Talk:Donald Tusk

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Title capitalization

(As per previous discussions in User talk:FeldmarschallGneisenau#About title case and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Edit warring over formatting)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: the two allowed standards by MOS are to either put an article and use the word "prime minister" as a generic noun, or use to use the word without an article and capitalize it as a proper noun. Please read MOS:JOB and make the changes accordingly.

If you really want the format to be "the prime minister," then I'm fine with that (better that than unfruitful arguing), but let's be consistent with MOS. We can also bring the former format back (using it as a proper noun in the lede), which would be more consistent with the sentence following it. It's after all the format used for most former Polish prime ministers. Max19582 (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I see that in the Olaf Scholz article he is referred to as the chancellor and that he earlier served as Vice Chancellor. But these are two different positions. In this case it's a repetition of the same title. Does it need capitalization? FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: If we want "Prime Minister" to serve as a title, we need to capitalize it. Otherwise, if we want to use it as a generic noun, we write it in lowercase with an article before it.

As of now, the first sentence uses it as a generic noun, while the latter uses it as a proper one. Max19582 (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. The second time "prime minister" is uttered, it's a redundancy. So I don't think it has to be capitalized since it's already mentioned earlier. FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 03:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: Whether it's mentioned earlier or not doesn't change its capitalization rules. It's used as a title there so it should be capitalized.

If we want to keep capitalization consistent between the two sentences, we can undo the changes from the first sentence (served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023 -> served as Prime Minister of Poland since 2023); that would also be allowed per MOS:JOB. Max19582 (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

You provided a real good suggestion, although I twisted it a bit. I think the lede looks perfect now, as it should. Formally perfect, most of all FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 09:19, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Is the English pronunciation of Tusk's surname set in stone? Is there any formalized and only "English pronunciation" of his surname?

As above. I'm pretty sure I've almost only ever heard his surname being pronounced by English users the same way the English word "tusk" is pronounced. Which is a pretty good case against applying the specific point of MoS argued for by user Max. FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 16:08, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: I understand your point, but that falls under WP:OR. If sources say that the surname is pronounced /tusk/ in English, that's what the article should reflect. If you know sources that say it's pronounced differently, we can also include those.

As for pronunciation itself, sources do say that /tusk/ is the set pronunciation. There are several reliable sources that claim such, including BBC or The Times. The article references some of them, if you'd like to check more out, here's some links:

I also see you tried to change the formatting; this thing specifically is defined in MOS:PRON: For English pronunciations, broad transcriptions should be used; these are intended to provide a correct interpretation regardless of the reader's accent. The system for doing this is outlined at Help:IPA/English [...] The Wikipedia respelling system, using the template, can be used in addition to the IPA. As all the sources include the phonetic respelling, I see no reason not to include it as well. The IPA, though, must accompany it: For English words, transcriptions based on English spelling ("pronunciation respellings") such as prə-NUN-see-AY-shən (using respell) may be used, but only in addition to the IPA (//). Max19582 (talk) 20:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, the BBC article is specifically about "the words we mispronounced." Does BBC work like a sort of Council of the English Language in the UK? Because if it isn't, I see no reason to treat it as gospel. See, the article itself is proof that almost no one pronounced Tusk as /tusk/, at least not in 2018. I believe Wikipedia in linguistic matters follows that--what people say or how they say it--than a select few points of reference. Also note that these articles may reflect the way Tusk is pronounced in Tusk's native language only. This is an important point actually, the discussion here is about the English pronunciation and its distinction from Polish, and whether there is any, and whether that warrants highlighting at all. FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: The BBC article seems to refer to this list by Babbel. That article clearly uses English IPA symbols (look at how they write English /tuːsk/ instead of Polish /tusk/; a similar trend can be seen in their transcription for other names) and refers to English pronunciations of those words overall.

If those sources say that the correct pronunciation is /tuːsk/ (and they do; the BBC one did after all say they mispronounced his name by saying something else than /tuːsk/), then that's what the article should reflect. Personally, I did hear the surname being pronounced both ways, but whether pronouncing it /tʌsk/ can be considered correct or not is another story of linguistic prescriptivism and descriptivism. That's, however, not up to us to decide; we should just follow what the sources say.

If you can find sources that say the name should be pronounced /tʌsk/ in English, then feel free to provide them. In that case we can include both the pronunciations in the lede. Max19582 (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)