Wiktionary:Votes/2020-10/Use of "pronunciation spelling" label

Use of "pronunciation spelling" label

Voting on: Use of the "pronunciation spelling" label. Here, the term "label" refers to labelling via the {{pronunciation spelling of}} template, which is presently the usual method, as well as via the {{lb}} template. For a list of terms presently categorised as English pronunciation spellings, see Category:English pronunciation spellings.

This vote follows on from Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2020-04/Use of "eye dialect" label, where it was decided that the "eye dialect" label should be restricted to nonstandard spellings that represent standard pronunciations but are intended to imply that the speaker generally uses a nonstandard dialect, such as sed for said or lissen for listen.

Please vote separately on options 1, 2 and 3 below. These options are additive, not exclusive; so for example if all three pass then all three will be implemented. No other existing or potential uses of the label have been identified during a review period.

If you oppose option 1 or 2, but wish to see another label used instead for the case, e.g. "non-standard spelling of ~", please mention this for subsequent reference.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 17:39, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Vote created: Mihia (talk) 13:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2020/September § "Pronunciation spelling" label
• Wiktionary talk:Votes/2020-10/Use of "pronunciation spelling" label
• See also the discussions at and linked from Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2020-04/Use of "eye dialect" label, some of which touch on "pronunciation spelling".

Option 1

Use the "pronunciation spelling" label for deliberate non-standard spellings that are intended to represent non-standard pronunciations, such as borrowin' for borrowing and fink for think. The great majority of the existing uses of the label are in this category.

Support

1. Support — Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
2. Support Urszag (talk) 08:01, 19 November 2020 (UTC) I'd be open to another name for the category, but I think this category should exist, so I support continuing to use "pronunciation spelling" for it unless a better replacement label is proposed.
3. Support — Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:47, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
4. Support — How else would we label these words? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
5. Support ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
6. Support Not quite sure about this, but this is at least superior to Option 2. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 00:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose ‘Non-standard spellings that are intended to represent non-standard pronunciations’ – aren’t these just nonstandard alternative forms, then? What makes them a separate category from other alt-forms? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 14:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
   •  Question Vorziblix, I recognize this is a little belated, but what templates, labels, and/or other code would/do you use to mark terms as "nonstandard alternative forms"? —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

     @The Editor's Apprentice: {{lb|en|nonstandard}} {{alt form|en|[term]}}. Although now I see that a dedicated single template {{nonstandard form of}} also exists, which might be a better choice in that case. I just don’t see what further information a “pronunciation spelling” label adds. At least in option 2 there’s an element of deliberate distinction from the normal representation that sets that group apart from nonstandard spellings in general, whereas these terms in option 1 just seem like ordinary representations of nonstandard (or colloquial, or… etc.) forms. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

     Thanks for the speedy reply, Vorziblix. That was about what I expected and it is interesting to compare with Hazarasp's reasoning in the oppose Option 2 section. Taking into consideration what the possible categories are and y'alls comments, it seems to me that the results of this vote might implicitly prescribe a meaning, and therefore usage, for "nonstandard form" and possibly also "alternative form". —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 21:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

     @The Editor's Apprentice: Would you say that the implicitly prescribed usage is different from current usage? It seems to me those templates are already commonly used for these sorts of words, cf. bruvver, mischievious, feller, and whatnot. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

     Hmmm. Ultimately, I thought the implied prescription depended on the outcome of this vote, and still do, though it probably isn't as specific as I previously believed. The words bruvver and feller seem to fall into the category described in Option 2, but mischievious seems to defy the system that I was using to think about the categories. I'm going to think about this a little more deeply and then I might be able to describe things more accurately. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 22:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

     Okay, Vorziblix, I did some heavy thinking and I've reached a more solid, though likely over complicated, conclusion. To follow up on my previous comment, I think mischievious also falls under Option 2. I was initially confounded because in my dialect mischievious is standard. Anyway, my heavy thinking started with realizing that there are three aspects that all of these terms are referring to. The first is what I'm calling "surface pronunciation" and refers to how the term would be pronounced under standard rules. The second aspect is "dialect", which refers the dialect that is communicated to a reader by a term. The third one is "orthography" and describes the way graphs are used to communicate the surface pronunciation. Every term is either "standard" in an aspect or "nonstandard". All possible combinations are detailed in the table on the talk page. Assuming I am correct in believing what is impossible and doesn't occur, I would presume "nonstandard form" would be left only to have the meaning that is not assigned to "pronunciation spelling". I may be entirely wrong on this, though. I hope this is somewhat helpful. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 01:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

     @The Editor's Apprentice: Hmm, interesting. I must admit I’m somewhat confused, probably in part because my idiolect is different from yours — none of those three words would fall under Option 2 for me, and while I can see how feller might belong there for non-rhotic speakers, I’m mystified as to how bruvver and mischievious can be taken as representations of standard pronunciation (as opposed to, respectively, a dialectal pronunciation with th-fronting and a commonly proscribed colloquial pronunciation). I should note that I’m using the term ‘standard’ in reference to the type of speech that belongs to the standard language, in the sense that we define the term in that entry; it occurs to me that maybe a mismatch in what we mean by ‘standard’ might be the source of my confusion.

     Regarding your table, I’m not sure what the distinction between ‘standard’ and ‘nonstandard’ orthography means when applied to terms that are intended to convey ‘nonstandard’ surface pronunciation; it might make sense to collapse the bottom four rows into two. In any case, I would say your first ‘Does not occur’ does in fact occur, and encompasses nonstandard colloquial/informal variants that aren’t necessarily restricted to particular dialects — mischievious would belong here, along with things like spose and borrowin'. Lots of them might better fit the label colloquial than nonstandard, since nonstandard tends to carry connotations of proscription. A judicious application of context labels coupled with {{alt form}} might be a better way to go than a blanket labelling of everything with the same template, regardless of whether that template is {{pronunciation spelling of}} or {{nonstandard form of}}. Hopefully at least some of this makes sense. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

     Vorziblix, I'm gonna be straight with you, I have no clue why I claimed they would fit under the "lite"/Option 2 category, so I'll chalk it up to a typo. Instead, I think bruvver and feller fit under the "fink"/Option 1 category, which should make more sense. I'm still wary of mischievious. In response to your question about the orthography distinctions in cases of nonstandard surface pronunciation, I'll use a hypothetical. Consider there existed an term that was was the same in every way as fink except it was spelled *finc. That term would be described has having nonstandard orthography in contrasts to that of fink. I also think my choice of the word "dialect" was inaccurate as I was using it to mean something closer to "realized pronunciation". If I use "dialect" in a way closer to its actual meaning, I think the terms you most recently mentioned could fall into the second category that I term "impossible" since their orthography is standard. That was fairly comprehensible. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 05:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

2. Oppose DAVilla 13:40, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose --{{victar|talk}} 18:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose. Imetsia (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
5. Oppose These are better called {{nonstandard form of}} than pronunciation spellings. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Abstain. Re: " All three options failing would amount to a vote to abolish the label" I consider this vote invalid. It requires us to defend the status quo through explicit support. If nobody participates, the proposed abolition of the label succeeds? This is unfair and unacceptable. If you want to abolish something, create a vote with that as an explicit option and we'll vote on that. This is being discussed here: Wiktionary_talk:Votes/2020-10/Use_of_"pronunciation_spelling"_label -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 07:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 15:41, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

[subsequent discussion of this moved to talk page]

Option 2

Use the "pronunciation spelling" label for deliberate non-standard phonetic spellings, such as lite, tonite and donut, that do not represent non-standard pronunciations, and are not intended to imply that a speaker generally uses a non-standard dialect.

Support

1. Support — Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
2. Support Urszag (talk) 08:01, 19 November 2020 (UTC) I think this is closest to the way that the term is usually used.
3. Support — — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 14:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
4. Support — DAVilla 13:38, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
5. Support — Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:04, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
6. Support ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
7. Support. Imetsia (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
8. Support —Mahāgaja · talk 09:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose --{{victar|talk}} 18:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose Why can't these arbitrary nonstandard forms be covered under {{nonstandard spelling of}}? Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 00:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

   I'm not convinced that lite and donut are nonstandard spellings. PUC – 22:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Abstain. Re: " All three options failing would amount to a vote to abolish the label" I consider this vote invalid. It requires us to defend the status quo through explicit support. If nobody participates, the proposed abolition of the label succeeds? This is unfair and unacceptable. If you want to abolish something, create a vote with that as an explicit option and we'll vote on that. This is being discussed here: Wiktionary_talk:Votes/2020-10/Use_of_"pronunciation_spelling"_label -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 07:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 15:41, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Option 3

Use the "pronunciation spelling" label in addition to the "eye dialect" label for nonstandard spellings that represent standard pronunciations but are intended to imply that the speaker generally uses a nonstandard dialect, such as sed for said or lissen for listen.

Oppose

1. Oppose — Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 14:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose --{{victar|talk}} 18:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose — Eru·tuon 22:05, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
5. Oppose — Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:50, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
6. Oppose — Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
7. Oppose —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 02:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
8. Oppose. Imetsia (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
9. Oppose —Mahāgaja · talk 09:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Abstain. Re: " All three options failing would amount to a vote to abolish the label" I consider this vote invalid. It requires us to defend the status quo through explicit support. If nobody participates, the proposed abolition of the label succeeds? This is unfair and unacceptable. If you want to abolish something, create a vote with that as an explicit option and we'll vote on that. This is being discussed here: Wiktionary_talk:Votes/2020-10/Use_of_"pronunciation_spelling"_label -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 07:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 15:41, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
2. Abstain Urszag (talk) 08:01, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
3. Abstain ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Decision

• Option 1: no consensus 6–5 (55%).
• Option 2: passed 8–3 (73%).
• Option 3: failed 0-9 (0%)

— Dentonius 10:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)