Talk:Donald Tusk

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Is the English pronunciation of Tusk's surname set in stone? Is there any formalized and only "English pronunciation" of his surname?

As above. I'm pretty sure I've almost only ever heard his surname being pronounced by English users the same way the English word "tusk" is pronounced. Which is a pretty good case against applying the specific point of MoS argued for by user Max. FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 16:08, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: I understand your point, but that falls under WP:OR. If sources say that the surname is pronounced /tusk/ in English, that's what the article should reflect. If you know sources that say it's pronounced differently, we can also include those.

As for pronunciation itself, sources do say that /tusk/ is the set pronunciation. There are several reliable sources that claim such, including BBC or The Times. The article references some of them, if you'd like to check more out, here's some links:

I also see you tried to change the formatting; this thing specifically is defined in MOS:PRON: For English pronunciations, broad transcriptions should be used; these are intended to provide a correct interpretation regardless of the reader's accent. The system for doing this is outlined at Help:IPA/English [...] The Wikipedia respelling system, using the template, can be used in addition to the IPA. As all the sources include the phonetic respelling, I see no reason not to include it as well. The IPA, though, must accompany it: For English words, transcriptions based on English spelling ("pronunciation respellings") such as prə-NUN-see-AY-shən (using respell) may be used, but only in addition to the IPA (//). WordSilent (talk) 20:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, the BBC article is specifically about "the words we mispronounced." Does BBC work like a sort of Council of the English Language in the UK? Because if it isn't, I see no reason to treat it as gospel. See, the article itself is proof that almost no one pronounced Tusk as /tusk/, at least not in 2018. I believe Wikipedia in linguistic matters follows that--what people say or how they say it--than a select few points of reference. Also note that these articles may reflect the way Tusk is pronounced in Tusk's native language only. This is an important point actually, the discussion here is about the English pronunciation and its distinction from Polish, and whether there is any, and whether that warrants highlighting at all. FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: The BBC article seems to refer to this list by Babbel. That article clearly uses English IPA symbols (look at how they write English /tuːsk/ instead of Polish /tusk/; a similar trend can be seen in their transcription for other names) and refers to English pronunciations of those words overall.

If those sources say that the correct pronunciation is /tuːsk/ (and they do; the BBC one did after all say they mispronounced his name by saying something else than /tuːsk/), then that's what the article should reflect. Personally, I did hear the surname being pronounced both ways, but whether pronouncing it /tʌsk/ can be considered correct or not is another story of linguistic prescriptivism and descriptivism. That's, however, not up to us to decide; we should just follow what the sources say.

If you can find sources that say the name should be pronounced /tʌsk/ in English, then feel free to provide them. In that case we can include both the pronunciations in the lede. WordSilent (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I feel like you're being a bit too germane about this unimportant issue. I don't mean to be offensive, but I have a feeling that because of you now the article looks bad and undue attention is given to how his surname is pronounced when the SAME EXACT pronunciation is already given in the Polish IPA. It's just a redundancy and the over-abundance of refs next to the redundant respellings just screws up the flow even more. I hope you consider these points and remember my analogy to Olaf Scholz, whether that article is GA or not. Right now the article is simply not what a proper, normal world leader's article should ever look like, in my opinion. Cf. Józef Piłsudski which is FA. There is no respelling PIWSOODSKI or English IPA. Just the Polish IPA. How it should be. I will follow this example.FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 00:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

(Same user as before, happened to change my username)

@FeldmarschallGneisenau: I have a feeling that because of you now the article looks bad and Right now the article is simply not what a proper, normal world leader's article should ever look like, in my opinion. - please read WP:OWN. Just because you don't like some content or formatting yourself, doesn't mean you should dictate its removal when the edit is both justified and sourced.

There are sources that say the name is pronounced /tuːsk/ in English, and this information should be included. Just because the surname is /tusk/ in Polish, it's not immediately apparent it's /tuːsk/ in English - it could, after all, be something like /tʊsk/ as well, and the English transcription in the article clarifies that it's not that, per the provided sources.

This is stuff to be determined on individual basis for every article: just because one article doesn't have a phonetic transcription doesn't mean a different one shouldn't have one as well. You could, after all, make a counter-argument with the exact same reasoning, by referring to e.g. Andrzej Duda and how the article does have a phonetic transcription. For Tusk, there are reliable sources that say it's /tuːsk/ and there's no reason not to reflect that. Manual of Style does after all define how to deal with a situation when a surname has a determined English pronunciation (MOS:PRON).

It's just a redundancy and the over-abundance of refs next to the redundant respellings just screws up the flow even more. First you argued that the /tuːsk/ transcription was baseless. Now, when more sources were added to back up the claim, you call them redundant.

Also, personally, I wouldn't consider phonetic transcriptions/respellings redundant. I, myself, find them very useful when I encounter them in Wikipedia articles. You shouldn't remove content just because it's not useful to you specifically. WordSilent (talk) 08:25, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, referring to because of you now the article looks bad and undue attention is given to how his surname is pronounced when the SAME EXACT pronunciation is already given in the Polish IPA. The blaming tone of this sentence aside, I didn't add the phonetic transcription into the article. It was already established and used in the article months prior to your removal, which I only reverted as the transcription's usage had appeared justified. WordSilent (talk) 08:42, 17 May 2024 (UTC)