Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of commonly misused English words

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Move to Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words. Opinion is split three-ways between keep, projectify and delete. I read this as a consensus to (a) keep the material, but (b) not in main space, which means that moving it to project space is the outcome most congruent with this discussion. Sandstein 05:28, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of commonly misused English words

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Nomination requested on WT:AFD on behalf of User:86.148.153.31:

Accumulation of original research with no inclusion criteria other than random editors' personal opinions. Tagged for years with various issues, none of which show any sign of ever being fixed. Not encyclopedic material. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 14:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Useful to readers and interesting, although it could be moved to Wikibooks. Extensive sourcing would not improve the article as most of these examples are common knowledge. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Move to the Wikipedia namespace, as Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words, where it can keep Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings company. See also Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings/Grammar and Misc. --Lambiam 16:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also a good alternative. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I dunno if a lot of it is really original research; we're allowed to include obvious prima-facie-true material such as "the sky is blue" without a cite. Looks to me as if the article is basically accurate, is useful for reference, is interesting, is reasonably well put together and tended, and has existed for awhile and has had many contributors. What's the big hurry to get rid of it? Herostratus (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Move, per Lambiam. There is some excellent information that can be useful to many editors. No need to wipe out all the work that went into compiling it to satisfy a few purists who have problems with a few of the items. Cresix (talk) 18:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:29, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There is no definitive authority for the supposed Standard English and there are numerous variations which may be considered correct. Representing particular usages as absolutely correct is not WP:NPOV and the manner of presentation seems contrary to several WP:NOT cases: dictionary; essay; opinion; advocacy; how-to; textbook;FAQ. Warden (talk) 20:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the examples really are not a matter of debate and do not require referring to a "definitive authority" (complementary-complimentary, desert-dessert, imply-infer, their-there-they're-there're, etc etc etc). Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cresix (talk) 21:36, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

move to wikipedia space per the above. These do not require sourcing. A dictionary is a WP:PRIMARY for all of this, this isnt bad grammar for the most part, its using the completely wrong word, so the "considered correct" argument is pretty far off base imo Gaijin42 (talk) 21:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do not delete I don't know what the correct solution is, but deleting it seems like destroying the village in order to save it. Greglocock (talk) 00:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Don't delete – I concur with the above. At worse we can follow Lambiam's suggestion. Regards, RJH (talk) 00:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Move per Lambiam might be the best thing for it. I have a couple of mild objections to keeping it in article space, but concede that it may be useful to editors. My primary objection is that as an article it does need sources. As others have suggested above, standard usage and the frequency of misuse are empirical facts that, per WP policy, should be supported by reliable sources. Anyone who honestly believes that all English writers automatically understand facts about the English language well enough to comment without evidence is simply mistaken. Just as having a physical body does not automatically make me an expert on physiology, speaking a language does not make me an expert on grammar or usage. (Most of my other objections relate to NOTDICT, NOTHOW etc.) Cnilep (talk) 06:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's easy enough to find sources for this — Words You Thought You Knew: 1001 Commonly Misused and Misunderstood Words, for example. The trouble is that they are huge and their contents are debatable, being written for a particular time and place (see WP:ENGVAR). Such works are dictionaries of difficult words and that's the business of Wiktionary. If we wanted to do this seriously then the list would have thousands of entries and there would be conflicts about some of them (c.f. the 8 year war about yoghurt). But teaching English is not our job. Warden (talk) 15:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, we are not talking about the unusual items that would be disputed at WP:ENGVAR; we are talking about the items that are commonly accepted without dispute, which is mostly what's in the list. And, to my knowledge, Wikitionary does not compile such lists, so Wikipedia is the place for it; and even if it was at Wiktionary, putting the list in Wikipedia mainspace is perfectly acceptable. Again, throw out the bathwater, but keep the baby. Cresix (talk) 16:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment If not deleted, it needs to be pruned of various original research opinions as to what are "commonly misused English words." It is fair to require a reliable source for each item in the list. Edison (talk) 03:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That would not be necessary if the article is moved to Wikipedia namespace. Cresix (talk) 00:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? Edison (talk) 05:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Read Lambiam's suggestion above to move the article into Wikipedia namespace. If that is what's decided here, there would be no requirement for sourcing. Cresix (talk) 00:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I have for many, many years tried to curate this list and prevent it from becoming a dumping ground for various grammar nazis to rant about their grammatical pet peeves. Most recently you can see such an example on the talk page concerning "invest". The page never gets better, really; only worse. Nohat (talk) 05:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Most of it could be sourced to reputable books on English usage/style/language, although I'm amazed at how little has been done - there's plenty of material online e.g. old editions of Fowler and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage. People should feel free to delete individual entries in the list if they're not sourced and seem dubious or contentious. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Move to Wikipedia namespace per above. -- ɑηsuмaη ^{ʈ ᶏ ɭ Ϟ} 06:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - This could be easily sourced to a variety of reliable sources and would be beneficial to readers as well as editors. WTucker (talk) 02:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.