Talk:Benjamin Lee Whorf/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tomcat7 (talk · contribs) 14:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

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Ok, very good, just some nitpicks I have found (some of which I had previously corrected myself):

• "In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee.[4] Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior.[6]" - I think either of these statements should be moved or reworded as irritating (marriage, then suddenly something quite different)
• "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical" - is the uppercase of "Theosophical" correct?
• "According to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible," - I think the underlined should be written in lowercase
• "Sociolinguistics and Linguistic anthropology" - should they be in lowercase?
• In "Contributions to Linguistic Theory", why is the quote in italics?--Tomcat (7) 15:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I've addressed these issues. "Theosophical" is a direct quote and appears in upper case in the original text, so I don't think it would be correct to change it.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:16, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• In light of the comments in the previous GA review could I ask you to make a specific comment on whether you find any remaining neutrality issues in the article? And whether you think there is information in the article that is redundant, irrelevant or which for other reasons shouldn't be part of a comprehensive article on Whorf?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:19, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• I will go through this article once again. (I agree with Matthew that some wordings are POVy):

Ok, are the below examples of POVy language or more general comments on language? The more specific you can be about places where the article may come across as non-neutral the better I can address that issue.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Early life

• "who both went on to become distinguished artists. " - distinguished is weasily (why and how were they distinguised?)
• "learning the Latin nomenclature of thousands of plants" - not sure why this is needed (does not seem to be that significant)
• "Conquest of Mexico" leads to the actual conquest

Career in fire prevention

• " (i.e., an inspector)" - do not abbreviate, write it out, per WP:ABBR
• "He seemed to have a particular knack for job" - should be reworded; "seemed" is weasily, "knack" is colloquial
• "Whorf was also excellent at attracting new customers to the Fire Insurance Company;" - weasily. How about "Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. "
• Why you put several times "empty" in quotes? And why at the end just "empty drums"?--Tomcat (7) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I have followed most of your suggestions, except the following:

i.e. "id est" is currently on the list of abbreviations that do not need to be written out in full, although apparently it is under discussion on the talkpage. I have simply removed the abbreviation here.

The reason for the use of scare quotes around "empty" is that Whorf argued that while the workers referred to them as "empty" because they no longer contained gasoline, they were in fact not empty, but rather full of flammable gasses. The scarequotes around "empty drums" show that this is a quote referring to Whorf's description of the drums that are called empty while they were in fact not, i.e. an example of the common use of scare quotes to " imply that it may not signify its apparent meaning or that it is not necessarily the way the quoting person would express its concept.". If you have an idea for a better way of showing that subtlety I am open for suggestions.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:29, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, the rest is fine. Passing now. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 15:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)