Talk:Bryan A. Garner

Fawning? (npov)

This article as written seems to fawn over Mr. Garner. I also wonder whether there are conflict of interest issues as a major contributor is "Thelegalwriter". —Noah 07:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree

I agree there are some problems here. I started the article because I was familiar with some of Garner's work, and I felt sufficient material could be found to establish notability. However, the biography and article section on this page really seem out of hand.

Since I started the article I'm hesitant to be the one to start cutting things down. (I don't want to make it seem like I'm trying to “own” the article.) However, if someone else is willing to take the lead in trimming the article, I'll be happy to help out.

Since there is now a separate article on Garner's Modern American Usage, the section should be able to be deleted without much controversy. So, I'll do that anyway. Fixer1234 (talk) 02:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Just go for it. Owning an article means making changes and assuming those changes must stay because it is your article. What you described doing is "fixing and making it better." Cheers, —Noah 07:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

I appreciate your criticism and I will edit the stub. But this is not Mr. Garner. I wrote a portion of this stub as a second-year associate working Dallas. I have interviewed Mr. Garner on several occasions about his life, work, and writings. I wanted others to know a bit more about him so they could have a better picture of the man and the scholar. I encourage anyone to help me in editing this stub appropriately for Wikipedia. User: Thelegalwriter —Preceding comment was added at 15:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The section on footnotes, in particular, seems to be written to favor Mr. Garner's view. For instance, it uses the term "interlarded" to describe citations not in footnotes. ConDissenter (talk) 22:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Your close connection with and "fan" relationship to the subject are a Wikipedian conflict of interest. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

See above. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

User Thelegalwriter made 11 edits to the article 4 years ago. There is nothing in his statement (clarification) that suggests there was a close relationship. A newspaper reporter or biographer can certainly know a person well and conduct numerous, if not hundreds, of interviews with a subject, and doing so does not make the writer a fan. This new (back then) editor made a contribution that was worthwhile. The article has been improved since then, and the article can use more improvement now. --S. Rich (talk) 02:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

David Foster Wallace on Garner

David Foster Wallace (q.v.) was a well-known American novelist who died in 2008. He wrote abot Garner at length here: http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf

He calls Garner " a genius, though of a rather particular kind". In fact his article prompted me to look up Garner on Wikipedia.

I cannot edit Wikipedia, don't want to mess up the page, but if anyone is interested I believe DFW's article would be a good reference to put in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.83.12.219 (talk) 02:31, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Addition of fiction to the article

In this edit, an editor altered

The linguist [[Geoffrey K. Pullum]] had this criticism:

to

The linguist [[Geoffrey K. Pullum]], who has repeatedly complained in print that he was not chosen to author the chapter <ref>[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001869.html]</ref> instead of Garner, had this criticism of the 15th edition:

Yes, it was the 15th edition. As for the rest, I'm surprised to learn that Pullum has repeatedly made this complaint. I click on the link and see no evidence for the claim. Here's what Pullum writes:

When the University of Chicago Press started on the revisions that led to CMS 15, they could have lifted the phone and made an on-campus call to the late, great James McCawley, a professor in the Department of Linguistics there throughout his long career, and an author of many books with the Press. They could have asked him for advice. They did not, clearly. McCawley knew the field of English syntax as well as anyone alive, and would perhaps have offered to do the chapter himself, or to read and critique the chapter when it was submitted, or to advise them on who might be chosen to do write it.

Well, a known disadvantage of an encyclopedia that anybody can edit is that total bollocks can be added and then not noticed for months, while the article continues to mislead those gullible enough to believe what it says without verifying it via the references.

Here, though, the additional problem is that this edit was one of a series made to this article by the same editor. I suggest treating the entire set as suspect. -- Hoary (talk) 06:05, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

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Still written (as if) by a publicist

This article continues to be densely packed with promotional language and excessive, fawning detail about a person who is not that notable.--Quisqualis (talk) 07:23, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Would you give some examples?
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I googled the name. He passes notability. Basic criteria: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject."
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2017 (UTC)::

He passes notability, but he's not that notable. ("...where he was enrolled in a liberal arts honors program called Plan II (1977–1980). Garner published excerpts from his senior thesis, notably "Shakespeare's Latinate Neologisms"[7] and "Latin-Saxon Hybrids in Shakespeare and the Bible."[8][9][10][11][12][13]")--Quisqualis (talk) 20:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Certainly notable. But, yes, more editing is needed to remove puffery. – S. Rich (talk) 22:29, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The distinction of "that notable" isn't really a distinction. It's an opinion. Wikipedia deals in facts. "He was enrolled in..." sounds like a fact. I don't know what Plan II is, but I have read most of Shakespeare.

Examples of puffery are welcome. You might want to read the documentation about puffery. Some examples: "Words that may introduce bias: legendary, great, acclaimed, iconic, visionary, outstanding, leading, celebrated, award-winning, landmark, cutting-edge, innovative, extraordinary, brilliant, hit, famous, renowned, remarkable, prestigious, world-class, respected, notable, virtuoso, honorable, awesome, unique..."
–Vmavanti (talk) 23:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

He passes notability, but he's not that notable (nobody is). ("...where he was enrolled in a liberal arts honors program called Plan II (1977–1980). Garner published excerpts from his senior thesis, notably "Shakespeare's Latinate Neologisms" and "Latin-Saxon Hybrids in Shakespeare and the Bible.") The level of excessive detail is consummate with a too-short article that is desperate for padding, which this is not.--Quisqualis (talk) 20:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

"He passes notability, but he's not that notable (nobody is)." Compared to whom? Compared to what? Again, "that notable" isn't a fact, it's an opinion. Editors are supposed to make changes when there are rational, factual reasons for making them. A strong feeling or a bias isn't a reason to make a change. If you read articles on Wikipedia, you'll find pop singers treated like gods. The articles about many pop singes are longer and more effusive than those about important historical figures. That might put your notability remark into context. Whether Garner published excerpts from his thesis ought to be fairly easy to prove with sources. Are you saying that it ought not to be mentioned because it sounds like bragging? It's common these days for college papers, usually dissertations, to be published and eventually turned into books. Some people who contribute to Wikipedia use published and sometimes unpublished dissertations as sources. I wouldn't, but some do. I've had to re-read your last sentence several times to try to parse the syntax. By "consummate with" do you mean consistent with? You say that there is too much detail, and yet that the article is "too short" and "desperate for padding". Hard to follow the logic in that muddy sentence.
–Vmavanti (talk) 17:45, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

"...which this is not"---he's not that notable (nobody is)

All I have to say is, don't try padding articles with true (even verifiable) stuff which is gratuitous detail. In the case of biographies, the reader cannot easily assess the significance and impact of various individuals if their WP biographies have a convoluted narrative due to packing with irrelevant "stuff." A WP biography should read nearly the same whether the subject is living or dead. Should Mr. Garner happen to expire, I feel that the biography, as it existed 3 days ago, would not be useful to very many readers, as it failed to sum up its subject. Only a "Garnermaniac" would find that level of career minutiae interesting or useful. There was so much fawning detail that an apparently sarcastic sentence I thought was inserted by a vandal was not spotted and removed for two years until I did so.

As I stated earlier, Wikipedia aims to be concise. You will find that, generally, the more notable the individual, the less minor detail is to be found in their article. Check it out in any WP biographies of your (random) choosing. As an aside, what connection might you have to the subject that you want him to have a uselessly ass-kissing article on WP? Why not write an article for a specialist law journal, where all those voluminous, fawning details may be archived for posterity. Be sure to cite your article in this article, for the benefit of those interested.--Quisqualis (talk) 19:04, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Which details are excessive is a matter of debate. Hence all the debate that takes place on Wikipedia. I didn't write this article. I have no feelings about the subject, as you do, nor am I lawyer, as you are, nor do I have any connection to him or his work. Wikipedia is the wrong place for grinding axes. Your accusations are unfounded, thoughtless, and paranoid. I'm done with this dumb conversation.
–Vmavanti (talk) 03:01, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Quisqualis, the "apparently sarcastic sentence" you refer to looks like bollocks. Thank you for removing it. (You may or may not have noticed "Addition of fiction to the article" above.)

That you have improved the article in one way does not mean that, on balance, you have improved the article.

Vmavanti, it has indeed been a pretty dumb conversation, but you shouldn't be browbeaten by an accusation that you "want [Garner] to have a uselessly ass-kissing article on WP". What you write above sounds reasonable and I agree with most of it. Quisqualis, please specify a single "voluminous" detail in the article (in an earlier, longer state). By "career minutiae", do you mean what you cut? I found some of what you cut interesting; does this make me a "Garnermaniac"? (For that matter, what, if anything, do you mean by Garnermaniac"?) Quisqualis, you "feel that the biography, as it existed 3 days ago, would not be useful to very many readers": let's have less feeling, and more thinking, shall we? And when you've regained control over your feelings, you may wish to apologize to Vmavanti, who I hope returns to this talk page very soon. -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Chicago

Quisqualis, why did you delete the comments on Garner's chapter in Chicago, and say that he "contributed a chapter on traditional English grammar" to it? If "traditional English grammar" is supposed to represent "stupidities of the past tradition in English grammar", then it seems curiously softened (as if by a publicist?). Note that Pullum doesn't criticize the grammar-related content for something like lack of a trendy (?) use of current linguistics terminology; instead, he criticizes it as factually wrong. I don't have the book with me now; but as I remember, the chapter is about what prescriptivists call "usage" as well as grammar. If I'm right, then the new description of the chapter is fundamentally inaccurate (as well as euphemistic and vague). -- Hoary (talk) 13:22, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I only removed material in which the average reader would have no interest. This encyclopedia entry is not supposed to be the definitive article on a legal lexicographer and his work. The reference to "traditional English grammar" was further along in the material I removed. Note that grammar (with which he had no issues) is not the same as usage (which he criticized). Take a look at the before/after of the edit you question: [[1]] (about halfway down the page).

There was much and still is some undue emphasis on details that would only be appropriate in a non-encyclopedic article for legal lexicographers or a book-length biography. I didn't evaluate the broader implications of the material left behind, and have rewritten the paragraph you question for clarity. As an aside, I would never have edited this article if a previous editor had not created a section on illustrious alumni in the WP article on his high school, in which only Garner's name appears. --Quisqualis (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The average reader would have no interest in Garner. I don't regard this as an insult either to him or to those who've added stuff to this article: similarly, the average reader would have no interest in people whose articles I've created. But I doubt that this is what you had in mind. More likely, you meant the average person among those who'd choose to look up Garner. Well, I'd hesitate before presuming too much about such a person. Or indeed before limiting coverage to what would be of interest to such a person. Oh yes, even if we happened to have an authoritative source for his shoe size or brief hospitalizations, I'd skip this. As for the less obviously trivial, perhaps I'm more tolerant than you are.

Let's consider an example. In this edit, you deleted two sentences, one of them:

He has compiled an extensive archive of what American judges in the early 21st century say about effective writing and advocacy.

with the comment

unattributed an tangential. This article is in no need of padding

I suppose that the first half was a sleepy typo for "an unattributed tangential". Yes, this assertion (which was not my addition) is indeed unattributed; and yes, every assertion should be attributed. But if it's true, it doesn't strike me as either tangential, trivial, or padding. (And neither does it smell of a hoax, belittle the subject, or invade his privacy.) So here's what we normally do: add "{{Citation needed|date=December 2017}}". If nobody is prompted to add the evidence after this warning flag has sat there for some months, then the assertion and warning flag can be deleted. No, one doesn't have to wait a decade, but why shouldn't we wait for half a year?

And now your latest edit. You now have the section on "grammar and usage" say:

Garner's books on English usage include Garner's Modern English Usage. In 2003, he contributed a chapter on grammar and usage to the Chicago Manual of Style, focusing on traditional English grammar.

What do you mean by "traditional English grammar"? Or how is the reader supposed to infer its meaning? (The sole occurrence of the string "tradition" within the [ramshackle] article "English grammar" is "Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech.") -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't mean anything by "traditional English grammar". I copied the phrase from the passage I shortened.--Quisqualis (talk) 06:58, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Well well, you're right. I'd somehow failed to notice that bizarre phrase, and had wrongly inferred that it was a brand new mis-simplification of something Pullum had written. Sorry about that. The phrase turns out to have been introduced over two years ago, in this edit by the verbose SPA "Lemonlyne" (much of whose other additions to the article have been rightly removed). ¶ So how about (claimed) compilation of an "extensive archive": do you still say that it's tangential, and/or padding? Because I don't; and while I don't claim to know what the/an average reader thinks, I'm also pretty sceptical about others' claims to this knowledge. -- Hoary (talk) 08:56, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Lemonlyne of "Let's give him a PhD"? Enough said. I consider myself to be an average reader in fields other than horticulture and botany. That's why the Garner article seemed overpadded to me, as if some acolyte worshiped every new detail they managed to dredge up.--Quisqualis (talk) 09:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the article has seemed overpadded. (Incidentally, the largest single removal of cruft that I notice was this, by Drmies, before the appearance of "Lemonlyne". And an excellent removal it was.) Lemonlyne's addition was bulky and pretty horrible. ("Traditional English grammar" might be symptomatic.) I haven't bothered to look who added the bit about a (claimed) compilation of an "extensive archive"; maybe this was Lemonlyne. To me, it's unsatisfactory (because it's unsourced), but it's not padding. As you are remaining silent about this, I tentatively infer that you still maintain that it is padding. If you say that something is mere padding and I say that it isn't, then how should this disagreement be resolved? -- Hoary (talk) 00:14, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Speaking of cruft, I stumbled onto the edit history of the Cruftmaster Extraordinaire, toady, publicist or would-be sycophant of Garner, I cannot tell, but his WP:SPA edits from mid-February, 2008 were voluminous indeed. At least some of them have been removed by Drmies.

Instead of "Traditional English grammar", another editor, writing in the article about the CMOS, refers to Garner's 2003 "chapter on American English grammar and use", if that helps.

If Garner's "extensive archive" is a part of who he is as a lexicographer, and if others have referred to it in print, then it should be mentioned, perhaps using terminology other than "extensive archive". My aim is to pare out promotional and worshipful language so that Garner, the subject of the article, becomes visible and we can see objectively who he is in his field of endeavor.--Quisqualis (talk) 23:15, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

I suppose that if the "extensive archive" exists at all, then it's part of who he is as what I believe is called a "language professional": not a linguist of any kind but instead somebody who makes a living out of reducing, or attempting to reduce, the actual or claimed horridness of others' writing. "Extensive" is of course problematic. Your aim here is praiseworthy; we can differ about just how to swing the editorial machete. I hope that my latest edit seems OK. -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Merry Christmas to all of you, ho ho ho! Ha, that cut I made was easy. The harder work was done by Quisqualis and others. Yes, "traditional English grammar"--it's an important point, I suppose, but it needs a. an explanation and b. a secondary source. We can't, in Wikipedia's voice, label something traditional or not, since (as you both know, I'm sure) the term is fraught with complexities. Q, you cut a little bit more than I would have: some of the Scalia material is interesting, as is some of Garner's work that you may have cut with that big fat edit, but the article certainly needed cutting, and there was/is a serious lack of sourcing. BTW, that defense of Garner is amusing: "the niceties of standard written English for publication"--as if these "niceties" are grammatical, and as if someone who wants to learn how to write proper should be allowed to learn nonsense like seven verb inflections in English. Ho ho ho, Drmies (talk) 16:22, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Ho, ho, ho back at you, Drmies! I don't deny my rather draconian edits to the Garner article. Having no prior familiarity with him and his work, I didn't take any time parsing text which seemed contaminated with little red herrings, however well-meaning, in my search for Mr. Garner, figure of note in lexicography. Any useful bits which I excised in my zeal may, and I hope will, be reinserted in NPOV fashion to improve the article. I'm sure he's an interesting figure, which is what I had hoped to read about in the first place. Merry Christmas.--Quisqualis (talk) 23:27, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Yo-ho, both! Actually the term "traditional English grammar" makes perfect sense to me. Simply, it's a way of describing/prescribing grammar that's uncritically based on tradition and ignores contradictory facts. See Pullum, "Lexical categorization in English dictionaries and traditional grammars"; and if that title makes the paper sound terminally boring, fear not, the paper's (short and characteristically tart) abstract is all you need. (BTW, English dictionaries and traditional grammars confirm each other's [others'?] misunderstandings, and Wiktionary is no exception, which is one reason why I don't edit Wiktionary.) I suppose that one can "explain" matters of prose style in terms of "traditional grammar", but only in the same way that one can "explain" deviance in terms of phrenology or psychoanalysis. -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Ho, ho, hooooary, I use the book by Pullum and his partner in crime Huddleston when I teach Advanced English Grammar, so I am well aware of what those cats mean with "traditional grammar"; it's just that there are some who don't think of "traditional grammar" in the same way. In other words, it's really a POV-ish term, even if minorly in the grand scheme of things. Later, Drmies (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Syntax

I failed at parsing this sentence: He argues for putting citations in footnotes and notes that in-text information that is important but non-bibliographic. Specifically, is notes a verb or a noun? If a noun, what is a note as opposed to a footnote? What should go into a footnote and what shouldn't?--2.204.225.128 (talk) 10:12, 1 December 2020 (UTC)