Wikiquote talk:Spellings

That's all well and good, but most books by British authors are Americanized (and it's not inconceivable that some American books have been Anglicised) - if an American puts in a quote from an American edition of a book, is it not better to use the exact quote, so that we have a verified quote? -- Jimregan 19:02, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's rather silly, isn't it, so long as the prevailing mores here is to enter quotes without any kind of source whatsoever. More to the point, perhaps, on the spelling issue is the fact that there are indeed other people in the world than Americans and English (or British) authors. And what does one do with translations? --212.142.33.101 15:36, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Concerns about this article

I reverted the recent addition of a personal comment (by 68.62.13.214) to this article, but I realized this entire article sounds a bit chatty in its current state, and really only addresses verbal quotes (whose official spelling is necessarily harder to determine, unless one has a published version).

I propose to rewrite the article in more of a wiki "help" style, with the following major points:

• Verified quotes (i.e., quotes with official published sources, which should be cited) should always follow their published spellings.
• Attributed quotes should follow their original spelling, where known, or the practice of the quotee's country, where an official spelling is not known.
• If original spellings lead to confusion (e.g., Chaucerian English), sub-bullets can provide a modern "translation", whose spellings should follow the above two guidelines.
• Speeches and cinematic dialog, which are often not printed, should be rendered using the style of the speaker's dialect wherever possible.

This avoids the false dichotomy of American vs. British spelling, as there are many other English-speaking countries with their own variations, as well as minor variations within the U.S. and UK themselves. This also provides a policy on both published and unpublished quotes.

If nobody has any objections, I plan to do this rewrite sometime after 24 April. If there's a clamor (or a clamour) for it earlier, I can move it up. — Jeff Q (talk) 04:24, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. An additional point, addressing 212.142.33.101's question above:

• For translations, the English version should follow the spellings provided by the cited translation of the quote.

There could be controversy over this. Wikipedia policy is "no original research", but many non-English quotes currently in Wikiquote have been provided by people who simply know each language and translate quotes themselves. (I know, because I've corrected the translations of some proverbs just to meet basic English grammar requirements.) In these cases, we might adopt the standard laissez-faire policy of keeping the spelling contributed by the author, as long as there is no cited translation. (The solution for those who believe there is a misspelling would be to find a printed translation and cite it when they change the spelling.) — Jeff Q (talk) 04:43, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've edited it to hopefully be clearer: giving clear guidelines (sans examples), and covering various places. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 19:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)