This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RegentsPark (talk | contribs) at 20:37, 14 January 2009 (→Survey: +o). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 20:37, 14 January 2009 by RegentsPark (talk | contribs) (→Survey: +o)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)This template must be substituted. Replace {{Requested move ...}} with {{subst:Requested move ...}}.
 | Cities Unassessed | ||||||
| |||||||
 | Germany B‑class Top‑importance  | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Additional information - Hanover
Concerning the correct spelling: "Hanover" vs. "Hannover"
"Hanover" is the correct English spelling according to: a dictionary (Cassells Wörterbuch, twelfth edition, 1976), the online dictionary LEO, http://babelfish.altavista.com and an Oxford dictionary.
Note though that Germans spell it "Hannover". Perhaps the following excerpt of a posting in the usenet (alt.california) sums it up:
"Similar issues arise with spelling. The German city Hanover has this spelling in English, and Germans who know English use it when writing English. It is important in English history, because it is where the present English royal family comes from. However, the German spelling is Hannover. Many Americans learn the word from German contacts and therefore use the German spelling. There is no unique correct answer."
mkrohn 17:21 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)
Well, what's the Misplaced Pages convention? If cities are generally given their English name (ie, Brussels v. Bruxelles, Dunkirk v. Dunquerque, The Hague as opposed to Den Haag) then I guess Hannover ought to be spelt Hanover. I still prefer the German spelling, though. Dandelions 12:45, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
district=Kreis=Region, region=Bezirk? Strange translation!
The district's name is "Hannover Region" in German and "Hanover (district)" in English. But, is a German Bezirk really called "region" in English, since Region is the name of the merged two Kreises ... 82.82.126.247 18:36, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
What would you translate Bezirk as? Books on the former GDR translate it as region. Secretlondon 18:37, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
You cannot compare GDR-Bezirk and German ones. 82.82.126.247 18:41, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
So how would you translate Bezirk? Secretlondon 18:42, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
what about area? 82.82.126.247 18:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- This is a little bit difficult. Normally Kreis is translated to "district"; a Kreis is subordinate to a Regierungsbezirk, which we do translate to "administrative region" on Misplaced Pages. Now it is somewhat unfortunate, that the district of Hanover decided in 2001 to call itself "Region Hannover", thus resulting in the admittedly confusing situation, that the Region Hanover is a district being a part of the region of Hanover. But be careful before changing the translation of Regierungsbezirk here, because then you should do it in several hundred articles here in Misplaced Pages. My proposal: leave it as it is now, and let the text clear up possible misunderstandings. -- Baldhur 21:22, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It is a name, the name of the town Hannover, not some place called Hanover or Hangover. I know, US-American shpelin is difrent.
I really got a kick out of US TV shows like the "History Channel" and "Discovery". Needless to say that I no longer pay for this BS. They routinely screw up everything. "Hanover" is just one example. Oh yeah, they show it over and over again. In one show the "History Channel" present an "expert" who talks about the terrible German Autobahn. The guy was sitting infront of an imitation of an Autobahn sign that read "Dusseldorf". The correct spelling would be Düsseldorf or Duesseldorf, but by no means "Dussel"-dorf. What kind of "expert" would want to talk infront of that? Then there is the Neander"th"al. On those shows they make sure the "th" is pronounced as English "th". Besides that the "th" was changed into a simple "t" more than a century ago, it was never pronounced Neander"th"al. The German language has no English "th". Another show, another joke. This time it is all about WWII and the German Volksjäger (or Volksjaeger if you will). The Volksjäger was spelled "Volksjager". US-American shpelin, eh? No, it gets better. The "V" was pronounced as "W", as if it were an English word, and then the false "a" was actually pronounced as German "a". Too funny. I could go on forever with these example. Hey, you gotta see the maps made by CNN. I call that an attribute to a reliable source.
What is wrong with "Hanover"? Nothing, I love it! Look at all those pseudo-journos who sell every year copies of press releases as news from the Cebit in "Hanover". It is such a wonderful tag!
Put Germany towns map
14-Sep-2007: I haved inserted a quick map of Germany (extended from the CIA map), to show Hanover (as "Hannover") with other towns. Most maps out there are not readable in a wiki article, due to tiny lettering. An entire wiki map-subculture has grown around blank, jigsaw ink-blot maps showing an unlabeled region with a shaded jigsaw area. In fact, readable maps are so rare in WP, they almost seem magical: the trick is font-size, with 1-pixel thickness for EACH 250px of map width, when full-size. As a map is down-scaled, the lettering tends to blur; however, a 750px map can be scaled to 250px as readable, when lettering has 3-pixel thickness. Shaded lettering could also appear visible with a similar 2-pixel + gray-pixel shading. However, map labels of 1-pixel thickness are almost always unreadable when resized onto a WP article page. To improve map readability, label the towns with wider fonts, such as the 2-pixel thickness or more. -Wikid77 04:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Notable residents
I am proposing creating its own page as the list is getting too long for this article. Michellecrisp (talk) 03:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Spelling, grammar
This article still contains many small spelling/grammar mistakes and some incorrect translations from German to English. I fixed a few of them but it needs (IMHO) a lot more work. Hohenloh (talk) 12:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Requested move
Hanover → Hannover — The spelling with double n has become more common in English:
- Meriam Webster lists "Hannover" as the main entry, with "Hanover" being a variant.
- Encyclopædia Britannica also lists it as "Hannover". It says "English Hanover" but uses "Hannover" in the prose.
- Microsoft Encarta gives the primary spelling as "Hannover", too.
- A Google search for "Hannover Germany" lists more pages than a search for "Hanover Germany.
— 3247 (talk) 00:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- I think the google test depends where you search from. Are you testing from Germany? I am in the UK, and I get 2,910,000 hits for "hanover germany", but only 1,420,000 for "hannover germany". Sam (talk) 08:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- The results also seem to depend on the time of day: At around 00:00 UTC, it was 2,400,000 to 1,400,000 (in favour of Hannover), at around 12:00, it was 800,000 to 1,400,000 IIRC, and now I've just got 4,100,000 to 800,000. Each time I used the above links. — 3247 (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Survey
- Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with
*'''Support'''or*'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Misplaced Pages's naming conventions.
- Strongly oppose If there were doubt, we should in any case incline to Anglicize for the benefit of other WPs. But disputed raw Google scores don't even amount to doubt. Use English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- Oppose Essentially it's easier to leave as is because there is a re-direct from Hannover and changing the pagename would likely necessitate lots of sp changes within the article itself (yes?). My preference in general would have been a policy of "native" names (eg. Munchen, Firenze, Warszawa) with re-directs from the English/common forms for all articles but ... --RCEberwein | Talk 17:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose Hanover has been the English name for a couple of hundred years, with Hanovarian is its adjective. Leave it as it is. Hohenloh 16:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- Weak oppose Britannica says that 'Hannover' is the German spelling while 'Hanover' is the English spelling (puzzlingly, it then uses Hannover in the text). To the extent that wikipedia prefers English spellings, we should stick with Hanover. --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 20:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Discussion
- Any additional comments:
- Some more observations:
- Google seems to be very problematic. It list sites spelling the city Hannover when you search for Hanover and vice-versa. The number of results seems to differ from server to server (Google transparently forwards your query to different servers); I did not expect the numbers to differ by magnitudes, though.
- A search for Hanover lists exactly four pages relating to the German city within the first 200 results (I have not looked at the others): this Misplaced Pages article, the article at Wikivoyages, Hannover Messe (it's spelt Hannover on the site) and an entry from Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 (which reflects historic usage). All other 196 results are related to organisations and towns in other countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia…)
- Organisations based in Germany tend to use Hannover on the English versions of their websites. This includes the official website of the town. (However, most of these sites were probably written by people speaking English as a second language.)
- Dictionaries, databases, and weather sites tend to use Hannover. (However, individual pages on these sites are usually not written by humans.)
- OED 2nd ed. (1989) only has an entry for "Hanover". (However, this might be biased towards the historic usage.)
- AHD 4th edition has Hanover as the main entry, with Hannover listed as a variant. (However, this might be biased towards the historic usage.)
- Most things deriving their names from the modern city are more commonly spelt Hannover, eg Hannover Airport vs. Hanover Airport or Hannover Fair vs. Hanover Fair. If the city remains at Hanover, the names of the articles would be inconsistent.
- The case of Hannover vs. Hanover seems to be less clear than I originally thought (and I did not expect it to be crystal clear in the first place). The references show that English usage is divided. It does not seem to be a case of WP:ENGVAR, though (unless “German English” is considered a national variant). — 3247 (talk) 22:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- It may be, however, that the recent use of Hannover is British, since they are the most likely to go there and see the German name. It is also possible that it is usage by germanophones, who do not know - or as with one anon edit here, do not care - about English usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think that's a pondial difference. It's more likely an instance of the recent trend to favour endonyms over exonyms. The official sites were probably written by germanophones, that's right. However, they certainly do know the traditional English spelling but decided against it (for whatever reason)
- Well, to sum up the reasons I still favour Hannover:
- The Google results for Hanover are odd. With other exonyms such as Munich, Cologne or Vienna, there are much more relevant results and the official site tends to be on the first page.
- The city's official site says Hannover. While official sites should be taken with a grain of salt (they often push an official name), virtually all official sites of organisations based in Hannover also use the double-n spelling (in the English version, that is). That's also different with the official sites of Munich, Cologne or Vienna, which use the English exonym.
- Article names for organisations based in Hannover are currently inconsistent. For some of them, WP:COMMONNAME clearly mandates the use of Hannover.
- — 3247 (talk) 15:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- It may be, however, that the recent use of Hannover is British, since they are the most likely to go there and see the German name. It is also possible that it is usage by germanophones, who do not know - or as with one anon edit here, do not care - about English usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)