UESPWiki talk:Spelling

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Archive 1: Feb 2007 - Apr 2011
Archive 2: Apr 2011 - Apr 2013

A very specific capitalization question - To Thu'um or (not) to thu'um

At the risk of starting another marathon discussion, it seems like Thu'um should be capitalized. A quick search of the wiki shows a fairly even split between capped & non-capped. Thoughts? --Xyzzy ^Talk 05:29, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

How many of the capped ones are at the beginning of sentences? Jeancey (talk) 05:30, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Many, but not all. The point is that we are not consistent with this. --Xyzzy ^Talk 05:36, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Neither is the game though.... books are about 75-25 thu'um vs Thu'um, but Thu'um is the overwhelming choice for the spoken text. Jeancey (talk) 05:38, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

I just went through most of the LSCR records, and oddly enough, the word "Thu'um" wasn't mentioned in the ones I checked. However, both Voice and Shout, when referring to the Thu'um, were capitalized in every instance I found. --Xyzzy ^Talk 05:46, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

The texts, which we should try to emulate, are remarkably consistent at not capitalizing "thu'um": Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Cyrodiil, The Guardian and the Traitor, Nords Arise!, Five Songs of King Wulfharth, Varieties of Faith..., Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Skyrim.

The only hold-out is Songs of Skyrim: Revised. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 05:50, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Excuse me, I meant we should try to emulate that spelling in the lorespace. In the gamespace, that's a different story. This might be a situation where a single site-wide standard is inappropriate. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 06:01, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

The Circle

Just a little pet peeve of mine. I noticed a few pages capitalising the article "The" in "The Circle". This is incorrect grammar, similarly with "The Pale", "The Ratway", "The Guardian Stones" and so on. This was discussed before (see archives). Also, this is to be consistent with the dialogue lines used by NPCs, where "the" is decapitalised (I can easily pull out around 20 examples); it is only capitalised when at the start of a sentence, like these two.

I think the problem is that editors leave the link label blank when adding links, such as [[Skyrim:The Circle|]] or [[Skyrim:The Rift|]], hence resulting in "The" being capitalised in the middle of a sentence. If anyone sees any "The" capitalised out there, feel free to correct it :) ~ Psylocke 07:13, 6 October 2013 (GMT)

Yet another capitalization question

There seems to be some uncertainty about whether or not to capitalize "moonstone" and "quicksilver" in the articles. Unlike all other ore types, they have generally been capitalized in the past, so I have been following this when editing, but others have not, which makes we question whether they should ever have been capitalized. Can anybody give a justification for these being capitalized? --Xyzzy ^Talk 13:36, 15 October 2013 (GMT)

I don't think they're proper nouns, so I would think they should only be capitalized at the start of a sentence. ThuumofReason (talk) 13:41, 15 October 2013 (GMT)

They're capitalised in the past probably because of the reason I gave in the above post - leaving link labels blank. We don't capitalise words like "elven", "orcish", or "dragonplate" anyway [1], and just like ThuumofReason said, "moonstone" and "quicksilver" aren't proper nouns. ~ Psylocke 13:50, 15 October 2013 (GMT)

Yet another capitalization question, part deux

This is somewhat related to the topic above, but expands on it. Based on a discussion on Skyrim_talk:Heavy Armor#Orcish, I propose the following addition to the Spelling Guide for consistency:

• When referring to the main divisions of humanoids and their common alternatives, such as "man", "mer", and "elf", we do not capitalize them unless they occur at the beginning of a sentence, or in other instances where grammar dictates that they should be.
• When referring to the races that are members of these divisions, they will always be capitalized. This includes the following:
  • All races of elf: Altmer/High Elf, Dunmer/Dark Elf, Orsimer/Orc, Dwemer/Dwarf, Falmer/Snow Elf, etc.
  • All races of man: Nord, Imperial, Redguard, etc.
  • Beast races: Argonian/Saxhleel, Khajiit.

The same standard would be applied to all of the currently-non-playable races, such Kothringi, Imga, and Tsaesci. The one race that I'm not sure how to handle would be dragons. Although Lore:Races lists them as a race, we have treated them more like a species of animal in the Skyrim articles and not capitalized them.

This change would also mean that we would capitalize all versions of items that include these racial descriptors, such as Dwarven armor, Orcish sword, and Falmer shield, but not elven dagger.

I eagerly await everbody's input. --Xyzzy ^Talk 18:36, 2 November 2013 (GMT)

Creatures are not capitalised, but I'll leave the dragon/Dragon debate for now, but Orcs were simply creatures in Arena and Daggerfall, so an exception would need to be placed there. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:00, 2 November 2013 (GMT)

Xyzzy, regarding the capitalisation on dragons, I think it was already resolved some time ago. If we are referring to dragons in general, it is decapitalised, but if referring to a particular type of dragon, it is capitalised (e.g. "Dragon" or "Frost Dragon"). Alphabetface explained it here quite well (you need to scroll down a bit) and I agree with her reasoning. True, Lore:Races lists them as a race, but Lore:Dragons and Skyrim:Dragons follow this capitalisation convention. ~ Psylocke 15:57, 4 November 2013 (GMT)

That seems reasonable to me. If I don't see any more input on this in the next few days, I'll go ahead and add it to the Spelling Guide. --Xyzzy ^Talk 00:44, 27 December 2013‎ (GMT)

I've picked this up from the Nightingale Sentinel page and fully support these changes as making complete sense to me. I've never had much success keeping up with the changes for these whether caps or decaps, so in the past I've always followed what's causing the least work for others on pages I write, I seem to catch up once a couple of pages get changed, then try and change my style to reflect what is working without changes. I missed the original conversation during my latest bout of illness sidelined me for a few weeks. However I take it this has now been implemented to reflect the above and individual races are to be capitalised, but species such as man, elf, mer are not? I'll ensure my pages reflect this in the future and try to find some time soon to look back over previous pages I've worked on recently to check for consistency. I think I've been getting Dwemer/Dwarven/Nord/Nordic correct, but not 100% sure whether I'm getting most of the others, and that implies nor are many other people otherwise I'm sure I'd have been picked up on these by now as well. I'll check and revise if necessary. Biffa (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2014 (GMT)

Spelling of Heartfire/Hearthfire

It seems like there are a bunch of different spellings for this one month. In Arena, it's "Heart Fire". Daggerfall has "Hearth Fire". Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim seem to use "Heartfire" for the most part; other spellings in Skyrim seem to be exclusive to the game calendar and/or books. This should probably be noted on the page, but my question is, which spelling do we use for Lore space? Common sense would dictate that we use the most prevalent form, so would that be "Heartfire"? Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 15:56, 25 June 2014 (GMT)

We currently use "Hearthfire". —Legoless (talk) 16:42, 25 June 2014 (GMT)

So we just default to "Hearthfire" in lorespace except when directly quoting? It seems like the months don't play enough of an in-game role to justify being mentioned in gamespace articles, so is there any point to specifying in the note how it should be spelled outside of lorespace? Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 14:19, 26 June 2014 (GMT)

Proposed advice change on dialog/dialogue

A de facto convention I've observed evolving (not consistently but noticeable) over the last several decades is the use of "dialog" to refer to interface elements ("a dialog bog", "close the dialog", often found even in British computer-related publications) but "dialogue" to refer to content ("the show's dialogue is stilted", increasingly common in American entertainment publications). This is similar to always using "analog" to refer to the digital-versus-analog distinction, but often preferring "analogue" (especially in academic writing), to refer to "that which is analogous", a trend I've noticed in journals. A similar shift is rapid abandonment in British/Commonwealth English of "programme" to refer to computer code, but retention of it to refer to television shows and other non-computer contexts (without any adoption of the -mme spelling by Americans). The rule of thumb has become to use the short form of all these words for "computer stuff" in all cases, and longer forms being used or not, as context seems to warrant. [Aside: A similar though computer-unrelated trend is the gradual return of theatre to American English to specifically refer to live-production venues and to theatre as a performing art, to distinguish them from movie cinemas and from figurative usage ("theater of war"); the trend can be observed increasingly in the names of American venues and in arts course listings at university campuses.]

I propose that the dialog-versus-dialogue distinction (which is also a count-noun versus mass-noun distinction – "close the annoying pop-up dialogs" vs. "the scripted dialogue of NPCs") be adopted as a convention in this style guide subpage, as it is clearly an aid to clarity in our particular context. The current advice (more like "let chaos reign" non-advice) is:

• dialogue, dialog: "Dialog" is primarily a US spelling, but is also acceptable in international English. Either spelling is acceptable on the site. There should be no need to correct either spelling of this word, except to provide consistency within a single article.

Enforcing one-page consistency for its own sake in that manner is, in this unusual case, sacrificing utility in favor of style, a habit the UESPWiki style guide specifically deprecates.

A new rule might read:

• dialogue, dialog: "Dialog" is always used in reference to user-interface elements ("dialog boxes", "the Persuasion and Barter dialogs"). Use "dialogue" in reference to the content of communication with NPCs ("the item's location is revealed in dialogue with Caius Cosades", "this NPC's Latest Rumors dialogue varies according to the PC's Reputation").

— Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 17:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

One thing we do have an adverse reaction to is getting overly technical, such as trying to decide where and when one of two perfectly acceptable spellings should be used, that is why it is currently 'one or the other'. This is technically a Canadian website, with its source material being an American based game using American English, with a noticeable trend in using Old English meanings. That basically means we end up using American spellings with mainly British grammar, which is not a recipe for easy integration for new users. However, this is our way, and changing it now would mean a whole lot of work which no-one is in favour of. If anything I'd favour dialogue completely over dialog, as even our Amercian users seem to trend towards it now (if I may make such an assumptive claim). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with regard to general usage of the word, but the technical-writing sense of "dialog box" is pretty much universally spelled (or spelt) "dialog". That's precisely why I'm suggesting the change. The real world is evolving a distinction in usage, and it's one that unusually meaningful on this site. PS: I live in the US, sound American, but learned to read and write in the UK, and have also lived in Canada, so I'm entirely sympathetic to the concerns and their effects. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 00:46, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Capitalizing the definite or indefinite article at the beginning of a name

I feel like this issue comes up perennially on the wiki, although this particular discussion is prompted by this edit. The standard rules of English grammar dictate that proper names are capitalized. This only ever becomes controversial when said proper name has a definite or indefinite article at the beginning. I believe we need to decide on a rule for these proper names that include an article at the beginning to avoid this cropping up time and again.

A few examples of proper names with definite articles:

• The Madness of Pelagius (proper name; a book title)
• The Serpent's Wake (proper name; a ship)
• The Flowing Bowl (proper name; a business)
• The Bucket of Blood (proper name; a business, and a real world example)

And a few counterexamples of names with no such capitalization:

• the Reach (proper name; geographic term, definite article not part of the official name, e.g. "Reach witches")
• the Screaming Mermaid (proper name; definite article not part of the business name)
• the Bjoulsae Queen (proper name; definite article not part of the ship name)
• the king (common noun)

Wikipedia offers some guidance on when to include the definite or indefinite article in an article title which I think is helpful here. I'm going to steal Dcsg's summary of the guideline, which boils down to "keep the article in the title if it's "official", but otherwise it's lowercase". This can also easily be applied to our own style guide when considering what definite articles require capitalization, i.e. if a definite article ought to be in the page name, then it ought to be capitalised in the text. I would therefore propose the following addition to this page:

• The definite or indefinite article should always be capitalized when it is included at the beginning of an official or commonly used proper name or title, e.g. the name of a published work, business, or vessel.

Obviously this rule should be subject to consensus when required (the "The Oracle" controversy springs to mind), but generally this rule should hold and will avoid editors needlessly changing things back and forth to suit a preferred style. —⁠Legoless (talk) 23:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

There are two different things at work here. All the examples of using Wikipedia deal with whether the article goes in the name of the page. That's not really at question here. We're talking about whether it gets capitalized in the middle of a sentence, which doesn't really have anything to do with what the wikipedia page is talking about. Wikipedia itself seems to not capitalize it in the general text of the article, so the proposed solution here would be a change from common sense, visual aesthetic and Wikipedia precedent.

I would also like to stress, as grammar was mentioned in the post, this is absolutely 100% not a grammar rule. Style guides aren't based on grammar, they are based on a set of defined usage agreed to by a group of people. Capitalization is entirely style and has absolutely nothing to do with grammar. I cannot stress that enough.

Specifically, I found that multiple style guides capitalize the articles when it is part of Works (like books). I think this is the style we should be following (and most of Online space already follows, along with much of the rest of the site I've gotten my hands on over the years). Essentially a shorthand way of remembering is: if the name in question is normally italicized, it keeps the capitalization midsentence, otherwise it doesn't. Thus, ships, books, songs, etc would all keep the capitalization of the article while places like stores and such would not. This has the added benefit of not looking like crap in the middle of the article.

From what I can tell, this is the standard used by Wikipedia, as well as most major news outlets online.... And it's the most sensible solution here. Jeancey (talk) 00:00, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

While I personally think Legoless' rule is the more logical one, and the one that I would try to follow myself, I can't argue Jeancey's point that most style guides seem to differ. To me, it's both ugly and utterly idiotic to take a "The" that's part of an official place name and go out of your way to uncapitalize it, yet that's exactly what style guides are telling us to do...for certain specific things but not others. Even though I think that's the definition of inconsistency, they cite consistency as being the reason for this rule. Ugh! Still, if it's the most common rule in style guides, it'll probably confuse people less if we follow the same rules here, possibly pointing to Wikipedia for any cases where there's a dispute. In the end, I won't argue against either position, since there's reason for both, but if it comes down to pure "voter preference", my vote is that if it's printed on the door, the name of the work, or anything else that was clearly the creator's intent, then "The" should be capitalized the same way the creator did.

Also, just going back to "the king" example, above, that one's clear enough in most style guides, with one exception: if you're talking about an official position by title or name, like "the Queen of England", then it's capitalized...only "Queen", not "the", since the title is actually "Queen of England" (as in "Elizabeth II, Queen of England"), not "The Queen of England". If you're talking about a generic position or without a formal title, like "the king at the time", neither "the" nor "king" is capitalized. Just "the King"/"the king" becomes more ambiguous, though, and style guides vary. In general, the recommendation seems to be that if you're clearly talking about a specific person and their title can be read into the sentence, particularly if it's the current holder of that title, like "The Queen (of England) visited our town", then it's capitalized; something like "The king and the prince were talking", you wouldn't, because adding formal titles there is neither appropriate nor does it flow. Some style guides say it's never capitalized unless it's got a full title, though, so "The queen visited..." would be perfectly acceptable. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 00:50, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Mana

"Also, while some of the internal game resources (scripts, etc.), sometimes use the term "mana", it is never used to refer to Magicka in any of the game text, and should therefore not be used on the wiki." — I think this could be relativized, because there are actually several references to magicka as mana in in-game texts.

• Lore:King Edward: "Well, she doesn't have any mana, ordinarily....but she can absorb it if you cast a spell AT her, see." (As well as a few other references.)
• Lore:The Vagaries of Magicka: "how often have even the wise lusted to overreach their bodies and souls with vitality and mana"
• Lore:Arcana Restored: "Mana Fountain" and "manacaust"
• Lore:Letter to the Grand Marshall of the Imperial Legion: "Despite my many exertions upon the issue, the Galley requires the full puissance of all five anchors to pierce the mana streams and win free of its moorings."
• Lore:Letters for the Battlespire Hero: "Teleports don't work. Maybe mana locks, keywords?"
• Battlespire in general, for example the Ideal Master conversation.
• The "Mana Ice" in Shadowkey and Oblivion Mobile
• The "Mana Bloom" plant in Oblivion
• Lore:Sellonus's Journal Vol. 1 & Vol. 2: "for the blade drinks both lifeforce and mana from any that befall to it" & "We will then channel his life force and mana into our constructed device"
• Online:Imperial Mananaut Cap & Goggles: as an allusion to the Royal Imperial Mananauts of the Elder Council

Some of them can be dismissed as being from the older games or from the mobile spinoffs that were not all that closely supervised, but not all of them. --Gez (talk) 12:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps something like, "Also, "Magicka" should be used in preference to "mana" unless the source specifically uses the latter." – Robin Hood ^(talk) 23:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Plural of formula

Disregard in-game text. For calculation methods (eg. attack, block, chance to XXX, damage, evasion, etc.) though, should this wiki use formulas or formulae? Salamangkero (talk) 11:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Often, it's recommended to use "formulae" in a technical context, but "formulas" in most other contexts. Being an encyclopedia, you could argue that "formulae" is therefore correct, but being geared towards gaming, you could equally argue that "formulas" makes more sense. Since both are ultimately correct, I'd say that as long as we're consistent within an article, we can use either. That's just my personal take on it, though. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 17:55, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

The the

Noticed this edit with the following changes:

- Telenger found several different variations of the story, including the ''The Lusty Bosmeri'' of Valenwood, ...
+ Telenger found several different variations of the story, including ''The Lusty Bosmeri'' of Valenwood, ...

Did a quick search for "the the" and, excluding examples with [sic], found several instances where the article "the" precedes a proper noun, which happens to start with "The"; these are often names of books, items, locations, quests, etc.

Personally, I think "the <The Thing>" is a valid format and was about to undo the aforementioned edit. However, just to be certain, I figured I'd ask what's the consensus and, if applicable / necessary, add that to this page. Salamangkero (talk) 09:16, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

"The <The Thing>" is not a valid format in standard English. You would never say "I read the The Times". Grammar must compensate for a proper noun having a definite article in the title. —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Yet another capitalization question, part deux, part deux

Moved from the above discussion #Yet another capitalization question, part deux

Alas, the specific rule about dragons was never added to this page. In 2022, Solomon1972 capitalized it in Lore:Dragon, reasoning that "it is not just a creature type (which would be lower case), it is a race, no different than Bosmer, Redguard, etc.". Skyrim:Dragon, on the other hand, still uses "dragon". This question appears to deserve some more thought.

I believe that the distinction between "races" and "creatures" can't really be made to work. Lore:Races defines the term as "forms of intelligent life", but we can hardly perform an IQ test on all of them, and there are tons of fringe cases: Goblins are consistently lower-case on their own lore page, Falmer and Rieklings are upper-case, ogres and minotaurs are a wild mix, yet all of them seem to be on a similar level of intelligence; Falmer were once intelligent, but arguably aren't anymore; Daedra can be any level of intelligence; different games can make the same being (like Orcs) seem intelligent or non-intelligent because of gameplay restrictions... and so on. Also, I find that many creatures are currently capitalized with no apparent reason to do so (Cliff Racer, Silt Strider etc.).

My suggestion would be to...

• ...not capitalize any term that is well-established outside the Elder Scrolls universe (goblin, ogre, minotaur, dragon, dwarf (?), draugr); except for playable races, which are capitalized (Orc, High Elf).
  • This would leave most of our established usage intact while providing a clear distinction. I believe it is also rather intuitive to both authors and readers.
  • Most of the races considered similar to the playable ones could still be capitalized because they are TES-specific (Dwemer, Falmer, Maormer, Kothringi, Imga, Tsaesci, Riekling, Dremora...). This would mostly solve the problem of the above-mentioned fringe cases.
  • I propose that the part about playable races do not apply to adjectives: i.e. dwarven, elven, orcish (but possibly Nordic, Aldmeri). This makes for a more uniform look, and for an dwarven sword it shouldn't really matter whether it was made by a playable race.
  • "Dwarf"/"dwarf" kind of deserves to remain unclear because people in the TES universe often use it ignorantly, without really knowing about the specific race it refers to. It is also rarely used by us, especially in lorespace (where we use "Dwemer").
  • As an exception, "mer" could still be lower-case, because it is commonly used alongside "man" and "elf".
• ...capitalize any TES-specific or game-specific sub-variants of the above.
  • I think this captures the gist of what Alphabetface was trying to say in the aforementioned post. "dragon" is just a common English word/generic fantasy term, while them ranging from "Dragon" to "Legendary Dragon" (in Skyrim) is game-specific.
• That leaves the question of what to do with, to put it roughly, non-intelligent creatures that are TES-specific. This was heavily disputed in the archive discussion, with "proper grammar" (ash spawn) going against the supposed "cognitive dissonance" caused in the reader when the spelling is different from the games, which tend to capitalize (Ash Spawn). Capitalizing them would be more consistent, but at the same time, I have trouble seeing a good reason to do so.
  • As for adjectives, do we use "Nordic armor" or "nordic armor"? And I guess languages would always be capitalized (Nordic, Orcish)?

On a side note, the term "main divisions of humanoids and their common alternatives" seems needlessly confusing - why are elves humanoid, but Khajiit aren't? How is this applied to the non-playable races? I think man, mer and elf can just be lower-case with no further justification. --Ethruvisil (talk) 05:22, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

While I fully agree, I'm going to move this to its own discussion, rather than necroing such an old discussion.

These suggestions effectively codify what we already do, making it easier for new editors to get up to speed with our standards. As for the question, I would suggest capitalizing languages when they are being refered to as a language, but uncapitalized as a non-TES specific term when refering to a style of the object, i.e. "He was speaking Orcish while wielding his orcish sword". Jeancey (talk) 22:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)