Talk:Strand, London

The Strand

John Norden's 1593 map of Westminster, showing "The Stronde", as used in the article

Since a fresh argument has broken out over the use of the in the lede, here is a list of reasons why we should be referring to the Strand:

• Stow, J., "Liberties of the Dutchie of Lancaster without Temple Barre", in A Survey of London. Reprinted From the Text of 1603 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908): 91-97. [1]
• A digest of the proceedings of the Court Leet of the manor and liberty of the Savoy, parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the county of Middlesex; from the year 1682 to the present time. (London: 1789) [2]
• Saunders, G., "Results of an Inquiry concerning the situation and extent of Westminster at various periods", in Archaeologia, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity 26 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1836), 223-241. [3]
• Walford, E., Old and New London: a narrative of its history, its people, and its places 3 (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1878). [4]
• Loftie, W.J., A History of London II (London: Edward Stanford, 1883). [5]
• Strand Improvement Act, 1896 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1896). [6]
• Jesse, J. H., "The Strand", in Memoirs of the City of London and Its Celebrities, III (Boston: L. C. Page & Company, 1902): 40-81. [7]
• Besant, W. and Mitton, G.E., "The Strand", in The Strand District (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1903). [8]
• Survey of London 18: St Martin-in-The-Fields II: the Strand, eds. Gater, G. H. and Wheeler, E. P. (London: London County Council, 1937). [9]
• Guerci, M. "Salisbury House in London, 1599-1694: The Strand Palace of Sir Robert Cecil", in Architectural History 52, 2009: 31–78. [10]
• Westminster City Council, Westminster’s Conservation Areas - Character Overview (London: 2021). [11]

Et cetera, et cetera. Simply put, established practice is that when writing about this street you say the Strand (note lower case article), but when using its name formally, as in an address, you drop the article. I've changed the lede to indicate this.  — Scott • talk 19:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

First sentence

@Str1977: Your last few edits have been to change the lede to read The Strand... also referred to without the article, The Strand... commonly referred to with leading article (twice), and commonly referred to with the article because apparently you think readers who may not be familiar with the word "article" as a term of grammar are "imbeciles". That's a really shitty attitude to take and you should knock it off. You may dislike commonly referred to with leading "the" but it doesn't justify replacing that with text which is harder to understand for people without a formal education in English.

I'm going to note here also that this makes the third time that you've been requested to use the talk page to discuss, by both me and by @Dāsānudāsa: a couple of days ago.  — Scott • talk 03:18, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

This getting absurd. If you and the other editor weren't stonewalling any minute deviation from how you want to have that sentence, this dispute would have been long over. I have repeatedly looked for ways of compromising with either while you haven't. I have discussed this in edit summaries while your comment on this talk page chooses to emotionalize the issue with false allegations rather than bring forth rational arguments.

Why false allegations? Because I did not call anyone "imbecile" - I used the word to point out that are readers are NOT that. I don't think any reader has trouble in understanding what "article" means. I am not so sure about other words in the lead (e.g. thoroughfare) with which however you have zero problems. I think scaling down language to the level that we have to write "with the the" instead of "with the article" is what's actually insulting to our readers.

And no, you do not need any "formal education in English" to understand what an article is. That grammatical term appears in other languages as well - and it could always be explained via a wiki-link for the (supposedly existing) readers who do not understand. Str1977 ^(talk) 09:19, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi. You reverted my edit, the summary for which included This encyclopedia is written for a general audience... with the (ableist) edit summary for a general audience, not for imbeciles. In other words, you think anyone who doesn't know the grammatical meaning of article is an "imbecile". No false allegations here, just a restatement of the sentiment that you personally expressed.

I could literally find you a dozen people right now, native speakers of English, who would answer the question "What is an article?" with something like "A piece of writing, or an object". It's a privileged viewpoint to assume that every reader would know the less common, grammatical sense of article. I'm not joking about it being less common, let's look at where it shows up in dictionary definitions:

• Merriam-Webster: 3rd sense
• dictionary.com: 5th sense
• American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: 4th sense
• Wiktionary: 3rd sense

Why potentially confuse a non-zero fraction of our readers when you could just use plain, unambiguous writing? Add a definition link to a word in the first sentence of an article? Come on now.

I haven't really had the time to consider the lede as a whole for having over-focused on the issue of these first few words. "Thoroughfare"? I completely agree, that has the whiff of someone trying to sound fancy but it just makes it sound like this article was written in 1924. Someone put it there in 2013 and I wish I'd noticed it sooner. It's gone.  — Scott • talk 16:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)