Talk:Thirtysomething (TV series)/Archive 1

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I watched thirtysomething when I was 17 and living at home with my parents. I would have loved to have been "Hope" in the story. Her relationship with "Michael" moved me in many ways. I look back on those episodes in my past with fondness. It was a brilliant programme and one I will always remember.

Contents

Capitalisation?

The Manual of Style specifically advises against lower-casing words like this - in fact, this specific show is one of the examples they use to illustrate the point:

avoid: thirtysomething is a television show that may have been sponsored by adidas..."
instead, use: Thirtysomething is a television show that may have been sponsored by Adidas..."

Personally I don't really agree, and would prefer the way it's done in this article as it stands, but I'm just pointing out that it goes against the guideline. Loganberry (Talk) 22:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The Manual of Style, as it does so often, creates new problems by not following standard English style rules in its own examples. A television show should be referenced in quotation marks. Without the quotation marks, a lower-case letter could cause reader confusion in some contexts, and the avoidance of such confusion is the intent of the writers of the Manual of Style (it is not a book about how things have to be - it is about style, not grammatical absolutes). With quotation marks, or italicized, however, there would be no confusion that the word is a reference to a title. 8 December 2007 Prosandcons (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The manual of style actually does indicate using italics to identify television series titles. As Loganberry linked, the rule about capitalization is from Manual of Style (trademarks), applying to all trademarks. ENeville (talk) 17:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Frustrating...

Rather than being used as an example of how to title articles, this article itself and the rule it adheres to needs to be changed. Who are Wikipedia editors to decide to spell or write things differently to the way the original creators intended? Correct English and proper use of grammar should not come into the equation. A title should be displayed as it is supposed to be. An initial lower case letter is technically ‘incorrect’ but using one is the only correct way to title such an article.

What was the point of the whole – “the initial letter of this article is not capitalised due to a technical restriction”, when editors are trying to purposely write things incorrectly in a uninformed bid to maintain proper grammar?

Just make sure the name/title is italicised every time it appears in the article and there will be little problem with the flow of a user’s reading (due to a noun sporting a non-capitalised initial letter).

Where does this end? Do you want to rule that Mortal Kombat should be spelled with a ‘C’ because the developers were just being stupid? Yes they were, but that's a point of view, and therefore shouldn't be advocated in the guidelines.

If it is made the standard that titles be named and written the way in which they are written in the actual media, by the creators, then it will be correct, and there will be no problems with inconsistency - people will then have no arguments. At least no valid ones. Mr.bonus 15:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Because we all see them say IPod and EBay... wait, no they don't... -Platypus Man | Talk 13:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • From The 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time, published by Entertainment Weekly: "About the title: thirtysomething was written as one word to imply togetherness; it was written in lowercase letters to invoke e.e. cummings and his hip disregard for authority." Seems pretty clear that they wanted it to be that. Also, if you Google it or look on IMDb, that's what you'll see most of the time. Butterboy 06:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Who are Wikipedia editors to decide to spell or write things differently to the way the original creators intended? We are users of the English laguage who have chosen to adhere to a well-formedness principle above a faithfulness principle. Who are the creators of Thirtysomething to violate the standards of written English and expect everyone else to do the same? Nohat 07:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Because the creators didn't "design" the title that way - it IS the title in lowercase. If it is written in The New York Times and Time Magazine as "thirtysomething," I don't see how you can say that including it that way here is somehow violating the laws of English grammatical physics--especially when English is a _living_ language. Furthermore, it is ridiculous to claim that it is a steadfast rule of English that all titles and proper nouns be written solely in initial caps. While some may wish to deny the existence of trademark law because they are lazy or ignorant, I personally always use "iPod" and "eBay," just as Wikipedia itself already accurately uses a lowercase "d" in "Les Liaisons dangereuses" in its Dangerous Liaisons reference, and also rightfully refuses to use a lowercase "c" in its Leonardo DiCaprio reference. 8 December 2007 8 December 2007 (UTC) Prosandcons (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Gary's Death?

The article refers to Gary dying when his bicycle is hit by a car. I can't find any documentation on this one way or another, but I recall that the accident happened while he was driving a car on the Schuylkill Expressway. As I recall the show, he normally rode a motorcycle, so the other characters at first assumed he had been on his cycle, but then it was revealed that ironically he was killed in a car. I'm pretty sure the accident was supposed to have happened on the Schuylkill, and I don't think bicycles are allowed on that road. Can anyone find documentation about this storyline?

I remember him being on a bicycle (I had actually forgotten he had a motorcycle, but you're correct in that). The irony of the episode is tat everyone expected that the other character, with cancer (Nancy?) would die. 8 December 2007 Prosandcons (talk) 00:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The title

Dear Raul654, There is a problem with the Thirtysomething (TV series). The name was chosen as "thirtysomething" not "Thirtysomething." WP: MOSTM state that it should be always capital when it's a Proper noun even if it was accepted "officially." I object that rule and changed it, because it was causing too many problems. I saw back-and-forth discussions about it on the talk page from a year-ago. The majority agreed with it being lowercase. I changed everything in the article that said it capitalized -- from "Thirtysomething" to "thirtysomething." But, there is a problem I can't fix, the title. I tried changing it and it said that it was typed the same and it didn't work. So I tried typing "thirtysomething (TV Series)" instead of "thirtysomething (TV series)." I was thinking maybe Wikipedia would pick "t" up and then I would of just changed "(TV Series)" back to "(TV series). But, it came out like this --> "Thirtysomething (TV Series)" so I had to change it back. Do you know why it isn't working? AnnieTigerChucky (talk) 04:05, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a problem someone reverted the edit on WP: MOSTM. AnnieTigerChucky (talk) 04:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey ATC, how are you? Raul is pretty busy, so maybe I can help you on my talk page? I think Wiki articles have to start with a cap, even when the actual word doesn't; I had the same issue with the song by Nirvana, "tourette's". I don't think there's anything you can do about it, although correcting it within the article is the right thing to do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear SandyGeorgia, Check out the article, eBay it's not using correct grammer and was accepted. "Ebay" would not look right. AnnieTigerChucky (talk) 04:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good point, ATC. It's late for me to work on this tonight; will see what I can do tomorrow. Probably someone else who reads my talk page will have the answer. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Found the relevant MOS page here. Annie, this Manual of Style page explains the difference between something like iPod or eBay and k.d. lang or adidas, where we do follow normal capitalization rules. It looks like the cap on Thirtysomething has to stay. Will see if someone else differs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Thirtysomething should remain capitalized due to the MOS paragraph found by Sandy. It is reasonable for encyclopedia style to rule even when the inventors of trademarks try to create catchy anomalies. We even have the poet E. E. Cummings with capitals. I think that each occurrence of thirtysomething within the article should be changed to Thirtysomething. EdJohnston (talk) 06:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand. But if I made a book or news article on "thirtysomething." I would do it lowercase. But, I understand your point if view and will change it back. (P.S. A lot of articles on this TV series would normally write it like, "Thirtysomething", but every now and then I saw it written like, "thirtysomething", "thirty-something", and very rarely like this "thirty something.") This looks like news article journalists even made these mistakes. Thanx everyone! AnnieTigerChucky (talk) 22:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I am going to add this section to the Thirtysomething talk page. AnnieTigerChucky (talk) 22:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)