Category talk:The Gambia

RFM discussion: September 2015–May 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Category:The Gambia to Category:Gambia

I know that the country generally takes the definite article in speech, but somehow it feels different when used as a category or title, when just "Gambia" sounds more appropriate. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:45, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

@Μετάknowledge: Would you prefer Category:Gambia, the? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 22:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

@I'm so meta even this acronym: I hope that was a joke. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@Μετάknowledge: I'm afraid not. :-S Category:Gambia, the would appear (correctly) under 'G' in the category for these categories, rather than under 'T'. I wanted to propose an alternative that you would be happy with, rather than just posting a vote in opposition. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Why should we have Category:The Gambia when we don't have Category:The United Kingdom, Category:The Netherlands, Category:The United States of America? Chuck Entz (talk) 12:14, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Those three are not analogous, in my opinion. Category:The Gambia is more like Category:The Hague. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Nobody ever says "Hague", while people do say "Gambia". So that comparison doesn't work either. —CodeCat 21:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Support Category:Gambia. —CodeCat 14:30, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Support Category:Gambia. "In the Gambia" is only slightly more common than "in Gambia" (and the latter is, in any case, very common). "In the Ukraine" has historically (until the 1990s) been far more common than "in Ukraine", but we correctly have Category:Ukraine without the article. - -sche (discuss) 04:57, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: What should we do about Category:The Hague? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:26, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Do we have enough content to justify creating it? We don't have very many city categories; we have a London category with a respectable 94 entries, but not a Paris, Seattle, Chicago or Beijing category. - -sche (discuss) 19:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: Well, it's pretty clear where this vote is going, so it doesn't really matter. But I'd like to know what you would do if we had a Category:The Hague. There's every chance that it'd come up. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:49, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

It's hard to get a sense of how commonly the place is referred to without the article, but it's well under 1/6th of the time, since "in Hague" vs "in the Hague" gets a 1/6th ratio in Google's Ngrams Viewer and most of the hits of "Hague" are of it as an author's last name or a reference to the Hague Convention ("in Hague Convention states"). So, I would retain the article as part of the name there. - -sche (discuss) 02:54, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: As Category:The Hague, Category:Hague, the, or something else? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:31, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

"The Hague". - -sche (discuss) 01:10, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: Thanks for the clarification. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose; I prefer Category:The Gambia. The The is an integral part of its name, more so than the the of the Netherlands or the Bahamas. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I've always called it "Gambia", so I guess you're mistaken. —CodeCat 14:36, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

For years I called the capital of Indonesia "Jaktara"; that doesn't mean someone who says "The capital of Indonesia is called Jakarta in English" is mistaken. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:55, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

"In the Gambia" is just slightly more common than "in Gambia", and likewise for "to [the] Gambia". In contrast, "in the Netherlands" is roughly 20 times more common than "in Netherlands", and likewise for "to". Compare (the) Ukraine. - -sche (discuss) 01:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The numbers are, currently:

• Supporting the move (3): Μετάknowledge, CodeCat, -sche
• Opposing the move (2): Aɴɢʀ, I.S.M.E.T.A.
• Position unclear (1): Chuck Entz

 — I.S.M.E.T.A. 07:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Support Category:Gambia. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 13:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support Category:Gambia per -sche, especially since in Gambia, in the Gambia at Google Ngram Viewer gives similar rates and I seem to prefer to drop "the" when the rates allow it. I also would not oppose deleting the category since it has too high granularity, IMHO. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

  Done moving the category with redirect.--Jusjih (talk) 01:35, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

  I have fixed all the entries and subcats, and deleted the redirect. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:02, 26 May 2017 (UTC)