Talk:Will-o'-the-wisp

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(Piezoelectric)[edit]

Piezoelectric is the accepted spelling of the word linked in this article.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.251.138.223 (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2005

Thanks. I fixed it. You can, of course, fix anything like that which you find by yourself. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 03:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Balts)[edit]

I see that they write, "Estonians and Latvians amongst some other groups believed that a will-o'-the-wisp marked the location of a treasure deep." I have checked all the sources listed (and a few others) for the original source for this statement but can't find it. I would appreciate some help. Thanks!
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Clerk22 (talkcontribs) 21:29, 26 July 2007

Will-o'-the-wisp vs. Ignis Fatuus[edit]

I just reverted a change by User:83d40m that altered the entire article such that the subject was referred primarily as ignis fatuus. I felt this amounted to a article rename, and thus not appropriate for a single user to undertake unilaterally. If renaming the article is something that should be done, it should be discussed here.

83d40m asserts that ignis fatuus is "the generic name" for the phenomenon, while Will-o'-the-wisp is "the British folklore name". I disagree with this categorization, and furthermore object to the supposed superiority and inferiority implicit in it. Why is "the generic name" more correct? Just because it's in Latin? We are not discussing taxonomy; the Latin name is not less ambiguous. Even if ignis fatuus was the scientific name of an organism, English Wikipedia does not refer to organisms with the scientific name as primary when a consensus common name exists in English. For example, Wolf contains 322 instances of "wolf", 374 instances of "wolves" and only 23 instances of "Canis lupus". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.168.173.2 (talk) 03:01, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What they mean in Sweden[edit]

The article says in Sweden that will-o-the-wisps are unbaptized souls, but the article connected to this one on the Swedish language Wikipedia (article title "Irrbloss") says they are souls that did equal amounts of good and evil in their lives so they didn't go to heaven or hell. I don't know which is correct, but it's something to look into. 195.198.29.229 (talk) 21:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

rm "popular culture" mentions[edit]

This is an global geographical feature is ubiquitously and historically mentioned internationally in a vast array of poems, films, tv and fiction. Useless to try to have any kind of meaningful list. The science section is long and unbroken. It would be better to break it into meaningful blocks. Anna (talk) 22:49, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]