Battle of Locust Grove

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved, consensus against doing so. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 3:43pm • 05:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Asian-American history → Asian American history — Request reversion of article name change due to lack of consensus prior to change being made. Other articles about ethnic groups who are American citiens/nationals/residents have had the hyphen removed in previous name changes; furthermore not having the hyphen is keeping with similar naming convention listed at WP:EGRS. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: "Asian-American" is a compound modifier and therefore should be hyphenated when used as an adjective (hence the term, "hyphenated American"). –CWenger (talk) 20:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If this were the case then all X American, ethnic groups would then have to have the hyphen reinserted into the article name, as well as the wikiproject that this article is associated with should have its name changed as well.

There was a large push a few years back to remove all these hyphens. What is being proposed in this name change, and by the reasoning given by CWenger, is a very wide sweeping proposal. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a difference between Asian American (noun) and Asian-American (adjective) person. As an adjective (as in this article title) it should be hyphenated, but as a noun it should not. Can you point me to the move to remove these hyphens a few years back that you mentioned? As I look around I see some inconsistency (particularly category names), but not too much. –CWenger (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me search related article histories. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I may have been wrong on previous discussion statement; however, majority of hyphenated american article names for Asian Americans (examples Filipino-American, Japanese-American, Chinese-American, Indian-American, Vietnamese-American) are redirects to the non hyphenated article name. More importantly Asian-American is a redirect. Therefore, for my initial reasoning to stand Asian American is also a noun, creating a compound noun Asian American history.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:26, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Asian-American" has always been treated as a compound modifier of "history", and as such should be hyphenated. I highly doubt it could be considered a compound noun, but I admit I am not an expert here. –CWenger (talk) 02:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the places where I have placed a pls see template is to an active editor who is a published historian. Hopefully this individual responds and joins this discussion. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:14, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I have used the pls see template at related wikiprojects to invite other editors to discuss this proposed name change. I have also placed aforementioned template on two active editors of this article. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the indexes and abstracts for scholarly articles and books on Asian American topics published by leading journals and academic presses in the last 20 years to see how the leading writers and editors actually handle the matter. The great majority -- nine in ten-- do NOT use a hyphen. Rjensen (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have strong feelings either way, but User:CWenger is certainly correct that "Asian-American" is used as an adjective in this article's title. As such, use of hyphenation is consistent with the statements in Hyphenated American#American English and (for example) [1]. — Myasuda (talk) 13:26, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

However, given WP:UNC, and based on the statement by Rjensen (someone who could potentially be considered an expert in the field which this article falls within), should the move of this article be reverted? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rjensen is correct, the Google Books results almost as predominately do not use a hyphen. I am little unsure of what to do when reliable sources do not use standard grammar. –CWenger (talk) 18:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

when we see that the great majority of professional editors, scholars, writers and publishers use form XYZ, that's strong evidence that XYZ is NOT some sort of grammatical error. Wiki rule is that we must follow the RS--actual publications, not so-called "rules" that we editors may be misinterpreting.Rjensen (talk) 19:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess it is just a case of when something is hyphenated long enough, people tend to stop hyphenating it because they assume everybody understands what they mean. –CWenger (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given the new information, does user CWenger drop their opposition to the move? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any "overwhelming" here. Two of the first page are false positives (books which use "Asians in American history" in their titles, or some such) and the rest are divided. Let's have a dictionary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am certainly less opposed after seeing the Google Books results, but still a little unsure. I cannot find an official answer about whether or not WP:COMMONNAME includes punctuation. If so, keep in mind that the use of hyphens and dashes seems to differ in various fields. So would it be a problem if some articles use spaces, some use hyphens, some use dashes, and some use nothing for the exact same usage? Also, would we treat the content of articles differently from the titles? –CWenger (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per CWenger. Here "Asian-American" is an compound adjective and thus should be hyphenated as all compound adjectives are. Asian-American (adjective) history, but Asian Americans (noun). There's also the alternative of "History of Asian Americans", which would be unhyphenated. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• support Wiki requires us to follow the RS, which overwhelmingly reject the hyphen. Rjensen (talk) 11:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Apart from the manifest factual and analytical errors I find above, this matter needs to be handled centrally, at WT:MOS. There is current discussion at WT:MOS that affects thousands of articles with hyphens, spaces, or en dashes in premodifiers. To grind through all this article by far-flung article is ridiculously inefficient.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose until we see clearer reliable sources. The OED has no separate listing for Asian-American, but it has over a dozen listings for African-American, so spelt. Only two use a space; the rest use a hyphen. Furthermore, one of the exceptions is Theodore Parker's coinage from 1855. Why should Asian-American be different? (Ideally, all such matters should be resolved from dictionaries of the relevant national dialect; we should not invent usage.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there were no exceptions to hyphenation attested by the OED if we consider attributive phrases, as here. — kwami (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose for now per Noetica. I would accept an argument that the capitalization makes hyphenation unnecessary, if that's what the community decides. But there should be a centralized discussion, which should be added to the ethnicity-naming convention so that we don't keep repeating ourselves. — kwami (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Data

Look at the recent books by major publishers--no hyphens:

1. . The Scott & Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies, book series by U of Washington Press
2. . Asian American History and Culture, book series by Temple U Press
3. . Ends of Empire: Asian American Critique and the Cold War by Jodi Kim (univ Of Minnesota Press, 2010)
4. . The Columbia Guide to Asian American History by Gary Y. Okihiro (Columbia U Prss, 2005)
5. . Asian American Experience (book series U of Illinois Press)
6. . Major Problems in Asian American History: Documents and Essays by Lon Kurashige et al. (2002)
7. . Rethinking the Asian American Movement by Daryl Maeda (Routledge, 2011)
8. . Camp Harmony: Japanese American Internment and the Puyallup Assembly Center by Louis Fiset (U Illinois, 2009)
9. . The Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience by Franklin Odo (Columbia UP 2002)
10. . Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader by Jean Yu-wen Shen Wu and Thomas C. Chen (Rutgers University Press, 2010)
11. . Asian American History and Culture: An Encylopedia (Sharpe Reference, 2010) Rjensen (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And how many with hyphens? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of the first page of hits for "Asian(-)American" on GoogleBooks, all use spaces for attributive use, though sometimes with hyphens mixed in. I assume the latter are simply editorial oversights. — kwami (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you look hard you can find books with hyphens in the title--using Amazon I find in its first 40 listings only one hyphen--and it's in broken English:

1. My Mom is a Fob: Earnest Advice in Broken English from Your Asian-American Mom by Teresa Wu and Serena Wu (2011) Rjensen (talk) 06:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - There appears to be no consensus here, and the move itself was made without consensus, therefore, I propose that WP:IAR be implemented to revert the move. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:49, 9 April 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.