User talk:MaxxFordham

Latter Day Saint v. Latter-day Saint

While I appreciate your zeal in trying to preserve the truth and correct the name of the Church, "Latter Day Saint" refers to all of the branches of the Latter Day Saint movement, where Latter-day Saint refers only to the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Also, the 1835 edition of the D&C was titled "The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints". It should be obvious why this title was later changed (the Church itself has never, to my knowledge, been named "The Church of the Latter Day Saints"). The Jade Knight 23:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm assuming the comment from 24.2.95.17 was from you. I have heard it put that, historically, "Latter-day" was British usage and American was "Latter Day". Of course, this is arbitrary. However, not all compound adjectives in English (at least in American English) need to be hyphenated. One good example is "Armed Forces Personnel". The use of "Latter-day Saint" to refer exclusively to the Church of Jesus Christ is, indeed, fairly arbitrary, but it is based on historical usage and provides a convenient distinction, once you get used to it. It is important to note, however, that other non-Latter-day Saint Latter Day Saints dislike being referred to as "Latter-day Saints", as they feel that usage applies only to the Church of Jesus Christ. The Jade Knight 04:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Another thought: sometimes the same word, when borrowed into English, can take on two entirely different meanings. For example, etymologically, "Guardian" and "Warden" are the same word, as are "Skirt" and "Shirt". Historical context determines usage. The Jade Knight 04:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any way to privately message another user, unfortunately. Feel free to IM me on AIM, however. My SN is "Knighted Dawn". Concerning the distinction between Latter-day and Latter Day; I know you may not like it grammatically, but it serves a useful function; both "Latter-day Saint" and "Latter Day Saint" are considered proper nouns of a sort, and, if you get into X-bar theory, both "Latter-day" and "Latter Day" are adjective specifiers for a noun phrase. The hyphen is simply a convention, and is not necessary. Some adjectives are compounded "solidly" ("baseball", for example), some are hyphenated ("left-branching" is an example), and some are left "open" (such as "Old English", as in "Old English teacher"). While "latter-day" in its uncapitalized (and thus a-Mormon) form would probably be preferred over "latter day", when used as a proper noun the hyphen is, grammatically, unnecessary. As such, a semantic distinction has occured between the hyphenated form, used by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the unhyphenated form used by other Latter Day Saints (and formerly used by the Church in its early days). The Jade Knight 08:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

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You may thinnk of "baseball" as being strictly a noun, but context determines its part of speech. For example, take the word "run". You may think of it as a verb, but in the phrase "I'm going to go for a run", it's a noun (and not even a gerund, a pure noun). This goes back to X-bar theory, again. When a noun becomes an adjectival specifier, then it's an adjective. Regarding "Old English teacher", there is a significant difference between "old english teacher" and "Old English teacher" (something like the difference between latter-day saint and Latter Day Saint, actually). "Old-English teacher" would be considered nonstandard usage.

Furthermore, the problem rests that usage changes over time. "Latter Day Saint" was considered acceptable American in the 19th century, but in Britain "Latter-day Saint" was preferred, and with the large influx of British saints, the name of the Church was eventually to "Latter-day Saint". Neither, however, is considered "incorrect" in America (yes, some compound words are allowed to be hyphenated or not, depending on the writer/editor's preference. "Email" is currently a good example; "e-mail" used to be standard, but now "email" is also generally considered acceptable).

One thing to remember is that a) grammar is not standardized in America (in other words, there is no one right way to write, though there is a general concept of "Standard American English". However, even grammar books frequently differ on the details), and b) grammar and what is accepted as "Standard" changes over time. 50 years ago, you would never have gotten away with writing "can't" in a story, essay, or even letter, if someone was checking your grammar. It was considered absolutely non-standard. Furthermore, The Elements of Style (one such grammar text) emphatically (to this day) denounces using "people" as a plural for "person," which I, personally, find rediculous. The Jade Knight 21:58, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured Article

I think that's impossible—I'm willing to bet Wikipedia policy is to, without fail, turn over articles on the hour. Sorry (it would have been nice had the rotation begun later). The Jade Knight 02:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It is impossible - featured articles are selected in general at least a week in advance, and 10-30 articles are selected at a time and scheduled to appear. However, early this week, the administrator of the FA moved Fauna of Australia back a few days to accomodate the request to feature Early life on the 23rd. All featured articles run for 24 hours only and start and end on Greenich Mean time (or UTC). Trödel•talk 03:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

British Series

Beats the hell out of me how they keep them straight, but they do in fact call one year's worth of shows a "series". For example, if you go to the official X Factor site [1] you'll see that at the top it is titled "Series 5". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbernard80 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Billy Mays

You need to limit the content to claims that are actually supported by the cite. The source has to support the claim; first hand observations from watching the show are not verifiable. The referenced web site does not mention the products you added to the list, so I will again remove them. Please discuss this at the article talk page if you feel differently. Also, thanks for correcting my typo, but please remember to be civil. Finally, why is it "important" in a list of products that were promoted by Billy Mays to include that Simoniz is used on vehicles or that that other product is marketed for other kinds of vehicles? The source says "repair car dents" and "repair scratches". Past that is not supported. Celestra (talk) 14:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not an admin, just a fellow editor. My only authority comes from experience and having reached an agreement with other editors which I am implementing. Some other editors and I got together on the talk page of that article to try to put a reasonable scope on the list of products. The problem we were solving was that the list was growing to be much larger than all of the other content on his biography and the entries were looking more like advertisements than something that belongs in an encyclopedia. The solution we came up with was to limit the list to those products that he was "known" for having pitched and the criteria for that was that a source about him mentioned the product. You are more than welcome to join that conversation and try to form a different criteria, but that's where it stands today. We editors aren't allowed to do original research by viewing those videos and reporting what is in them. We have to rely on the text of those sites to tell us what is on the different episodes. That is just the way things work here. I originally removed "Omni-dual saw" since Omni didn't appear in the source. On this second pass, I noticed that there was a "Dual saw" mentioned, so I changed it rather than removing it. From the point of view of a list of products that Billy Mays was known for having pitched, I don't agree that it is "important" that the dent remover works on other types of vehicles or that Simoniz is marketed to cars rather than shower stalls. Reasonable people can disagree about that, though. Please come to the talk page for the article and disagree. We can sort something out. Long term, I hope the marketing value goes away so that we can remove the list and replace it with prose about those few items that have real meaning to a biography. Celestra (talk) 02:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll start at the end of you concerns and work my way back. The article is a biography. A biography is about a person, not about every detail of his work. Had Billy Mays been a Civil Engineer, I would object the same way to a list of all of the roads he worked on. Mentioning the first product, the last product, the most popular and so forth in prose would seem more appropriate and is missing from that article. Regarding the WP:OSE argument, we are not discussing those other articles.

Concerning the civility, the overall tone of your edit summaries the other day was aggressive. In the midst of that, you made what you call humor about me. I'll accept your claim that you didn't mean to be uncivil, but that's how it came across. I offered the advice about not being uncivil to be helpful; you are free to disregard it if you feel you were being civil. "Discuss the edits, not the editor." You will notice that I had solved the variable "pickiness" confusion earlier by dropping 'car' from the dent repair tool descrition.

The arguments about the scratch remover and the dent remover are basically the same. Adding the word 'vehicle' to the descriptions of these products does not enhance the reader's understanding of Billy Mays, so I'd leave them out. If you feel that it does improve the biography, please share your reasonong on the article's talk page. If you can reach a consensus with the other editors, go ahead and put it back in. I withdraw my objection about 'vehicle' not appearing on the source.

Just a word or two about those sources you mentioned. The wave at www.simoniz.com is not a reference. Just as you include page numbers when you reference a book, so that it is easily verifiable, you can't just say "somewhere on that website"; you need to point to the page that makes the claim. I assume that whereever that page is, it doesn't talk about Billy Mays, so that reference would only be good only for the description and not the inclusion in the list. The other reference would be questionable for most editors. A web page order form for the product is not generally a reliable source for information about the product and may be seen as advertising.

Finally, again, please try to avoid personalizing this. I do not have a team. Some of our fellow editors and I reached a consensus and implemented it. If you disagree with that consensus, the place to present your reasonong is on that article's talk page. Read WP:RS to understand why you can't reference a tv show. Go to WP:RSN and ask directly if you don't think that RS makes it clear. Celestra (talk) 15:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Warning

I've reviewed your edits at Mitt Romney and United States. You appear to be edit-warring over a change you'd like to make, instead of politely getting consensus, and then changing the article if there's consensus to do so. You seem to be edit-warring to change the way English is spoken, but that isn't something that is accomplished by changing Wikipedia. In English, people from the United States are called "Americans," and the United States is often referred to informally as "America." I understand that you wish that people from the United States were called something else, and that "America" was not used as an informal name for the United States, but the fact that you don't like those usages doesn't mean that they don't exist. If you want to change the way people think about the word "America," that's fine, but Wikipedia isn't the right place to carry out that mission. In the process of trying to change English by changing Wikipedia, you're also making a large number of personal attacks against users who disagree with you that Wikipedia should change from English as it is spoken to English as you think it ought to be spoken. That's not okay; it's disruptive. I want you to know that I'm going to check in, from time to time, on your edits. It would be a good idea to find some other useful work you can do on Wikipedia, because if I see further attempts to push your point of view regarding the word 'America,' if I see further edit-warring, or if I see further personal attacks, I will block you from editing without further notice. Thank you. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 12:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you could take your Crusade Against Common Usage off of Wikipedia, perhaps to BBC Radio. I'm sure they'll welcome correction. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 13:16, 1 May 2010 (UTC)