Talk:Éowyn

Éowyn has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: May 2, 2020. (Reviewed version).

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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Archives

1

Phrasing in lead - suggested change

I don't really like the phrasing of "she calls herself a shieldmaiden". Saying that "she claims to be" as opposed to "she is" has the implication that she thinks she is a shieldmaiden but in fact isn't. Clearly our goal is not to claim something about a character is truth just because they say it is but given that she (and Merry) were able to Kill the Witch-king when no other could I would argue she did prove her worth as a soldier of Rohan. I made an edit changing this and it (reasonably) was reverted by @Chiswick Chap because "shieldmaiden" isn't modern language used in wikipedia. Maybe it could be rephrased some way that avoid this issue but still uses modern English? I'm pretty new to wikipedia so I don't know the ins and outs of how everything should be done so I won't push it if nobody agrees with my but just wanted to suggest this. Flaming Hot Mess of Confusion (talk) 13:48, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed "calls" to "describes", which is certainly neutral, and certainly correct. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Storm Éowyn

I added the section about the storm as an illustration of the impact the character has had in our culture (no doubt largely because of Jackson's films) such that the name was suggested by many people. Even John Garth thinks that "Éowyn is an excellent name for a storm – especially one riding from the west." (edited - twice - can't deep-link to the actual post - actually, you can now)-- Verbarson ^talk_edits 17:53, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's very marginal. This is an article about the character (not the name) so material about the name is automatically a side-issue at best, or simply sharply off-topic. The storm is named in the disambiguation page, which is where such a thing is habitually indexed. "Even John Garth"'s comment, certainly the closest thing to establishing relevance that I've seen to date, is about the name ("an excellent name [for a storm]") and then secondarily alludes to the character; that says to me that the comment would fit well in the article about the storm. We would want something at least as reliable but rather more about the character to be more convincingly justifiable here. But maybe other folks will think differently. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Respell

@Chiswick Chap: mind explaining what about AY-oh-win “has no reliable output”? The template links to a very clear key and in this case every syllable is spelled in a straightforward way. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for discussing. I mean straightforwardly that people with different accents will simply pronounce "AY-oh-win" in their own ways, resulting in inconsistent interpretations. The "very clear key" may try to resolve the matter, but its informal approach will not succeed in creating a unified pronunciation, as it is approximate at best. IPAC has a rigorously defined approach used by linguists and scholars worldwide. It is sufficient. For this article, which has never in many years made use of "respell", with nobody asking about pronunciation on the talk page all that time, there is no good reason to introduce it now. One might add that given the enormous viewing figures for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series, it's doubtful if anyone reading the article actually needs assistance with pronunciation at all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:35, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get your point, but both {{IPAc-en}} and {{respell}} are supradialectal, i.e. they are not designed to tell a reader with what accent they are supposed to pronounce a name/word, rather the opposite as they cover the most widely spoken varieties of English. For example, /oʊ/ is used for [əʊ̯], [o̟ʊ̯], [oː] etc. so in a way, {{respell}} covers that even better without having to choose an IPA symbol commonly associated with one specific sound. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]