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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. 7 Feb 2004‎

List of English words with frequent misuse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

  • This article is ludicrously POV and by its very nature cannot be made NPOV. -Branddobbe 03:35, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. I've been trying to NPOV it for a while, but there's only so much that can be done. At the very least, it could be moved to a usage Wikibook. --Nohat 04:18, 2004 Feb 5 (UTC)
    • Keep. I don't like the title, but I have done my best to NPOV the article, I just rewrote the introduction. It is useful, should be kept (and expanded). fabiform | talk 04:36, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • I've also just added a few more like the difference between lay and lie. I think this should be a really useful resource. fabiform | talk 07:30, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep and let it grow: it has potential to become a useful resource for English teachers and students. ping 06:58, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • There's a fair potential for overlap here with List of English words with disputed usage. By all means keep one or the other; it will be hard to distinguish "misused" words with "disputed usage." I would keep the data and merge it at one or t'other. (Smerdis of Tlön 12:41, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC))
    • Keep, but for god's sake change the title to "List of frequently misused English words." The current title is ungrammatical (or at least, it doesn't mean what it's supposed to mean). Exploding Boy 13:02, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. The title is not good, so would agree to that being changed. One problem is that the purpose of the page has been changed away from its original intention, and has become a dumping ground for relatively minor issues which are quite open to opinion. However, some of it, and most of the original content, is much more easy to reach a consensus on. Much of the so-called NPOVing has caused this, because one of the main editors appears to be a very forceful "descriptive" linguist, and appears to have made it his mission to excise any "prescriptive" approach in the article, even though that is a valid approach in itself in reality. In other words the NPOV is nothing of the kind - the article needs to accommodate both approaches somehow, in the proper spirit of wikipedia.Graham 14:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • It is curious I am being blamed for turning the page into a "dumping ground for relatively minor issues which are quite open to opinion", when, in fact, if you look at my edit history you will see that I have only removed and revised entries, not added. And regardless of the validity of the prescriptive approach, saying that something is "correct" or "incorrect" is as POV as it gets and HAS to be qualified by "Prescriptive grammarians say" or similar wording every time. I rescind my vote to delete now that the article has been NPOVed to my satisfaction. --Nohat 19:39, 2004 Feb 5 (UTC)
        • But not to mine, so it's not satisfying everybody ;-) Not even close. Incidentally I didn't mention any names, but if the cap fits... Yes, I think a prescriptive approach to many issues in English is valid - explain otherwise the popularity of the book "Eats, shoots and leaves" in the last few months - a prescriptive guide to grammar in English which has been top of the bestseller lists in the UK for a while - a unique achievement, and one which surely indicates that people do care about language and will not just roll over and accept sloppy usage, as you appear willing to do. The problem is the page is no longer bearing any resemblance to my original intention, it has been hijacked for other purposes. Maybe for that reason it would be better to start over and delete it, so I hereby change my vote.Graham 22:16, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. Nonencyclopedic, irretrievably POV, and stupid. Anthony DiPierro 21:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but I just don't see how this is POV. The article basically deals with the confusion of words like "accept" and "except", and with the misuse of apostrophes (its and it's). As far as I can see, and I've read it twice, there's nothing debatable in any of its entries. As to it being nonencyclopaedic, plenty of undisputed Wikipedia articles would not be found in a traditional encyclopaedia; that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Keep. Exploding Boy 22:25, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
      • Exactly! And please consider people learning or teaching English as a foreign language, people translating, students trying to find out what will be accepted by their teachers, etc. When I'm emailing friends of course I don't care if I've used lay and lie correctly, but when I'm handing in a French translation, you can be sure that I do. If this is POV in its current form (where it pussy-foots around talking about standard and non-standard English) then we can probably strike down all the wikipedia articles on language, slang, grammar, and why not wiktionary while we're at it? Some people see prescriptive grammar as restrictive, and other people see it as empowering. I certainly love to find out exactly how language works so that I can then knowingly trample all over it whenever I get the urge. fabiform | talk 23:16, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. But I do agree - change the name to "List of frequently misused English words." Pollinator 23:58, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • I say keep. And incidentally, I don't mean to take sides in the argument here; I don't know technical grammar (constant minor editing to the contrary). However, I would like to say that, IMHO, the "standard/nonstandard" construction is quite confusing. The usages listed aren't "nonstandard", as I would use the term; they're wrong. I also agree with the name change, BTW. Meelar 04:35, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • A voice of reason, thankyou! Yes, the usages are WRONG, there isn't much dispute about it, except from one quarter. In the so-called NPOV-ing of the page, correct/incorrect examples were insipidised to standard/non-standard. This is the work of one zealous editor, who appears to think that NPOV means HIS "politically correct" POV. At present I vote to delete the page in its present form, but if it were changed back to its original and much more worthwhile form, I'd say keep. Graham 08:52, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
        • And blasting people up and down for being arbitrarily "wrong" when they speak their native language as they have learned to speak it from everyone growing up around them is somehow preferable? -Branddobbe 02:39, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Some of this may not be perfect, and maybe it needs some context about the nature of such disputes and of the value (or lack thereof) of having a concept like a standard form of a language, but this is a problem solved by addition, not deletion. -- Jmabel 09:04, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep, but change the title. Also, consider moving to an non-NPOV site, like Wikibooks... -- James F. (talk) 16:19, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep as part of the encyclopedic coverage of the English language. If other projects want to make a copy for their use as well, that's fine. Jamesday 14:04, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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