x years old" is grammatically correct, we're discussing whether they're good style. Language is not a branch of logic, it's an art form, and whether or not something is well written is not solely determined by whether it conforms to a set of rules. If you want a phrase that does conform to your set of rules, whatever authority they have, then "at the age of x" is better style than "at the age of x years", because it reads like actual English rather than a word-for-word translation from another language or a hypercorrection. However, "at x years old" is perfectly good style, and there is no need for an indiscriminate campaign to replace it in every instance, particularly not with a phrase that is bad style. --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I tend to agree with User:Nicknack009 both on the broader principles and the specific phrasing in question. If Wavelength could point others to a definitive rulebook on how to use or not use prepositions that supports their proposition, especially in this context, rather than simply asserting certain uses are wrong, that would help. In reality, there is nothing "wrong" with any of the formulations in standard, idiomatic English. "At the age of three" or "At three years old" are fine. As a matter of style, my eyes and ears happen to find "At the age of three years" to be at the clunkier end of phrasing; there's certainly nothing to be gained from making mass bot-style changes to impose that construction – or indeed any rigid, uniform construction – across multiple pages. N-HH talk/edits 12:34, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I too agree with User:Nicknack009: what we need in Misplaced Pages is good English. Not a slavish adherence to theoretical rules of grammar, but language which is considered appropriate by the majority of educated native speakers in the context of writing for an encyclopedia. "At the age of five years old" reads like translated text, perhaps from French. It is not natural English. Certainly no-one should be bulk editing to change other editors' choice of language from "At the age of five" to the inferior "At the age of five years". @Wavelength: Please stop making these changes. Thanks. PamD 13:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"At five years old" and "at the age of five years" are both correct and intelligible English. We don't need to choose between being fluid and being correct. Both purposes are served with both phrases. They're so similar to each other that I had to read them over and over to detect any difference in fluidity. I see "At five years old" as a little better but not critically so. Why is this an issue? It's an editorial decision, not a rule-based decision. Just hash it out on the article's talk page with other editors who've worked on the article. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"At five years old he began ..." requires a comma after "old", but is otherwise idiomatically fine in English, as would be the shorter version "At five, he began ...". However, "At the age of five, he began ..." is more formal and surely preferable. But "At the age of five years, he began ..." is pointlessly redundant, and not normal English. We don't count people's ages in other than years (except for infants, in which case we specify, days, weeks or months), so there is no need to add that (this is why "At five, he began ..." is also workable). Zero editors will ever think either shorter construction meant "at the age of five weeks", etc.; just leave the "years" off. I concur with the observations above that the "at the age of X years ..." examples look like poor translation, not native English. It has the same clumsy character as constructions like "the employer for whom she is doing a job" and "the 17th day of the month of July". Editors should not be making mass-scale fiddly changes like Wavelength's even if they're convinced they're right, since nothing is actually wrong with the other constructions, and multiple editors object to his long-winded and redundant version. I'm pretty sure there's a guideline about this somewhere, but I forget the shortcut (both WP:NOTBROKE and WP:DONTFIX cover specific cases of it, but not the general principle; someone jog my memory please).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment: "At five" is perfectly fine English, understood by everyone, and requires fewer words. I like fewer words. Popcornduff (talk) 03:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

endash and ranges

(not a native speaker) I wonder if endash means a range? I have often seen articles moved from e.g. hydrogen-sodium protein to hydrogen–sodium protein (made up example to make it clear) with the reason WP:ENDASH. But I read that as a range, e.g. hydrogen, lithium, sodium protein. Any comment? Christian75 (talk) 06:39, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The en dash has many more uses than ranges. Many style guides specify it for chemical bonds, for example. More generally, it connects things that are similar or symmetric, e.g. the termini of a bridge, the sides of a border, the ends of a route, the ends of a range. A hyphen, on the other hand, suggests that the first modifies the second, as in a "second-hand store". Dicklyon (talk) 06:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

A tool for converting capitalized section headings

See the section "Section headings".

Often times one comes across articles which have all or most of their section headers capitalized. As of right now one has to change those manually one by one. In these cases instead of this a simple tool to lowercase all section headings would be more efficient. One would only have to look through all headers to check if there's some book title or alike in there that's actually supposed to be capitalized. I'm not sure if such a tool already exists - if it doesn't this is simply a suggestion for a new tool (or the extension of an existing one).

--Fixuture (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)