Talk:Sorrel (horse)

Chestnut/Sorrel merger

Discussion on this subject has started at Talk:Chestnut (coat). For simplicity can I suggest that we keep all discussion there for the moment? We can copy it to here at a later date if appropriate. --Richard New Forest (talk) 13:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Verbous intro

The intro currently reads:

Sorrel is a term describing one of the most common equine coat colors in horses, the shade commonly known as chestnut. While it is usually used to refer to a copper-red shade of chestnut horse, in some places it is used generically in place of the term "chestnut" to describe any reddish horse with a same-color or lighter mane and tail, ranging from reddish-gold to a deep burgundy or chocolate shade.

1. Wikipedia is about phenomena and not about terms.
2. That sorrel is a term is t obvious to be mentioned.
3. To describe what an adjective is or does one should focus on what it conveyes, not what it describes. One way to define it is to specify the range of objects that have the corresponding characteristic, the objects that it can refer to.
4. There is no nead to state twice that sorrel is chestnut, especially since we want to draw attention to the fact that it is often used in a more general sense.
5. There is no need to state three times in two sentences, back to back, that this i about horses.
6. In general, it is better to use fewer letters.

With these motivations I propose change to

Sorrel is one of the most common equine coat colors in horses. While the term is usually used to refer to a copper-red shade of chestnut, in some places it is used generically in place of "chestnut" to refer to any reddish horse with a same-color or lighter mane and tail, ranging from reddish-gold to a deep burgundy or chocolate shade.

--Ettrig (talk) 07:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not arguing about the grammar, I'm just wanting to make sure we have the nuance properly defined. But it's the end of a long workweek and my brain is fried. Short version of a longer story is that I don't want to lose the nuance: "chestnut" is the primary term for horses that have their coat color defined by the "e" allele termed "red" by geneticists, and in its purest genetic form, it IS the classic copper-red shade. "Sorrel" is a regional colloquialism for the copper-red shade, but a very common one in some places (common enough to start an edit war if we merged the articles, probably, and I don't have the energy to fight about it) Out here in the west, a lot of people call the classic copper-red shade "sorrel," but not the darker shades of chestnut. (Particularly in the American Quarter Horse, where they define both Chestnut and Sorrel, but the definitions overlap one another, actually...) Seriously, I was about 12 before I learned that a sorrel was actually "supposed to" be called a chestnut! LOL! (I still say "crick" for "creek" and "chinnook" instead of "foehn" too...)

However, somewhere back a few years ago when I did the rewrite on this article, there was also a bunch of stuff claiming that other regions of the English-speaking world used the term "sorrel" to describe all chestnuts, or flaxen chestnuts, or light chestnuts, etc...and frankly I did not have the time or energy then (nor do I at the moment now) to fight with them about it. Hence the odd language.

So take a look at this, if it works, pop it in, if it doesn't, pop in what you think will work, and I'll look at the diffs later:

Sorrel is an alternative word describing one of the most common equine coat colors in horses. While the term is usually used to refer to a copper-red shade of chestnut, in some places it is used generically in place of "chestnut" to refer to any reddish horse with a same-color or lighter mane and tail, ranging from reddish-gold to a deep burgundy or chocolate shade.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) 23:45, 3 September 2010

Ettrig is quite right: we can't have a definition of the word (such as "is a term"), as that makes the article a clear dictionary definition. We also can't have "is an alternative word", which would essentially be admitting that we have duplicate articles. The answer to the latter would be to merge the articles (as we have discussed before, though I'd nearly forgotten).

I don't think there really would be any difficulty in a merged article with the terms being used differently. The subject of the article would be the horse coat colour of red with red(-dish) mane & tail; it would explain the various terms used for such horses and sub-types.

If there are two different red horse coat colours, then we should have two articles, even if they are sometimes both called by the same name. If there is one red coat colour with variations in naming, then we must have one article which explains those differences in terminology. (I say "brook" or "stream" for "creek"...) Richard New Forest (talk) 09:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The only thing I "brook" is no nonsense! LOL! That said, I personally would be OK with a merge. IMHO, "sorrel" is a mere colloquialism for the correct term, which is "chestnut." However, several million American Quarter Horse owners would at least raise an eyebrow, and somewhere in the back of my (still fried) brain, I have a memory of an edit war over this. Maybe the thing to do is pop in merge tags and then post an alert at WPEQ talk and see if anyone cares. Ealdgyth is the Quarter Horse expert and may have some useful comments. Montanabw^(talk) 17:16, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Article should redirect to Chestnut_(coat)?

An editor reverted my edit with the comment "sorrels are chestnuts, end of story". If this is true obviously sorrel should just redirect. You can't have it both ways. Either they are synonyms with a redirect, or this article is about a separate topic. 199.167.59.110 (talk) 02:27, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I favor a redirect, but merging takes time and work, and no one has offered to do it, so it’s up to me and this is not the highest priority on my 5000-article watchlist. Montanabw^(talk) 01:05, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I am also in support of a redirect. I'll try and work on it if I have some time Miscellaneous edits (talk) 16:48, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)