Talk:Boatswain's whistle

Moved from Vfd
I merged the content with Boatswain's whistle (the real spelling of the whistle), so Bosun whistle is no more needed and up for deletion. --Jörg 10:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Google has about 65,000 results for "bosun whistle" (including "bosun's whistle") - and 83,000 results for "boatswain whistle", so I'm not sure that this spelling is necessarily wrong. Since the content is merged already, I suggest a redirect instead of deletion. -- Cid Highwind 10:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Restore the article or, at minimum Redirect per Cid. The term "bosun" is used by Tom Paris in  to refer to Seven amusingly.  Near as I can tell, the word "boatswain" has never been used in dialogue, but has been included in some scripts (like .  Dialogue trumps scripts, though, even if "incorrect".  Aholland 11:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've had this discussion in the past with Gvsualan and Shran, and their contention was that script trumps dialogue, which I disagreed with as well. In my case, it was Muniz vs. Muñiz (or Muñez, or Muñoz). The dialogue in multiple episodes clearly has the pronunciation as Muñez. The sound of "n" vs. "ñ" in Spanish is very different, like the difference between "canon" and "canyon", as is the difference between the sound of "e" vs. "i" ("yes" vs. "yees"). Anyway, I'd like a clear consensus on which way to go when dialogue pronunciation is different than the script (or credits). In my mind, it's no different than if the script says Smith, but they say Jones in the dialogue... do we have the article read "Smith" when there's nobody named that in the episode? I do realize that's a bit more blatant than a difference in pronunciation, but it boils down to the same issue at heart. -- Renegade54 12:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * In this case it is actually just about the spelling, though, as bosun and boatswain are pronounced exactly the same, namely (bō'sən) . But I agree that we need consensus when it comes to such issues. --Jörg 13:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd agree with a Redirect. Classically in British based navies, boatswain is pronounced bosun (sorta), similar to lieutenant being pronounced more like left-tenant.  Sulfur 12:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The article is about the whistle, not about bosun vs. boatswain. Bosun seems to be a variant of boatswain, both are pronounced exactly the same., . I checked a transcript of here:  and the dialogue is transcribed as boatswain there as well. I have no idea whether in the 23rd and 24th century, they'll use bosun or boatswain, so a redirect seems perfectly alright. --Jörg 12:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (While not always accurate, the closed captioning has the term as "bosun" in . Just FYI as to the general confusion and use of alternate spellings.)  Aholland 12:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * lol: and in the Star Trek Encyclopedia under Dickerson's entry it is stated that "Dickerson piped the bos'n whistle"... When I created the boatswain's whistle page (when creating all the other musical instruments pages) I looked up the correct spelling (or the orginal one) and created the article under Boatswain's whistle as the name of the pipe, as you said, was never established in dialogue. I guess the only way to find out whether it's boatswain, bosun or bos'n in the 24th Century is to get hold of the script for and use that spelling. (we could create a page for bosun/boatswain along the way).
 * Anyway, we don't need Boatswain's whistle AND bosun whistle so I merged the content. Now we only have to decide where to put the article, at Bosun's whistle, Bosun whistle, Boatswain's whistle or Bos'n whistle...--Jörg 13:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm okay with Boatswain's whistle being the primary article, but suggest redirects there from all the others. I would recommend NOT just deleting the others as they would eventually be resurrected by people who never saw the spelling of boatswain (and "bosun" is used in a lot of scripts - see below).  Aholland 14:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That's exactly what I think as well, if I may quote you "A logical approach". :-) We can create redirects at Bosun's whistle, Bosun whistle and Bos'n whistle, so people who want to create a page about the whistle under those 3 names can find out that the article already exists. When someone can confirm the spelling of bosun/boatswain in the script of, the article can be moved to the right redirect and Boatswain's whistle becomes the redirect.--Jörg 14:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Since we all seem to have agreed on this, and no further action/dialogue in a week (or so), I've taken the steps to add in the redirects suggested by Jörg above and changed the Bosun whistle page to a redirect also. If anyone has any issues with this, please remark herein. -- Sulfur 15:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Absolutely no issue, looks good that way. :-) --Jörg 21:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Spelling issues
(I'm putting this in a separate subsection, so it can be eventually be moved to somewhere else later.)

Typically, we use the official scripts to determine the spelling of some item/character/..., simply because that's the only good source we have. Closed captioning is often wrong, especially regarding spelling, because it seems to be done without an original script as a resource. If something is pronounced one way, but written another, this could be a conscious decision or simply a mispronounciation (by the actor, or by the character he plays). Still, I think we should use script spelling in these cases, because that might be the spelling someone is using to search for an article. If we start to create articles after their "pronounciation" instead, who determines what exactly is the "one and only correct" spelling? In cases where pronounciation is clearly different from script spelling, like in the Muniz/Muñiz example above, there's nothing wrong with creating additional redirects to help searches for that article. -- Cid Highwind 13:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * A logical approach. The only exception that comes to mind would be if there is some clear changing of the word that happened in the final show.  For example, "Constellation" shouldn't be considered an odd pronounciation of "Constitution" merely because the latter was in the script but it was dubbed over during post-production.  Keep in mind it can vary across scripts, too.  For instance, the following scripts had "bosun" and not "boatswain" in at least the descriptive parts: ; ;, and .  But these had "boatswain" and not "bosun":  , , and !  So perhaps we should use the script as guidance, unless the scripts are themselves contradictory in which case we can use the standard English spelling (if a word) or the predominent spelling used the scripts (if a name). Aholland 14:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, it is bos'n in " and.
 * Another example for the script versus dialogue problem would be Gumato and Mugato or the recent Rebecca Smith vs. Rebecca White. --Jörg 14:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)