Template talk:alternative case form of

RFDO discussion: September–November 2014

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others (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.

---

Template:alternative capitalization of

Delete this per what seems to be consensus re {{obsolete capitalization of}} above. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

By my reading, there may be consensus to delete {{obsolete capitalization of}} because it has no or almost no legitimate uses — there being consensus that we shouldn't have entries for Extenuation, The, Hand, etc (Words given uppercase Letters in old Texts because they were Important). {{alternative capitalization of}}, on the other hand, has legitimate uses, like native/Native, sapphic/Sapphic, platonic/Platonic (words where both uppercase and lowercase forms are used in modern language, and used distinctly). (And I see nothing in the discussion of {{obsolete capitalization of}} that suggests any sentiment that {{alternative capitalization of}} should be deleted.) Note this RFM about whether or not to rename / change the display of this template. (So, keep.) - -sche (discuss) 23:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I simply don't understand the reason for this inconsistent approach. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Because obsolete capitalization of is uninteresting and unuseful, and alternative capitalization of is interesting and useful?--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: How do you figure that? Why does currency affect interestingness? And noting alternative capitalisation is only more useful than noting obsolete capitalisation if what interests you is current usage (which begs the previous question). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 13:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

As I wrote above, Extenuation etc is just extenuation etc plus the Tendency of older english Works to begin some things with uppercase letters (and sometimes to begin other things, like personal names or "english", etc, with lowercase letters). It's like "s" vs "ſ": theoretically all words are attested in both uppercase and lowercase forms, like theoretically all words that contain "ſ" also contain "s" (though we are unlikely to have access to the resources, or time, to confirm that every one is attested). In titles, you even find EXTENUATION. We've decided to handle that sort of automatically-recognisable, lexically insignificant alternation using the software's auto-redirection and "did you mean" features and {{also}}.
In contrast, there's a lexical difference between e.g. native, platonic, sapphic and Native, Platonic, Sapphic: they're attested with different senses; capitalization is used to impart lexical information. But occasionally, one capitalization is attested with the senses of the other one — and that's where {{alternative capitalization of}} comes in. Given the tendency of some ornithological resources to capitalize birds' names, "crow" (the bird) is probably found with the same capitalization as "Crow" (the tribe) often enough (in phrases like "American Crow", "Hooded Crow") that the latter could have {{alternative capitalization of}} pointing to the former. - -sche (discuss) 21:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@-sche: Thank you for taking the time to explain that rationale so clearly. I am not aware of an obsolete example of that kind of case-dependent lexical distinction. Accordingly, keeping {{alternative capitalization of}} whilst deleting {{obsolete capitalization of}} seems a lot more defensible to me now. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 22:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Keep, I'd make a comment but there's really no logic behind the nomination so there's nothing to reply to. Renard Migrant (talk) 01:28, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

So... kept. Also renamed per RFM. - -sche (discuss) 14:27, 1 November 2014 (UTC)