Talk:Municipality of Gorenja Vas–Poljane

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Requested move 17 November 2015[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. It's been almost a month and the votes are split with both sides making reasonable points. Perhaps if this is revisited in the future it would be best to drop a few notes at the relevant Wikiprojects and also the MoS talk page to generate more participation. Jenks24 (talk) 13:37, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]


– It's true that the names of both of these municipalities were constructed using two independent place names of places within the municipalities. However, when this is done to create a new unified place name, a hyphen is appropriately used in the place name, not an en dash. This is why the country name is Austria-Hungary, not Austria–Hungary, and the town is Happy Valley-Goose Bay, not Happy Valley–Goose Bay, and the city is Winston-Salem, North Carolina, not Winston–Salem, North Carolina. A user offered Minneapolis–Saint Paul as a counter example, but this is not the same situation, since Minneapolis and Saint Paul have not been officially amalgamated into a single place with a unified place name. If users care to look to official usage, the websites of both municipalities use a hyphen (though they place a space around the hyphen). Incidentally, this is the nearly identical reason that double-barrelled surnames—created by combining the two parents' surnames—are hyphenated, not en dashed: eg, Charles Petty-Fitzmaurice. Good Ol’factory (talk) 04:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 14:25, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's an issue that is handled inconsistently by publishers (e.g., Austria-Hungary with a hyphen here and here but with a dash here and here). The hyphen appears dominant in terms of frequency for Austria-Hungary (which one would expect because it's an unmarked punctuation and makes little difference in that case). However, at issue here is a conjoined element with an internal space as discussed at WP:DASH (so Austria-Hungary, Winston-Salem, and Petty-Fitzmaurice are not analogous). The dash provides parsing clarity; i.e., Gorenja Vas-Poljane would incorrectly imply [Gorenja [Vas-Poljane]] and Gorenja Vas–Poljane would imply the intended [Gorenja Vas]–[Poljane]. Happy Valley-Goose Bay (which I would parse as [Happy [[Valley-Goose] Bay] rather than the intended [Happy Valley]–[Goose Bay]) also depends on the care taken by the publisher; for example, a dash is found here and here. Doremo (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay itself apparently also feels some degree of unease with the easy-to-type hyphen; for example, a spaced hyphen is found here and a spaced en-dash here. Doremo (talk) 05:06, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I do understand your point, though I think the distinctions you are drawing are quite fine and not necessarily convincing. For instance, Gorenja Vas–Poljane can just as easily be read as [Gorenja [Vas–Poljane]] as [Gorenja Vas]–[Poljane]. Because opinions on these interpretive issues can differ, I do think it's probably easier to just have a default rule of style, and the simplest would seem to me to be that we just use hyphens rather than endashes in unified names, even when the name was essentially compounded from more than one pre-existing name. If a surname was composed to two names, one of which had more than one word (I'm having a hard time thinking of a real example at the mo), would anyone really use an endash rather than a hyphen in the name? If not, why would we do so in a place name? Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:DASH (and other standard style manuals), Gorenja Vas–Poljane would not be parsed as [Gorenja [Vas–Poljane]] because of the dash. The case is analogous to New Mexico–Arizona Wool Warehouse, Georgia–South Carolina football rivalry, New York–Pennsylvania border, New Jersey–Albania National Guard Partnership, etc. Doremo (talk) 06:25, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, but I don't think it's analogous to these in an important way. In many cases, the en dash is used because we are constructing a phrase made up of more than one independent, self-standing place: such as (1) New York and (2) Pennsylvania. There is no unified place called "New York–Pennsylvania", "New Mexico–Arizona", "Georgia–South Carolina", or "New Jersey–Albania", so of course we would not use a hyphen. That's what makes these municipality cases different—the name that uses the dash/hyphen is a self-standing, independent place name. This is why the analogy to double-barrelled names is useful—once the combination of two surnames becomes an independent surname unto itself, we start using a hyphen, not an en dash. The same principle also applies once the double-barrelled place name becomes a place name unto itself. Good Ol’factory (talk) 07:04, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Gorenja Vas and Poljane are independent, self-standing places, and the phrase "Municipality of Gorenja Vas–Poljane" is made up of their names to describe the administrative unit. There is no unified place called Gorenja Vas–Poljane. Doremo (talk) 08:15, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sure there is–it's the administrative unit called the "Municipality of Gorenja Vas–Poljane" (whether with hyphen or dash, which is what is being discussed). It is a place with an independent legal existence that is separate from that of the settlements which make it up. That's why we have a Wikipedia article about it but not an article about "New York–Pennsylvania". (Just because a new name is made up by combining two or more self-standing place names doesn't mean the individual places whose names are used necessarily lose their own self-standing nature.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:50, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, "Gorenja Vas–Poljane" is not the name of the municipality per se, no more than "San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward" is the name of the San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Doremo (talk) 09:42, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "Gorenja Vas–Poljane" versus "Municipality of Gorenja Vas–Poljane" is a distinction with relevance in this context. Good Ol’factory (talk) 20:46, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the main point, a hyphen obscures such a name structure whereas a dash (also in line with WP:DASH) clarifies it—which seems a good reason to use the dash. Doremo (talk) 09:50, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And my point is that once a new name is created for a unified place, the need for highlighting the original source of the name structure disappears because the source of the name essentially becomes an interesting—but not crucial—factoid. Good Ol’factory (talk) 20:55, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The arguments presented by Doremo seem more convincing to me: the clarity and the conventional way of forming such compound names, like e.g. San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is more in line with WP:DASH: "the relationship is thought of as parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional, or at least involving separate or independent elements." --Eleassar my talk 15:49, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I guess what I am not clear on is why we would want to indicate parallelism, equality, oppositionism, or emphasising separate/independent elements in this name in these cases. Once it is decided by whomever that there is a geographical entity and they are going to give that entity a name, why does it matter that the name is designed by combining multiple place names? Why is this something that we need to take special orthographic care to indicate? Why is it not rather treated like Gharb-Chrarda-Béni Hssen or Laâyoune-Boujdour-Sakia El Hamra, which were designed in a similar fashion? (And in any case, there is some pretty good evidence that San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area is misnamed—the US government uses hyphens in the names of these types of areas, not endashes.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 20:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The suggested change would convert an unambiguous name that conforms to WP:DASH into an ambiguous name. Doremo (talk) 03:21, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom; it's no different from Austria-Hungary, Winston-Salem, or similar situations. Follow normal English usage and don't confuse everyone. Nyttend (talk) 22:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is incorrect. As explained above, it is different from "Austria-Hungary" and "Winston-Salem" because one or more of the conjoined elements contains internal spaces. Doremo (talk) 02:55, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the user might be saying that the fact that there are internal spaces should not render it any different in practice. That is my position as well. Anyhow, there are plenty of other examples of the hyphenated/spaced kind, as outlined above: Gharb-Chrarda-Béni Hssen, Laâyoune-Boujdour-Sakia El Hamra, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and so forth. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:36, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • In real English (examples 1, 2 [look for the second appearance of "Van Wert"], and 3), we don't care whether there are internal spaces. Nyttend (talk) 07:40, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • Poorly edited websites are hardly compelling guidance. Please check a standard style guide, such as The Chicago Manual of Style. Doremo (talk) 08:18, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Patronisation is not a good look. But as long as we're doing it, I think there's a fair chance that I have read The Chicago Manual of Style (and several other major style guides) through as many times as anyone who has commented on this page, but I still hold by my position. If this was not a unified name of a singular entity, I would agree with you, but this is not a garden-variety endash situation. (The same style guides would also suggest placing an endash between "Austria" and "Hungary" when referring to, for instance, the current Austria–Hungary border, but not when "Austria" and "Hungary" are combined into a placename for a particular unified place: Austria-Hungary. The rule doesn't need to change on account of a space.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
              • That is incorrect. Please see § 7.85 of The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed., p. 379), which recommends a hyphen in "the US-Canada border" (and thus "the Austria-Hungary border" with a hyphen). The relevant recommendation for an en dash when one element consists of an open compound is at CMS § 6.80. The same recommendation for an en dash is found in various other style guides (Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors, The Facts on File Guide to Good Writing, Microsoft Manual of Style, The Handbook of Good English, Type and Typography, Geological Survey of Canada Guide to Authors, The Architect's Guide to Writing, etc.). Doremo (talk) 10:39, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                • According to CMS, those rules you are citing apply "for compounds". If a phrase with a hyphen/dash is a place name, it is not a compound. Compounds are words that the writer is independently deciding to place together in a compounded fashion. Writers do not make this decision for place names—they just are what they are. (If the writer is compounding more than one place name, then that's another story. Here, the place name was created using a compounding process, but once that compounding process is completed to create a new place name, we don't have to worry about the rules of compounds any longer. As a result, to use an endash in this case could carry with it the implication that the writer is constructing this place name for his own purposes.) Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:42, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Incorrect. See CMS § 7.81 and § 7.85 for place names as compounds. Doremo (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
                    • It's easy to throw out "incorrect"s, but in my copy, § 7.81 is about "compound modifiers before or after a noun" and § 7.85 is the "hyphenation guide for compounds and words formed with prefixes", neither of which discusses place names as compounds. It's difficult to discuss this subject when we don't even seem to share a common understanding of what sections are relevant in one of the underlying reference works. But in any case, I've said my piece and can see that you're adhering to your position, and me to mine, so I don't feel that this is particularly productive for me to continue. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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