Talk:Crimean peninsula

Deletion discussion

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Crimean peninsula

Crimean Peninsula

Crimean adj + peninsula n = Crimea. —Michael Z. 2014-03-25 02:36 z

But not just any peninsula that is Crimean is a Crimean peninsula, is it? Doesn't that make this term idiomatic? Nah, I'm just joshing you; this is SOP and should be deleted. - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

What about other Category:en:Peninsulas with "Peninsula" or Category:en:Islands with "Island"? Place names are specifically allowed and "Crimean peninsula" is a place name, not the same as "Crimea". And some translations are not "Crimean" + "peninsula" but e.g. "peninsula" + "Crimea", although East Slavic have common adjective + peninsula/island combinations. Keep. Why are we stirring the place name topic again? My vote has nothing to do with the Russian occupation of the peninsula. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Comment. Is Crimea distinct from the peninsula it occupies? That is, is Crimea a political/cultural territory, while the Crimean Peninsula is a geographical landform? Singapore vs. Pulau Ujong, India vs. Indian subcontinent, Panama vs. Isthmus of Panama, etc. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 03:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

They almost coincide but the administrative/state border shifted back and forth and may still shift, which is reflected in some news about neighbouring Kherson oblast (hopefully not). Crimea on its own, Crimean peninsula and various Crimean khanates, governorates, oblasts and republics are all distinct senses. Would it matter if borders of Italia and Apennine Peninsula coincided 100%? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

"Crimea" can refer to the Crimean peninsula or to any of several entities which have, at various points in time, occupied all or part of it. It seems to be comparable to "Ireland", and thus "Crimean peninsula" seems to me to be no more idiomatic than "island of Ireland". - -sche (discuss) 03:49, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Are we under obligation to delete Kuril Islands because they can be shortened to Kurils or imperfective aspect because we can shorten it to imperfective. Should we delete official names of countries? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:02, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

What I was trying to say, basically, is that "Crimean Peninsula" may be a proper noun in its own right. If it is, it would be warrant its own entry. We have "Scandinavian Peninsula," because this is a geographical term representing a specific landform, whereas "Scandinavia" can mean both the peninsula and the cultural region located on the peninsula. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 05:21, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The proper name of the place found on maps is Crimea. “Crimean peninsula” is a descriptive phrase, like North American Continent/continent or City/city of New York. Or Crimean land mass, Crimean territory, Crimean region, &c. ad infinitum.

User:Atitarev, I am not “stirring” anything by suggesting removing inappropriate entries per CFI. I don’t understand the relevance of “place names are specifically allowed,” the Old East Slavic language, or the Kuril Islands. But please don’t be bothered to explain in detail.

New York has two senses New York City and the state of New York. Crimea has historical, territorial senses. Peninsula border don't necessarily coincide with the borders of any entity in Crimea. We also allow official name of countries (Republic of, etc.), even though there are shorter names. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Cloudcuckoolander, Crimea is the name of the place that has existed on the earth and in people’s minds since since history. Signatures on political and legal documents do not change the term. The encyclopedia already has a page listing all of the specific things called “Crimea.” The dictionary’s entries define terms, and we should resist the urge to turn them into lists of things. —Michael Z. 2014-03-25 15:40 z

I'm inclined to equate this with Arabian Peninsula, but I'm not sure. --WikiTiki89 16:49, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Where Arabian = “related to Arabia”, and Arabia = “Arabian peninsula”? You’ll have to explain why that entry is a good example. And also why it should exist. —Michael Z. 2014-03-25 23:54 z

Crimean = “related to Crimea”, and Crimea = “Crimean peninsula”. And regarding "You’ll have to explain why that entry is a good example. And also why it should exist.": You are assuming I'm using this example to promote a particular view on whether to delete Crimean peninsula or not, but I am in fact undecided. I simply brought up this example because I think it is the exact same scenario. --WikiTiki89 00:00, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, and pardon me for presuming. But it’s one more SOP construction demonstrating nothing but its own SOP-ness, equating essentially to a circular definition. There other “—— peninsula” entries that are exactly the same, and a few that are not. —Michael Z. 2014-03-26 00:21 z

The following look like parallel constructions to me, and should probably be deleted: Arabian Peninsula, Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka Peninsula, Chukotski Peninsula, Iberian Peninsula, Iberian peninsula, Kathiawar peninsula (no entry Kathiawar), Korean Peninsula. Also Horn peninsula was RFD’d yesterday.

Some examples are not as clear-cut, but look SOP to me: Antarctic Peninsula (the big peninsula of Antarctica), Apennine Peninsula (the peninsula dominated by the Apennine mountains), Balkan Peninsula (ditto), Olympic Peninsula (home of the Olympic mountains and Mount Olympus), Scandinavian Peninsula & Scandinavian peninsula (the peninsula of Scandinavia, but not corresponding exactly to it), Kola Peninsula (no entry Kola).

In contrast, the following looks like a good entry, with a definition that is not self-evident: Upper Peninsula (local context, apparently; whither Lower Peninsula?) —Michael Z. 2014-03-26 16:20 z

“Crimean Peninsula”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows no lexicographic support for these. DCDuring TALK 17:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• If this were merely SoP, wouldn't we expect to find most of the citations to have a lowercase "p"? The capital "P" suggests a formal place name. I would delete Crimean peninsula as SoP and keep Crimean Peninsula, unless it can be shown that a substantial majority of citations use the lowercase "p". bd2412 T 17:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

  Not necessarily. It just means that it is considered to be a proper noun. --WikiTiki89 20:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

What is a “formal place name”? Idiomaticity and sum-of-partness apply to all terms and phrases, noun or proper noun. Since this doesn’t appear in dictionaries, some writers will automatically capitalize it as a place name, while others will automatically l.c. the common noun peninsula. Don’t assign too much significance to capitalization.

If it matters, caps:l.c. ratio of “Crimean [P/p]eninsula” is 10:10 in COCA, 1:5 in BNC, and 1:0 in the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English. Inconclusive, as one might expect to find in an SOP term absent from dictionaries. —Michael Z. 2014-03-27 02:41 z

The only requirements for the inclusion of place names, to my knowledge, is that they be attestable and that the place exists (or once existed) in the real world. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 03:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

No. WT:CFI#Names of specific entities only adds a few restrictions on proper names. It doesn’t add any mandates for inclusion, nor nullify any other guideline. The criterion of WT:CFI#Idiomaticity, for example, still applies. —Michael Z. 2014-03-27 15:31 z

There's nothing idiomatic in proper nouns, e.g. United Kingdom, South Korea, they are just names, they are included not because of their idiomaticity. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 20:25, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. A kingdom that is united is not the United Kingdom. There may be thousands of small peninsulas that are in Crimea, and therefore are Crimean, but they are not the Crimean Peninsula. bd2412 T 03:55, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The United Kingdom isn’t just a kingdom that’s united, and South Korea isn’t just the south of Korea. But the Crimean P/peninsula is just the P/peninsula of Crimea (easily citable with initial cap, in case you thought that was a significant indicator).

Nor should a dictionary define autonomous region of Crimea, Crimean ASSR, Crimean A/autonomous republic, Crimean lands, Crimean oblast, Crimean Peninsular, Crimean region, Crimean R/republic, Crimean soil, Crimean Soviet Republic, Crimean steppes, Crimean Tatar khanate, Crimean Tatar Republic, Crimean territory, Khanate of Crimea, nor Republic of Crimea (cited from real sources, caps sic). (An encyclopedic dictionary might include articles about one or two of these, but we have an encyclopedia to link to.) —Michael Z. 2014-03-28 05:39 z

I know your standing on multi-part place names but if we don't use qualifiers (island, peninsula, etc.), why do we need New York City, Washington, D.C. if New York can also mean the city of New York and Washington can also mean Washington, D.C.? "Crimea" has the sense "Crimean peninsula" and any administrative area on the peninsula but they don't have to coincide in borders. "Crimean peninsula" is unambiguous short for the peninsula, like Isle of Wight, even if we can abbreviate it to Wight colloquially or Kuril Islands to Kurils. If we just use shortened names, who will know, which Horn (Horn peninsula), which Kola (Kola Peninsula)? We can also abbreviate "past tense" to "past" or drop Falkland Islands since we have Falklands but I think better not. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

@User:Mzajac, actually no, the Crimean P/peninsula is not "just the P/peninsula of Crimea". The Kerch peninsula is a Crimean peninsula, because it is a peninsula located in Crimea, as are the Heracles Peninsula and the Tarhankut Peninsula. All of these are actual Crimean peninsulas, but none of them is the Crimean Peninsula. bd2412 T 12:49, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

User:BD2412, does the definite determiner the not have meaning? Should the dictionary define American President and President of the United States as “Barack Obama” because Franklin Pierce is an American President, and Canadian capital and Capital of Canada as “Ottawa,” because Toronto, Ontario, is a Canadian capital?

(By the way, Kerch peninsula, Peninsula of Kerch, Heracles Peninsula, and Peninsula of Heracles are red links. Should we become a gazetteer, listing and defining all places in the world, or all the ones that have Wikipedia articles?) —Michael Z. 2014-03-28 14:54 z

The issue is capitalization, not the definite article, which is a red herring. The name of the capital of Canada is "Ottawa", not "Capital of Canada"; the name of the U.S. President is "Barack Obama"; you won't find President of the United States on his birth certificate. However, the name of the landform that Crimea is found on is Crimean Peninsula, and is unique in being the only thing that is named that. As for Wiktionary being a gazetteer, place names are words, and fall under the goal of having "all words in all languages". If we are not going to have them (and we already have many), we might as well change that to "some words in all languages". bd2412 T 15:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

“The landform that Crimea is found on” – Crimea, very often the Crimea, is the landform, and its name is Crimea.

“All words” – “Crimean Peninsula” is two words, “the Crimean Peninsula” is three, and so is capitalized Citations:Peninsula of Crimea. But I don’t think it warrants an entry either. —Michael Z. 2014-03-28 15:53 z

You may be surprised to find that we have a number of "words" in the dictionary that are idioms composed of two lexical units with a space between them. Rhode Island and Mount Everest are geographic examples, but we also have things like fire engine and police box. Let me ask you this as a test of idiomacity: is w:Kerch peninsula a "Crimean peninsula" or not? If so, is it a "Crimean Peninsula"? bd2412 T 17:05, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I can see good reasons to include Rhode Island, Mount Everest, fire engine, and police box. No need to be snarky about it.

Okay, that is a good question about idiomaticity. I have one for you: what does “the Crimean peninsula” refer to? I don’t think it means Kerch. Are you privileging uses with a as more significant than uses with the?

I have scanned hundreds of quotations in Google Books and in the BYU corpora. “Crimean P/peninsula” is always used the same way and always means the same thing (with a single exception). The capitalization of the p isn’t significant. I think some writers played it safe by capitalizing the whole name of a place, while other writers played it safe by lowercasing a common noun modified by a proper adjective. Or maybe some of them read the Chicago Manual 8.1 “Chicago’s preference for the ‘down’ style” and l.c.’d, others read 8.52 “Mountains, rivers, and the like” and capped, while still others tried to interpret 8.46 “Regions of the world and national regions” and ended up flipping a coin.

If we define Crimean Peninsula as a proper name, then Crimean peninsula should be defined as an alternative capitalization of it.

And if we do, shall we also define Crimea Peninsula, Crimea peninsula, Peninsula of Crimea, peninsula of Crimea, Peninsula of the Crimea, or peninsula of the Crimea? —Michael Z. 2014-03-29 03:40 z

I repeat that the "the" is a red herring. We are not going to include "the largest city west of the Mississippi", even though that phrase only refers to any one city at a time, because there is not a place known in the cartographic sense as "largest city west of the Mississippi". Crimean Peninsula, by contrast, actually shows up as a unique place name in physical geography maps like this one, and this one, and this one. The variations you propose would only be included if they could also be attested as place names. The fact that some places have multiple names, like Paris and City of Light, is well documented. bd2412 T 17:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Now we’re getting somewhere. What do you mean by “attested as place names?” We can already accept maps as sources of quotations, but I don’t think your links are durably-archived sources. Are you proposing that sum-of-parts restrictions shouldn’t apply to place names? —Michael Z. 2014-03-29 18:27 z

We are not ignoring sum-of-parts restrictions. Crimean Peninsula is idiomatic; there are many peninsulas that are "Crimean" but it is incorrect to denote any of them but one "Crimean Peninsula". This is no different than having an entry for police box despite the fact that any "box" that is owned or used by "police" (e.g. a cardboard box used to hold evidence) could be described in SOP terms as a police box. If your concern is about the durability of sources, here are some durably archived sources containing a map of the Ukraine with the "Crimean Peninsula" labeled as such. bd2412 T 20:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

• 2014, Kevin Dooley, Why Politics Matters: An Introduction to Political Science, p. 155.
• 2012, Amelia Glaser, Jews and Ukrainians in Russia's Literary Borderlands, p. xii.
• 2009, Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, CIA World Factbook 2009: Complete Unabridged Edition (scroll up two pages to see the map).

bd2412 T 20:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

That would be a great analogy, if the Police were a box. Do you think we should define Canadian G/overnment in its idiomatic sense of the federal government of Canada, because there are many Canadian governments under it, like those of provinces or municipalities? North American land mass? U.S. territory? United Nations assembly?

Also, I am still not clear what you mean by being “attested as place names.” All those red link are attested, with “peninsula” in both caps and l.c., and they all refer to Crimea. Would that be sufficient to warrant inclusion, or do you mean that there is some specific indicator distinguishing a proper name from a descriptive term? —Michael Z. 2014-03-30 20:45 z

Since you were concerned about durably archived sources, show me three durably archived sources where Peninsula of Crimea appears on a map, thereby indicating the place name as the cartographer/geographer understands it, and I will agree that Peninsula of Crimea is just as deserving of an entry. The same can be said if you can find three map usages of Korea South as opposed to South Korea to identify that region. As for them all referring to Crimea, there is a difference between Crimea and Crimean Peninsula, and it is the same difference as the difference between senses 1 and 2 of Hawaii and Australia. bd2412 T 03:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

If you’re saying that Crimean Peninsula = Crimea (1), I agree with that. Also that Crimean Oblast = Crimea (2.13 & 2.14). I have seen English maps that have both Crimean Peninsula and Crimean Oblast on the peninsula. To me, this is evidence that both of the longer names are SOP. —Michael Z. 2014-03-31 20:10 z

I don’t agree that simply appearing as a map label makes a phrase a proper noun or a place name. Lots of common nouns and descriptive phrases are used to label specific map features. A map may illustrate the geographic definition of the referent, but it lacks lexical context and usage, and even capitalization (tending to title case and all caps). Specific places marked on maps I have at hand include steppe of the Kipchaks, Max Vasmer, Lusatian culture, coastal lowlands, French, East European upland, western dialects, Goths, Teutonic Order, 1791, March 1939, 1870’s, Krymksij Poloustrov (on an English map), Ukrainian line, Boundary of Ukraine, British Expeditionary Force, minefields, narrows.

Conversely, I disagree that finding a name on a map is required to consider it a place name. Nothing in our guidelines supports this. —Michael Z. 2014-03-31 20:10 z

Nevertheless, I would keep Crimean Peninsula. Whether appearing on maps or in running text is a more authoritative showing, it appears well enough in both. Whereas Crimea might mean the political demarcation or the geographic entity, Crimean Peninsula is much more clearly limited to the geographic entity. How this compares to other landforms may well be a bit fuzzy, but the region has a particularly important history as a flashpoint in European wars (most pointedly the Crimean War of the 1850s, but look at it in the news again today). bd2412 T 11:42, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Obviously Crimean + peninsula refers to geography more directly than, say, Crimean + government or Crimean + industry. How does that relate to our CFI? How do historical conflicts in Crimean relate to our CFI regarding the phrase Crimean peninsula? —Michael Z. 2014-04-01 17:55 z

I'm not talking about Crimean + peninsula, I'm talking about Crimean Peninsula, the name of a particular place. Its involvement in historical conflicts has lead to it being written about more, and made it more likely to be a term that a reader might look up in a dictionary to find, for example, a translation of the place name. The purpose of a dictionary is to serve the needs of the readers, and entries like this accomplish that. bd2412 T 18:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

You are saying we should consider the notability of a referent. A dictionary does not serve its readers by trying to compete with an encyclopedia. —Michael Z. 2014-04-03 06:29 z

You are absolutely right. We don't need to consider its notability, since it was easy enough to provide three references spanning a year and demonstrating idiomacity. bd2412 T 15:25, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

(By the way, the guideline doesn’t require that any thing exists in the real world for a term to be defined. It specifically mentions mythological creatures, and that fictional places are also subject to the restrictions of WT:CFI#Fictional universes. Wiktionary is WT:NOT an encyclopedia, and generally concerns terms, not things. —Michael Z. 2014-03-27 15:48 z)

• Keep this geographic name in both attested capitalizations. The allegation of this being a sum of parts seems implausible. Notice our definition of the adjective Crimean: "Denoting, of, or related to Crimea, a peninsula on the north of the Black Sea, separating it from the Sea of Azov." Thus, "Crimean peninsula" would be a peninsula relating to a particular peninsula on the Black Sea, which seems implausible.

  For OneLook: “Black Sea”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. finds some dicts; “Crimean Peninsula”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. and “Arabic Peninsula”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. find close to nothing, while “Balkan Peninsula”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. again finds some dicts including AHD and Collins; “Korean Peninsula”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. finds WordNet copiers but not AHD and Collins.

  For other similarly formed peninsula names: Korean Peninsula, Scandinavian Peninsula (Scandinavian--of or pertaining to Scandinavia, which in one of its senses refers to the Scandinavian Peninsula); for more see the list collected by Mzajac above.

  Frequency of capitalizations: Crimean peninsula,Crimean Peninsula at Google Ngram Viewer.

  For better context: Geographic names that contain their entity type in the name include Hudson River, Cooper Creek, Lake Ontario, Atlantic Ocean, Adriatic Sea, Chesapeake Bay, Cape Horn, Mount Everest, Longs Peak, Death Valley, Copper Canyon, Red River Gorge, Mexico City, New York City, Cape Town, New York State, Main Street, Grant Avenue, Jack Kerouac Alley, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Abbey Road. Some have the form "<noun-phrase-used-attributively> <entity-type>" (e.g. "Death Valley"), while some have the form "<adjective-phrase> <entity-type>" (e.g. "Atlantic Ocean"). --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:22, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

You are ignoring “denoting,” Dan. Crimean peninsula = “the peninsula that is Crimea.” It’s just like “North American continent”.

I notice that the Onelook dictionary entries are purely encyclopedic. They lack etymology, onomastics, pronunciation, or anything else that makes up a dictionary entry. Encyclopedic dictionary entries exist to sell print dictionaries to customers who don’t want a shelf full of encyclopedias. Fortunately, a link to Wikipedia takes up much less space.

The dictionary should define proper nouns and related words, like Crimea and Crimean, and not contain every proper name that is a sum-of-parts construction, like Crimea peninsula or Crimean peninsula. I realize that not everyone agrees with this view, but I wish the proponents of encyclopedic entries would propose even a vague idea of what they want included and excluded, instead of just bickering over every entry. —Michael Z. 2014-03-29 15:14 z

• Is there any point in keeping this discussion open any longer? I doubt a consensus can be reached on the question at this point. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Kept both as no consensus to delete. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)