Wikipedia talk:Queen Elizabeth slipped majestically into the water: Difference between revisions

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::::I’ve never imagined that editors were trying to bring the past into the present; I’ve assumed they think they should write fancy formal English and the plain past tense seems too bald and, well, straightforward. [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 15:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

:::::And concise. – [[User:Cameron Dewe|Cameron Dewe]] ([[User talk:Cameron Dewe|talk]]) 17:52, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

::::::And terse. [[User:EEng#s|<b style=”color:red;”>E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style=”color:blue;”>Eng</b>]] 17:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I have it in mind to add a section on the stylistic pretension of constructions such as “He then moved to New York, where he would later die of cancer.” Contributions welcome. (Some examples at [1]. E Eng 19:34, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn’t this be a separate page? It has little to do with nautical gender. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If enough material accumulates it can split off. You’ll notice the intro welcomes all forms of stylistic pretension. E Eng 22:49, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll split it off in the next day or two. E Eng 20:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I never did split, but probably some day. Blame it on the pandemic. E Eng 18:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the meantime, for the record this example just added, which I wrote, contains what I would normally attack as elegant variation:

The commission weighed heavily on French even as the figure neared completion. “I am sometimes scared by the importance of this work. It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime,” wrote the sculptor‍—‌who thirty years later would create the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial‍—‌”and a failure would be inexcusable. As a general thing, my model looks pretty well to me, but there are dark days.”

But it’s a hard case. I invite my esteemed fellow editors to find a rewrite which refers to French as simply French (or maybe he) instead of as the sculptor. E Eng 20:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This can equally well be written “… wrote the sculpture—who thirty years later created the statue …”. It doesn’t have to be written in you are there foreshadowing mode. Largoplazo (talk) 13:39, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I actually disagree. This is a classic appropriate use of would to (as Reyk put it) temporarily [skip] to the relative future during a narrative. My concern was that I can’t offhand see a way to avoid the apparent elegant variation of wrote the sculptor, because we can’t have it:

The commission weighed heavily on French even as the figure neared completion. “I am sometimes scared by the importance of this work. It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime,” he wrote—‌who thirty years later would create the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial‍—‌”and a failure [etc etc].”

You see the dilemma. I’m quite stumped. E Eng 18:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You can’t avoid the elegant variation because they’re one and the same thing, in my opinion. I don’t see anything distinguishing this from the other cases that the essay declares undesirable. A set phrase, “who went on to”, could be used instead, avoiding the modal, to establish the relationship between the past and subsequent event while substituting a narrative approach for one of foretelling. “It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime,” wrote the sculptor‍—‌who thirty years later went on to create the statue …”. Largoplazo (talk) 18:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

they’re one and the same thing – Can you clarify? What are the they that are one and the same thing? E Eng 19:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The two things are “use of would to … temporarily [skip] to the relative future during a narrative” and “elegant variation”. Largoplazo (talk) 11:14, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm… There’s a communication failure here. Elegant variation and the would construction (the formal name for which I cannot recall, if I ever knew it) are two completely different things … which you yourself seem to recognize in #What is the Woulds section doing here?, so I’m really confused about what’s going on here. E Eng 01:39, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Saw EEng raise this on the MOS would-discussion. I found this discussion, so replying here instead.

There are a few things going on in this passage – it’s kind of flowery, and it uses metaphorical language (“weighed heavily”). Fine for an entertaining non-fiction romp by someone like Bill Bryson, but it’s not my preferred style for encyclopaedias, which I think should be clear and direct.

IMO, the use of “the sculptor” here is 100% elegant variation. The simple fix is just to replace “the sculptor” with “French”:

Naturally, this might make people itchy about the repetition of “French”. But this, as so often with repetition in writing, is caused by bigger problems, not the simple fact that the word is repeated. In this case the complex structure is the cause.

So – the use of “would” here is correct and adds clarity. But the placement of the information (that French created the Lincoln statue) isn’t ideal. It’s thrown anecdotally into the middle of a paragraph about something else entirely (in fact in the middle of a quote), which is part of what makes the “would” necessary, and therefore also the elegant variation. I’d take that information out of this paragraph and place it somewhere more appropriate – probably the end of the coverage of French.

I would rewrite the whole thing as something like:

The commission made French anxious, even as the statue neared completion. “I am sometimes scared by the importance of this work. It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime and a failure would be inexcusable,” he said. “As a general thing, my model looks pretty well to me, but there are dark days.”

… With the fact about later doing the Lincoln statue moved later on in the section. I’m sure there’s a good home for it. Popcornfud (talk) 13:59, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure it rises to the required level of humor as the rest of your entries, but I did get a tiny chuckle out of this one… [2] CThomas³ (talk) 01:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve returned to this several times, but while (as you said) there’s a chuckle in it when you think about it, I can’t see how to turn it into a appropriately LOL example without running into potential trouble on the equality-of-the-sexes or 23-genders fronts. I even tried fashioning an example starting Following the operation, the King awarded Admiral Smith, commander of the HMS Thingamajig, the Victoria Cross … Several of her other admirals [something something] but I just can’t get it to gel. (Besides, the king being a queen gets us into Edward II territory and I’m not up enough on history of the monarchy to handle that competently.) E Eng 21:36, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I completely get it, and I appreciate the effort. I’ll give it some more thought as well, but if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. CThomas³ (talk) 16:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why was the “Into the Woulds” section tacked onto this unrelated essay? Why isn’t it its own essay? Largoplazo (talk) 19:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve been too lazy to split it off. No doubt the spirit will move me sometime between now and when I die. E Eng 19:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

“EEng promised to work on this essay, but he would die before doing so.” —Khajidha (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since talk pages are for suggesting improvements: “EEng promised to work on this essay but would slip majestically into the afterlife before doing so.” Largoplazo (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In desperation EEng boarded the good ship Snodgrass for inspiration to complete the great treatise, but she would ultimately fail to deliver. CThomas³ (talk) 16:51, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’m just grateful I had the chance to add “Big Van Vader would emerge victorious.[3]” to Wikipedia:Queen Elizabeth slipped majestically into the water NebY (talk) 21:31, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That’s one of the wouldiest woulds ever, I would say. E Eng 21:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The part about the “woulds” really should be upgraded to formal inclusion in the MOS. What would it take to make that happen? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:04, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It would take a consensus at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. If I were to raise the question, I’d move to have the topic added at MOS:TENSE. Largoplazo (talk) 18:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I’ve always been a MOS minimalist — in fact I’m the original author of WP:MOSBLOAT. In particular, MOS should not generally try to teach rules or techniques of good writing that aren’t peculiar to our work here. So under that criterion, I don’t think this is a MOS matter unless we see it as a perennial or widespread problem that’s wasting a lot of editor time. But I don’t know whether that last bit does or does not obtain. E Eng 03:03, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve personally lost track of the number of edit summaries of mine that read “He/she/they/it not only would but did”, but I’m just a sample size of one. Largoplazo (talk) 12:29, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also have numerous edit summaries under my belt reading “would he or did he?” etc, until I started using “WP:INTOTHEWOULDS x5″ and so on. So far no one has challenged my edits of this nature, on the basis that I was using an essay rather than an MOS link to justify them, fwiw. Echoedmyron (talk) 12:28, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The “woulds” section of this page doesn’t seem to have much to do with the main topic on this page. That is, this essay is stated to be specifically about the convention of referring to ships as “she.” The “woulds” sections only really has the tangential connection of avoiding pretentious language. So it seems that section should be split, or this page should be redone a bit to be more generally about pretentious language. TornadoLGS (talk) 19:29, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See earlier section on this very point. Someday… E Eng 20:53, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, for a second I thought you were referring to the MOS proposal. Also I didn’t realize you were the original author here. TornadoLGS (talk) 21:07, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng and @TornadoLGS: I wonder if there is room for both a separate essay about advice to editors about how to avoid using “Would” in articles, and why this is a good idea, as well as the section about “Into the woulds“. The essay about Writing better articles advises editors to be concise. While this article highlights examples of pretentious writing that results from using the word “Would” inappropriately. I am struggling to explain why the wording tends to be pretentious, other than saying it is, when I see it. Perhaps I missed some lessons in English grammar during my schooling, as these were never taught as a separate subject, that I can remember. As near as I can tell, “Would” is the past tense of “Will“, which indicates the future is being talked about in the context of the past. To me, it seems that some editors are working under the misapprehension that using “would” changes the tense of the writing from the past tense to the present tense. MOS:TENSE starts off by saying “By default, write articles in the present tense …” after some further explanation about what this includes, the advise goes on to say “Generally, use past tense only for past events, and for subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist, such as deceased people or defunct companies. Use past tense for articles about periodicals no longer produced …” I had to reread this several times to understand what is really meant by these statements. What I think this says is “Generally, write Wikipedia articles in the present tense, except when writing about past events, when the past tense should be used.” Perhaps other editors are thinking by using the word “Would“, and its variations, they are writing in the present tense – in order to follow what they think is being asked by the Manual of Style. Unfortunately, they are not writing good quality articles. In my experience, a phrase like “would be” can be replaced by “was” with no loss of meaning, while, in other situations, “would” can simply be omitted and tense of the following verb be changed to the past tense. The writing is more concise, with no loss of meaning from these changes. There are situations where using “would” is appropriate, but these often indicate speculation about the future from the perspective of the past. – Cameron Dewe (talk) 23:58, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it’s that being needlessly verbose often comes across as pretentious. In some instances unnecessarily using “would” might lead to confusion as to whether the article is describing real past events, or hypothetical ones. You might be right about people somehow thinking it brings the past tense into the present, since it seems like that might have been the intent in this wouldy article I fixed up a bit. TornadoLGS (talk) 02:55, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jiminy Cricket, that article you fixed belongs in the “Into the Woulds” Hall of Infamy. E Eng 04:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve never imagined that editors were trying to bring the past into the present; I’ve assumed they think they should write fancy formal English and the plain past tense seems too bald and, well, straightforward. NebY (talk) 15:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And concise. – Cameron Dewe (talk) 17:52, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And terse. E Eng 17:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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