Talk:Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy Grammar School

Looking for more information, as it is not mentioned here, but several other articles have links or mentions to such an institution. Doug butler (talk) 14:02, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be a reference to the Burgh School being a grammar school. The referencing in this article is less than clear when it comes to the various Kirkcaldy Civic Society publications listed in the bibliography, as it notes them all simply as Kirkcaldy Civic Society, distinguishing them only by year of publication (particularly ambiguous in the case of the two published in 2000). That said, if the assertion that "The (Burgh) school was located at Hill Street before being replaced by Kirkcaldy Grammar School on St Brycedale Avenue in 1843" is supposed to be supported by p21 of Kirkcaldy: A History and Celebration and p44 of Kirkcaldy Remembered, I've not been able to lay my hands on my copy of the former yet but the latter refers to the 1843 establishment as the "new Burgh School" and the term grammar does not appear on the page at all. At the start of the chapter on schools, Kirkcaldy Remembered refers to the original 1582 establishment as being a grammar school but doesn't call it that by name. Numerous other publications refer to the establishment as the Burgh School when first established in 1582 and also for the 1843 building, with it becoming Kirkcaldy High School when rebuilt in the 1890s. Kirkcaldy Burgh and Schyre (MacBean et al) uses the term Burgh School and Grammar School interchangeably in its education chapter but never uses the full term, Kirkcaldy Grammar School.

It's the Burgh School/High School. Mutt Lunker (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll create a redirect and add a mention in the article. I'd be grateful if you could follow up my (probably ham-fisted) note with a ref when you can. Doug butler (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

As Kirkcaldy Grammar School appears to be a misnomer for the school it's not really possible to provide a reference to that fact. What were you intending to write and in which article? Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I understand it was not an official name for the school and have not added it to any article, but four articles (Peter Nicol Russell, Robert Alexander Bryden, Alexander Nimmo and Philip Patton) have that exact term, and must have come from published biographies. Clearly it was an accepted synonym by the biographer, if not the subjects, three of whom would have gone to the Hill Street institution. This article mentions that it was a better class of school, which to me indicates that Latin and Greek were taught. So "Kirkcaldy Grammar" as a loose description makes sense to this old duffer. Doug butler (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Not to this one. I can find no evidence, in multiple books ranging over more than the last century, that the term Kirkcaldy Grammar School was ever applied locally so that this misapprehension has arisen and the misnomer has been perpetuated in certain Australian refs is no grounds to say that it was. That is WP:OR or at best WP:SYNTH. If a redirect should exist, it should be to the intended school, what is now Kirkcaldy High School. Mutt Lunker (talk) 21:39, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

OR indeed! I'm just trying to make some useful links to a term I found in one article and discovered again in three others. As for sources, I checked one only of each of the internet-available references and each had that exact phrase; the Australian Dictionary of Biography, which you lightly dismiss, but taking the other three articles in turn (none of them Colonial) RCAHMS, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a history of the Royal Navy. Doug butler (talk) 22:19, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Major works of reference have, apparently, comparable error rates to Wikipedia on comparable subject matter. Pointing out an apparent error in one of them does not dismiss the work and being a major work of reference does not give exemption from scrutiny. Being of Australian heritage myself, I am hardly prejudiced against the "colonial". None of the source articles which use the specific name Kirkcaldy Grammar School have their main focus on Kirkcaldy's history or education in Scotland, so should hold less weight on the matter than the numerous sources which do have such a focus and which only use the term generically, that the Burgh School was a grammar school. I assume it wasn't the intention but to indicate that Kirkcaldy Remembered states that "It has been referred to" so is not a correct attribution.

It is perhaps unsurprising that reference's such as this and this, referring to the Burgh School as "Kirkcaldy's grammar school" may have been misinterpreted by other sources as indicating the name of the insitution. We need much more solid evidence before stating emphatically that this was used as an alternate name. The links and the redirect which have resulted from this discussion are however useful in indicating the body which is being referred to in the articles in question. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:44, 25 October 2021 (UTC)