Talk:NAN

RFD discussion: December 2018–April 2019

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NAN

An airport code. Do we accept these? Probably should be Translingual. --Pious Eterino (talk) 01:53, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

There are other examples: JFK (both Translingual and English) and LHR (as English). I think they are useful information actually, so I would like them to be considered acceptable. I agree that it probably should be Translingual and moved there. DonnanZ (talk) 09:33, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

DCA is another that we can probably consider together. --Pious Eterino (talk) 14:34, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

and JST, FAO, CAI, VER and SHJ --Pious Eterino (talk) 17:53, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I feel like we have had a discussion where we decided that we did not want these in general, but I don't know where that discussion might be. I would include them all, though. bd2412 T 17:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Searching the talk namespace for 'airport code', the most relevant RFD discussion that I spotted was Talk:A (about a stock symbol, but as DCDuring opined, those seem to be on all fours with airport codes). - -sche (discuss) 12:50, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

• Keep: Purplebackpack89 13:57, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Without weighing in (directly) on the matter at hand, I don't think IATA codes should be considered initialisms. An initialism is usually the starting point, but there are modifications such as the "X" in LAX and lots of Y's and Z's in Canadian airport codes, not to mention oddities such as Kahului Airport's OGG (from the last three letters of "Hogg"). I also think "IATA code for..." is a bad definition. The fact that "LAX" is an IATA code is more a matter of etymology than a definition. In LA we get commercials touting w:Ontario International Airport as an alternative to "the mess at LAX". Those are referring to the airport, not the IATA code. By itself, an IATA code is a quasi-arbitrary sequence of letters. It's only its use in running speech to refer to an airport that makes it anything worth having an entry for. I would hazard a guess that most of the people who refer to Los Angeles International Airport as LAX don't even know what the IATA is. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

In some sense, if the codes were actual abbreviations of the words, they would be in local language rather than Translingual. (BTW, these remind me of the British railway station codes, which are also always three letters, and usually a shortening of the name, but sometimes [due to overused letters] slightly different.) Equinox ◑ 03:14, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

A code is a code, not an initialism, a term I'm not fond of. Also consider AKL, the IATA code for Auckland International, which appears to come from AucKLand. DonnanZ (talk) 11:12, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

There are IATA codes (usually two-letter) for airlines as well, e.g. CX (not mentioned there added it) for Cathay Pacific. DonnanZ (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Chuck Entz mentioned LAX (yes, my late wife and I have been there as transit passengers, not a great experience), which I think should also have a Translingual entry. It will probably have to stay as an English entry because of the quotes included. DonnanZ (talk) 12:55, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Weak keep. As to whether it should be English or Translingual, I'm not sure, but Chuck is right that they're clearly not initialisms. "Proper noun" may be the best POS (although we do have some things labelled "symbol", like SM, that seem like nouns). - -sche (discuss) 07:12, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, what PoS should codes be given? I'm not absolutely sure that they are proper nouns. With IATA codes I would regard them as Translingual first, as they are used in many languages, if not all. DonnanZ (talk) 12:27, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

I would say keep airport codes, but I am scared of the precedent. They constitute a limited set, I can easily envision people encountering them in text with little context and thus interested in looking them up, their etymologies are often non-transparent and thus of some interest, etc. I can also imagine that a very similar set of terms would fall into the delete category for me without much distinction, though. Also agree with translingual, and I would call them proper nouns. - TheDaveRoss 13:57, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

• RFD kept per above consensus after multiple months. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:59, 19 April 2019 (UTC)