Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 April 4

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April 4

What determines when TM is used in superscript?

What is the convention which determines when TM is used in superscript in formal writing? Does a company have a legal requirement of motivation? If I write my thesis and refer to multiple products used, is there any reason for me to include the mark? Or it just for entities declaring ownership of the trademark? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.47.59 (talk) 13:34, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

This article may be useful to you. --Jayron32 14:17, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

That's a good resource for the first part of the question. For the second part, use in a thesis, I would direct the OP to talk with their thesis adviser about the relevant manual of style. For example, the one for Wikipedia is here (where we advise against using those symbols). Matt Deres (talk) 15:13, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Use of former, retired in DAB pages

Often on disambiguation pages I see "retired football player" or "former player". Isn't this unnecessary? A person stops playing football but they don't stop being a football player. From the point of view of an encyclopedia, that person will always be a football player. Everything in Wikipedia is past. And yet Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, seems to exist in a kind of eternal now or past-is-present. The Manual of Style says, "By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering products or works that have been discontinued."

A lede in an article, not a DAB page, might say, "He is a football player for Chicago", "He was a football player for Chicago", "He is a football player who played for Chicago", "He is a former football player for Chicago", "He was a football player who played for Chicago". Does "was" indicate retirement or death? Is "former" a necessity or superfluous?

I read articles that bounce back and forth between past and present tense, further hampered by a troubling obsession with the words "currently" and "initially". The second can usually be omitted unless it's a preparation for a sentence describing a fundamental change. The first is, I think, what the documentation forbids when it talks about time-sensitive material. One runs the risk of sounding like television or the newspaper. One runs the risk of writing something that is false or that will soon become false, such as "He has recorded four albums" or "He has won two Grammy Awards."

These comments are inchoate and murky, but do you see what I'm getting at? Might there be a reason why "former" and "retired" are unnecessary on DAB pages and perhaps article pages? Thank you for your responses.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:52, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, but I (personally) think you're wrong about the "former" or "retired" being unnecessary. If you're not playing football any longer, you're no longer a football player in my book. Yes, there are going to be edge cases, like people off on injury or in salary disputes or something, but even there that is clearly their current profession. However, as this question is really about how we on Wikipedia should phrase things rather than standard English usage, I think this belongs more at the Village Pump, where you could get more specific responses and a wider audience. Matt Deres (talk) 19:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

In a context like an article lead, I see a simple three-way distinction:

• He is a football player—he's still active.
• He is a retired football player—he's no longer active, but is still alive.
• He was a football player—he's dead.

Wikipedia is different from a print encyclopedia in that these descriptions can be readily updated when the guy's status changes. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 20:21, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with that approach. When a "former football player" dies, it's important to drop the word "former", otherwise we get "... was a former football player", which sounds like he's still alive and has returned to playing football. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:29, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

One thing I've never been able to understand is describing a retired player as "a former great". If he/she achieved greatness in their field, then that greatness continues in perpetuity, no? They don't suddenly stop being great, do they? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:10, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Surely they do. A dead football player is no longer a great football player.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:01, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

But Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et al are widely considered "great composers", centuries after their deaths. This is different from regarding their timeless works as "great"; the composers themselves are considered to have enduring greatness. Why not dead sportspeople or whatever else? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:43, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

The problem is how to make it sound right in English without sounding too wordy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I dunno, Jack. I would certainly raise an eyebrow at any phrase that mentioned Mozart personally in any kind of present tense like that. Mozart was a great composer. Mozart is considered a great composer. Both sound okay, but 'Mozart is a great composer' just sounds like a set-up for the 'Sure, but what has he written lately?' retort. Matt Deres (talk) 13:51, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Let's unpack your "Mozart is considered a great composer". Could that be rewritten as "Mozart is considered to be a great composer"? Or would you insist on "Mozart is considered to have been a great composer"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Fair point; I'm not sure I would maintain the distinction at that level. I suppose the nature of the work colours the usage, where Mozart's compositions are still sitting there composed, while Knute Rockne's forward passes have long since been completed. Being more transitory, maybe it just seems more natural to think of them in the past tense. Matt Deres (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I get that. But if I asked you to list 10 great football players, would you feel limited to current players, or would it include retired and dead players like Knute Rockne? People still talk about Abraham Lincoln as a great president, never as a "former great". This weird terminology seems to be restricted to sportspeople, and for that we can thank the eternally inventive minds of sports journalists, bless them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:52, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Thrashed out here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 June 13#"Was a former". 92.19.170.76 (talk) 10:32, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Bluebottle

What exactly does the component -bottle hark back to?--Kohlscheid (talk) 19:35, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Why not simply the resemblance of the shiny bluish fly to a little bottle made of blue glass? --69.159.62.113 (talk) 20:24, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

That would be my guess also, but see folk etymology for why such suppositions are often incorrect. Matt Deres (talk) 23:54, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I did check some dictionaries before posting (finding no information), but not the OED, where I would have found... --69.159.62.113 (talk) 05:55, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

According to the OED, well, it's complicated. Sense 3 (the insect one) of the word bluebottle is "probably humorously after sense 1, with allusion to the blue colour of the things denoted". Sense 1 of bluebottle is an alternative name for the cornflower. The second element in that word is bottle, the name of "various flowering plants, mainly members of the family Asteraceae found growing among corn". The word bottle in the glass sense is originally unrelated, although the plant name was "probably apprehended in later use as a specific sense development of BOTTLE n.3 [i.e. the glass sense], on account of the shape of the ovary or calyx in some of the plants so named". Bottle in the sense that concerns us comes from bothen, also a plant name, of uncertain origin. "Perhaps", says the OED, "compare the second element of Old High German beresboto weed, darnel (itself of uncertain and disputed origin), and for the ulterior etymology perhaps compare ancient Greek ϕυτόν plant (see PHYTO- comb. form)." --Antiquary (talk) 09:38, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] The OED (1971) has it that the oldest recorded use of the term to describe the fly occurs in a 1720 poem Flies by Prior – "What Blue-bottle alive / Did with such fury drive". Older than this is the meaning of an official in a dark blue suit, such as a beadle or policeman, dated as far back as Shakespeare's 1597 Henry IV, Part 2 (Act 5, scene 4, line 22) – ". . . you blew Bottel'd Rogue", and oldest of all as a common name for the blue cornflower Centaurea cyanus, recorded from 1551 in Turner's Herbal – "Blewbottel groweth in the corne". No reasons for the use of the term "bottle" in these meanings is given.

One might wonder if the fly sense derives from Bot or Botts referring to the maggots of various flies which infect cattle and other animals, often living under the skin and boring holes (also called bots) in the hide through which they breathe and eventually exit. This is usually now restricted to the Botfly Oestrus equi and fellows of its genus. Thus bluebottle flies would merely be the blue (as opposed to other-coloured) flies resulting from maggots. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.51 (talk) 10:21, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

The brothers Grimm, in turn, compare beresboto to Old English boðen meaning Lolium. Cheers ✦ _hugarheimur 10:43, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all very much for your help and detailed explanations! Best wishes--Kohlscheid (talk) 15:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)