The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: article not moved Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 21:04, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

79360 Sila–Nunam → 79360 Sila-Nunam –

Only hyphens are allowed in the names of minor planets, see Astronomical_naming_conventions#Minor_planets. Created in 2006 with a hyphen and moved last February with no discussion. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 15:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to be accurate, the page history is:

• (79360) 1997 CS29 created by Lights at 13:06, 12 December 2006
• moved to (79360) Sila-Nunam (hyphen) by Ruslik0 (a m:Steward) at 13:22, 12 January 2012‎ named
• moved to 79360 Sila-Nunam (hyphen) by Ruslik0 at 18:36, 12 January 2012 (naming convention)
• moved to 79360 Sila–Nunam (en dash) by Kwamikagami (kwami) at 02:31, 11 February 2012‎

Now if a steward on their home wiki thinks the naming convention calls for a hyphen who are we to disagree? -- Apteva ( talk) 22:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

To be even more accurate, it should be noted that his moves had nothing to do with the choice of hyphen or en dash, and he has editted and not objected there since the move to en dash; also at 31P/Schwassmann–Wachmann. And invoking some kind of authority based on being a steward is likely not something he would stoop to. Dicklyon ( talk) 22:36, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

And he has weighed in below in favor of following the MOS, opposing the move. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:26, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There have been attempts to recruit editors of specific viewpoints to this article. If you've come here in response to such recruitment, please review the relevant Wikipedia policy on recruitment of editors, as well as the neutral point of view policy. Disputes on Wikipedia are resolved by consensus, not by majority vote.

• Oppose. This is not a single body, Sila-Nunam, but two, Sila and Nunam. A dash is appropriate. It was created with a hyphen when that info was unavailable. — kwami ( talk) 15:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Also below: #Sila-Nunam as married name of binary. - Wikid77 13:35, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

As a single hyphenated system: The name refers to the combined system, as a transneptunian binary, rather than juggling 2 items, such as " hand/eye coordination" (or "and/or" as 2 options); however, that confusion is why many groups might think a dash is needed as if addressing the Romeo–Juliet relationship. Instead the preponderance of sources treat the name as a hyphenated name, and not a stand-off " carbon–carbon bond". Thus the name is hyphenated "Sila-Nunam" but forcing a dash can be confusing to readers, such as myself, where dashes are more common for parenthetical expressions, such as "Newton and Einstein–European scientists" where there is no "Einstein–European" but rather the added phrase as both "European scientists". Hence, the overuse of dashes as variants of hyphens leads to confusion, while keeping hyphens in hyphenated names helps to separate them from dashed phrases, or even use double-hyphen "--" but avoid splitting names with dashes, to reduce reader confusion, as in phrase, "90 Antiope and 79360 Sila–Nunam systems" which can be read as both being "–Nunam systems" because many people do not expect only an em dash ('—') for a dashed phrase. In general, limit the use of dashes. I hope that explains the problems and why hyphens have been preferred in names for so many decades. - Wikid77 ( talk) 14:31/16:46, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that "Newton and Einstein–European scientists" is acceptable? Endashes used for parentheses should be spaced. Rothorpe ( talk) 15:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps to some English-language cultures, a dash might need extra-spacing —— especially when not using hyphens in hyphenated names; however, in other cultures, a single dash typically indicates the start of a dashed comment, as a parenthetical phrase offset by the leading dash, and that is acceptable, to them, because they use hyphens in hyphenated names and dashes are mostly "---" or such. Remember, the world typically reads for "normal-speak" rather than "MOS-speak" in articles. - Wikid77 ( talk) 16:46, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikid, I am sorry to say that the MOS has something to say about this, too: if used to set off parenthetical information, en dashes are spaced and em dashes aren't. See WP:EMDASH. And only en dashes, not em dashes, are used as connectors. The MOS rules aren't arbitrary; the reason the en dash is spaced if used parenthetically is precisely because there would otherwise be confusing Einstein–European-type situations. I also come across a lot of dashes in my work and I think the MOS tracks common usage on this dash spacing point, at least where I'm from. I'll concede that not all Wikipedia editors know about this sort of minutiae, but just because grammar and punctuation skills vary isn't a reason to be intentionally haphazard. AgnosticAphid talk 17:30, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, not just the MOS but many style guides address these alternative styles for the sentence-breaking dash. If Wikid77 knows of any that allow an unspaced en dash in this role, he should point that out, rather than claiming "in other cultures". Dicklyon ( talk) 17:39, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Likewise. The title is as it should be. -- JorisvS ( talk) 15:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Indeed. Rothorpe ( talk) 16:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose—The naming conventions article linked to in the nomination doesn't really support the claim being made here. But even if it did—or there was a more explicit prohibition somewhere against dashes—I still don't think it would matter much. This is a matter of style, and Wikipedia's style is to use a dash here, as I understand it. We don't need to follow specialist sources on style when it conflicts with the projects' broader style. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support. The naming authority for such objects, the IAU, does not use endashes, they use slashes, spaces, and hyphens. A review of google gives 79360 Sila-Nunam (with a hyphen) as the most common name. Apteva ( talk) 17:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Many people make no distinction between hyphens and endashes, so I don't find that surprising. Rothorpe ( talk) 18:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
    • However, this is a case where anyone who does know the difference would use the correct punctuation - a hyphen. I was looking for google scholar articles that used an endash for Michelson-Morley experiment, and the only one I found used endashes throughout the article - for everything except minus signs, which were minus signs (every place a hyphen would correctly appear, they used an endash). Apteva ( talk) 01:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
      • • Google Scholar search Michelson-Morley shows over 95% use hyphen not en dash, and search Sila-Nunam shows 100% use hyphen not en dash. - Wikid77 ( talk) 21:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
      • I agree that Google Scholar usually hyphenates Michelson–Morley (which may or may not mean they prefer hyphens to dashes). But I couldn't verify your second sentence. Instead of finding such an example with too many dashes, I easily found (without going through any of the paywalls) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] which use hyphens in the places a Manual of Style partisan would expect. Art LaPella ( talk) 02:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
        • The first one is the same one that I found - I did not check the first 500 like I usually might - but only the first twenty. What you are looking at is the edited summary which changes the endashes to hyphens. Here is the paper. [6] The second one, or at least a draft, is here, and uses hyphens and minus signs. [7] The third one uses hyphens. [8] The fourth one uses hyphens, [9] as does the fifth. [10] It can be argued that these are "drafts", without the benefit of editing for punctuation. It is possible that someone with a subscription can tell us what punctuation the edited published papers used, but I do not see it as important. Of the first 20 results only one used an endash for Michelson-Morley experiment, even though doing so is arguably pedantically correct. Apteva ( talk) 04:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
          • Your last post is essentially right (more exactly, the first one hyphenates normally at the end of a line, and the fourth one uses minus signs to mean "or" on page 11.) Art LaPella ( talk) 05:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
            • Many books do not use a hyphen for end of line hyphenation, but instead use a "soft hyphen", which is shorter than a normal hyphen, and that is what is in that paper - try copy and pasting it and there is nothing visible there - it is just put there to look like a hyphen. Apteva ( talk) 07:06, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose – WP style not only allows, but encourages, the en dash in such a context; per MOS:NDASH: "In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between. Here the relationship is thought of as parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional, or at least involving separate or independent elements. The components may be nouns, adjectives, verbs, or any other independent part of speech. Often if the components are reversed there would be little change of meaning." A perfect fit to the two nearly equal parallel components in a gravitational embrace. Dicklyon ( talk) 05:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  Does not apply to proper nouns. By definition they are names and names are spelled as they are, without changing characters within them, including the punctuation. Apteva ( talk) 06:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  No, that is not the definition of a proper noun. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 06:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  No one said it was. And no one said that nothing ever gets misspelled. Our job is to fix those misspellings when we find them, and find the most correct way of spelling them in wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia, not a work of fiction, even though some fixtion does appear now and then and needs to be fixed. Look if anyone wants to publish a book about 79360 Sila-Nunam, and spell it any way they want, they are welcome to use any punctuation they want, but we do not have that liberty. We have an obligation to make one of two and only two choices - the correct spelling and punctuation, or the spelling and punctuation that most people use. And we can argue about which to use, but those are our only two choices - none other - and an endash is not one of the two choices. so we have only one choice - a hyphen, and do not even need to be discussing this move - just move it to 79360 Sila-Nunam. Apteva ( talk) 07:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP dash style guidelines, the extensive discussions there, at AN/I, RFC/U, VPP, everywhere else, and now here. Best course forward would be the proposer to withdraw the proposal so we do not have to continue to rehash the rehash. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  The discussion there appears to clearly be leading to ending this fiasco and moving this article to using a hyphen. Most editors agree that there are far more important things to work on than incorrectly moving articles that should use a hyphen to having them using an endash. Apteva ( talk) 22:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  The discussion where? WP:VPP#Proposal for a moratorium, for instance, is leading to no more en dash/hyphen moves at all. Art LaPella ( talk) 22:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The widely supported proposal to stop the disruption is here. Dicklyon ( talk) 00:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I couldn't care less what the official astronomical rule about hyphens and en dashes is. The Wikipedia rule is that we use an en dash to connect two distinct or independent elements of equal weight – here, the two bodies. SMcCandlish said it better than I could at | the end of this diff:

MOS is explicitly prescriptive, and has to be, and it is not tied to what any particular external "authority" on style and usage says, but determined by consensus here, or as close to consensus as we can get, based on WP's own particular needs and nature. It is also an undeniable fact that various people will be unhappy about every single rule in MOS; we would not need to make rules about things unless they were things people disagreed about and editwarred over. The fact that you disagree to the point of outrage over one such point is simply evidence that we do in fact need a rule about it, and that such a rule will be arbitrary. So it goes. AgnosticAphid talk 16:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. The MOS is clear on this issue. Ruslik_ Zero 17:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

  That example in the MOS, of comet Hale-Bopp spelled with an endash, is in error, and is under discussion. Other than that, the MOS says to use the IAU name. Apteva ( talk) 02:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Where does the MOS say that? AgnosticAphid talk 08:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

"The title of an article should be based on the Article titles policy." What that says is that it should be but is not. What that should say is "The title of an article is specified by the Article titles policy." Seriously, the MOS has nothing whatsoever to do with titles. There are 71 pages to the MOS, and they relate solely to writing and structuring articles. There are 71 pages to WP:TITLE, and they relate solely and only to determining the title. Fortunately no one has written a title page that says to misspell astronomical objects. Here is the thing. Title is a policy, and MOS is a guideline. Are we saying that there are 142 pages in title, or are we saying that there are 142 pages in the MOS and half of them are a policy? I say there are 71 in each and each deal with their own domain - titles and article bodies. Apteva ( talk) 10:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Despite the RfC just closing against you on this very point, you apparently still do not understand what spelling is. We're talking about punctuation, not about a change in name. TITLE mostly deals with the names of articles, not how those names are formatted or punctuated, which is largely left up to the MOS. Though of course this has been explained to you a couple dozen times. — kwami ( talk) 12:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

For reference, the RFC in which Apteva objected to such use of en dashes in titles is at WT:MOS#Three corrections. The idea had already lost before he declared an RFC of it, and then it lost some more. Another RFC/U on his behavior about it is still open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Apteva, where the overwhelming consensus is that he should drop the stick. The only thing that's hard to understand is why Enric Naval decided to join in Apteva's campaign of anti-en-dash anti-MOS disruption. Dicklyon ( talk) 20:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It's regrettable, but not that hard to understand. Enric Naval was one of the few who opposed this particular rule from its inception. See this. Enric Naval hasn't changed his mind, apparently, and chose to bring this move rather than attempting to reach consensus for his proposed alternative rule, so here we are again. AgnosticAphid talk 20:29, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I see. But that's not the inception, just where the consensus was re-affirmed. The guidance appears to have started on Christmas day in 2005, here. Dicklyon ( talk) 22:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Discuss the topic instead of discussing the participants in the discussion - consensus 101. Apteva ( talk) 19:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I will reformat the comment, which was mostly about content and only incidentally about you. There is a different between the substantive content of an article title and the formatting of an article title. The former (e.g., should we call the article Burma or Myanmar?) is governed by WP:TITLE and the latter (should the article title Hale–Bopp have a dash or a hyphen?) is governed by WP:MOS. WP:MOS is not subject to rules about verifiability and common name because it is a guideline, not an article. See WP:Policy. AgnosticAphid talk 20:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Here is the deal. I create an article and want to know how to write it, where do I look? At MOS or title? I look only and solely at MOS. Next I want to give it a title, where do I look? I look only and solely at WP:TITLE. I do not refer back to MOS to see how to style the title, because if there was anything important about styling the title, it would be in WP:TITLE, which has 71 pages, and if the punctuation was important, that is where I would find it, in a page in WP:TITLE called WP:Title punctuation. The fact that we do not have such an article is because having one was not deemed important, although I am pretty sure that link is going to turn blue of cold soon. Apteva ( talk) 21:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

If the MOS describes how to use certain punctuation/etc, why would we copy all that guidance to WP:TITLE? Why not just use the guidance on the MOS for titling style? I think that's what we currently are doing, I don't see your point here. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 00:43, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

First because the advice about how to use dashes in sentences does not apply to proper nouns and second because it is unrealistic to have 71 pages of Title policy defer to 71 pages of MOS guideline, making it necessary to refer to 142 pages to determine how to name articles. 71 pages is bad enough. Apteva ( talk) 04:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support move to hyphen per wp:COMMONNAME and wp:ACCESS: The article title should be renamed to have a hyphen as commonly found in most wp:RS reliable sources, and improve accessibility on all browsers, where some older browsers still display an en dash as identical to a hyphen during editing, but a search with hyphen key fails to match the unusual endashed name. The argument that using dashes (per highly contested wp:MOS#Dashes) is only a matter of style, rather than spelling is false, as any student who spelled " merry-go-round" as dashed "merry—go—round" would likely be flunked for misspelling or suspended from class for an attitude problem. The pro-dash forcing of controversial dashes into long-term hyphenated scientific names is clearly over-the-top, pro-dash wp:advocacy, when even the scientific journals specifically refer to the names as being "hyphenated". Being a computer scientist, with a strong background in astronomy and computational linguistics, I find the obstinent pushing of en dashes into commonly hyphenated scientific names to be highly disturbing and disruptive to our scientific readers, many of whom are likely to think an intelligent encyclopedia would follow rational rules under " Astronomical naming conventions#Minor planets". The logic is easy to prove, as when discussing the rules for astronomical naming, note the proper use of a hyphen by showing an en-dash character instead, which would be clearly absurd. Hence, as proven by reductio ad absurdum, the use of dashes here is clearly improper, to the point of being laughably absurd, to scientists. - Wikid77 ( talk) 16:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

  Nobody is suggesting putting dashes in "merry-go-round". when even the scientific journals specifically refer to the names as being "hyphenated"—See, that's the thing: some journals—like Nature—write comets with dashes: See this. Is that "highly disturbing and disruptive" to Nature's readers? Other journals write it with a hyphen. This is simply not a matter of getting it "wrong", nobody is going to get flunked either way. It's just style. I should think our "scientific readers" can probably handle whatever stylistic choices Nature uses. Regarding accessibility, this would be an argument to not use dashes anywhere, even in page ranges, etc. Is that what you're suggesting? ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

  I showed my wife "merry—go—round" and asked if it was spelled correctly, and she immediately said "yes", so no schoolchild could be expected to do better. To most people, dashes are hyphens. The issue is whether that includes many publishers and the IAU. Art LaPella ( talk) 18:41, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, to computers the dashes are not hyphens, and there is no significant reason to pretend dashes are a style for hyphenated words, because that leads to the direct absurd conclusion that dashes are styled hyphens, which is technically incorrect in computer typesetting, and thus by reductio ad absurdum, the use of dashes here is clearly improper, to force extra complexity and violate wp:COMMONNAME, just as if someone were to claim a zero "0" is a valid style for capital letter "O" because people do not see much difference, as if there were no confusion of misrepresenting a dash to be a style of hyphen. - Wikid77 ( talk) 13:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: Two different entities, so use the en dash, per WP:MOSDASH. No one cares what your carefully-selected pet sources, ignoring all the others, say. We have a house style. Many external sources agree with it, some don't, and it just doesn't matter at all. PS: WP:COMMONNAME is not relevant here. Unless you have access to the electronic typesetting systems used by the sources you would cite that you think are using hyphens, you cannot prove that they are in fact using hyphens and not en dashes, since the two are indistinguishable in a large number of fonts. Asserting that most sources use a hyphen is pure, unadulterated original research (and possibly wishful thinking). Since redirects work fine, it's a moot point anyway - any user looking for the hyphenated version will get right where they want to be an probably never even notice the difference. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, actually many reference documents are online where the hyphens and en dashes can be specifically detected, regardless of display fonts, and policy wp:COMMONNAME, as a policy, overrides guideline wp:MOS, because policies are a higher level of restriction than guidelines, and then "the preponderance" of wp:RS reliable sources using hyphens can be shown by inspecting the computer-encoded characters as not being endashes. So hence, the decision to rename to use hyphens is the consensus decision here, as also in consensus with policy wp:TITLE (with wp:COMMONNAME). Even if 100 people !voted as "Oppose" the hyphen, regardless of that "local consensus" then the rename to the commonly-used hyphen form is clearly the consensus outcome here. However, many sources often style the name with parentheses brackets, as " (79360) Sila-Nunam" which could be used for some text inside the article, just as song titles are referenced with quotation marks, "Song" but those quotation marks are not part of the title. I think now, all the objections have been refuted, so the rename to the common hyphenated title can proceed as requested, and the dashed form can become a redirect. - Wikid77 ( talk) 13:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

This has probably been discussed to death by others, but I didn't find anything at WP:TITLE to specify that COMMONNAME was or wasn't intended to be used for cases like this. Unless you count WP:TITLE#Special characters, which specifies that some titles should have dashes, and that at least apostrophe styling should be governed by a MOS guideline, not COMMONNAME. We also have the well-known guideline at the last line of MOS:#Article titles. So a local consensus could indeed define an exception to the policy when the policy doesn't explicitly address that issue, and ignoring 100 opposes, or 9 opposes here, would strike me as obstructive. Art LaPella ( talk) 19:45, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Unless policy wp:TITLE specifically states that comet names are excluded from the rules, then wp:COMMONNAME applies to use the hyphenated names. As for local consensus, note wp:CONSENSUS states, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale" such as to override policy wp:COMMONNAME. That decision is a policy rule, and not "obstructive" because a special-interest group must work with the broader community, and no intention to obstruct progress is intended here. However, thank you for noting the sparse sections of policy, which should be clarified to reduce future misunderstandings. - Wikid77 ( talk) 21:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Few if any policies are intended to cover every imaginable situation (if Darth Vader credibly threatened to blow up the Earth unless you used an en dash, you should comply, even though WP:TITLE has no specific Darth Vader exception.) Exceptions like that are the well-accepted way to use the misnamed Wikipedia:Ignore All Rules. See also WP:EXCEPTIONS. I certainly agree that WP:TITLE should be clarified on the subject of punctuation. Art LaPella ( talk) 21:38, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Calm

As an uninvolved admin, I'd like to ask everyone participating here to try to remain calm. There have been many too many reverts on this page in the last few hours, considering that it is just a requested move discussion. I would like to request that those who have been posting take a break for a little while and let new people post, and certainly avoid editing or disturbing anyone else's post in any way. — Carl ( CBM ·  talk) 00:31, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Sila-Nunam as married name of binary

It appears that a major point of confusion has been a claim that the name is a loose relationship between two entities, Sila and Nunam (5% smaller), but actually, the name refers to the total combined system, as a transneptunian binary system, as if with a hyphenated, married surname " 79360 Sila-Nunam". That binary system is likely to last for many more years, and is not a mere "Sila–Nunam courtship" but rather the official name, as registered in official documents, as if in a marriage license. In the preponderance of wp:RS reliable sources, that same hyphenated name "79360 Sila-Nunam" is also used, as per wp:COMMONNAME, but stemming from the fact that it was formally renamed, from the original designation with provisional name "1997 CS29" after it was discovered on 1997-02-03, as a classical Kuiper Belt object (KBO), orbiting beyond Neptune in the Solar System. If a notable "Jane Doe" married John Smith, changed her public name to "Jane Doe-Smith" and the sources commonly used that new name, then the surname would be hyphenated "Doe-Smith" not dashed "Doe–Smith". I hope that analogy to a married name helps to clarify why the name contains a hyphen in official documents, as well as in common usage, as referring to the combined binary system. - Wikid77 ( talk) 13:35, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Icarus, one of the journals that uses en dashes in comet names that commemorate multiple discoverers, uses the phrase "transneptunian binary system Sila and Nunam" and the en-dashed "Sila–Nunam" (or least one of their authors does). It's like my family, the Asprey–Lyon family, where neither my wife nor I use the name Asprey-Lyon; we are each part of an enduring married relationship, but retain our separate identities and names. Sila and Nunam likewise retain their separate identities and names, though they are in a binary system named by the two of their separate names. Dicklyon ( talk) 17:11, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Chicago MOS 16th edition only uses hyphens in double-barreled surnames, see "8.6: Hyphenated and extended names". -- Enric Naval ( talk) 19:51, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

That is correct (same with CMOS earlier editions), and was certainly acknowledged in the en dash discussions. Other guides are different. You can go back and read about all the details of which guides recommend which en dash usages, if you're interested. Here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 122#Guides that prescribe en dashes to connect equal pairs and other sections around there (notice that the discussion is interlaced with comments by User:Pmanderson/Septentrionalis, who was later banned from discussing the MOS after refusing to accept the consensus and continuing to be disruptive, and later indef blocked for resorting to sockpuppetry to do more of the same; we all hoped not to see that pattern repeat, but now with Apteva having taken up the anti-en-dash anti-MOS campaign, that's where we are again). Dicklyon ( talk) 21:10, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

This would be relevant if this were a double-barreled name. It is not. Sila has not taken the name Nunam, and Nunam has not taken the name Sila. If they had, then we would use a hyphen per CMOS and our own MOS, and the two bodies would be Sila-Nunam A and Sila-Nunam B. — kwami ( talk) 21:33, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Oxford Style Manual makes a point that I have made before: "Use the en rule closed up to express the meaning of to or and between words of equal importance. In these cases the words can be reversed in order without altering the meaning." You can't reverse Sila and Numan, the IAU dictates a specific order, there is no such thing as object "Numan-Sila". Similarly, "Bopp–Hale" or "Levy–Shoemaker" are meaningless. A few comets only differ in the order of their name, see List of comets discovered by the LINEAR project:

• LINEAR-NEAT vs. NEAT-LINEAR
• LINEAR-Spacewatch vs. Spacewatch-LINEAR
• LINEAR-Catalina vs. Catalina-LINEAR

All minor planet and comet names are double-barreled names, just like surnames. They don't have "equal weight": reversing their order will alter their meaning. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 00:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Reversing their order will not alter their meaning, but they have been lexicalized with a specific order. The 'reversing order' guideline is just an attempt at explaining the concept in simpler terms, and it only works in a literal sense for non-lexicalized phrases. Consider the large number of dashed names of mathematical theorems which are found with a fixed order just as your examples are, though they could just as easily have been coined in the reverse order, just as your example could have been.

If you continue reading the Oxford guide, you'll see that they give several example which cannot actually be reversed. It would make little difference semantically, but they simply never appear in the reverse order. Thus your source itself give lie to your claim. Some of the examples are on–off switch, Permian–Carboniferous boundary, dose–response curve, cost–benefit analysis, wave–particle duality. The boundary, for example: in the names of geological boundaries, the eras always appear in chronological order, and so are never reversed. (See Permian–Triassic extinction event etc.) However, they still have the en-dash relationship. Similarly, "dose–response" is in the chronological order of cause and effect, and so is fixed in that order, even though Oxford gives it as an example of words that "can be reversed in order without altering the meaning". The operative word here is "can": they can be reversed without altering their meaning, though they never are. — kwami ( talk) 00:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't look correct, you can find the reversed compounds in (many) reliable sources: " Carboniferous-Permian boundary" and particle-wave duality, response–dose curve. The order is just a convention and it's not regulated by any naming authority (that I know of). It will sound weird to some people, but it will still have the same meaning.

Please explain the lack of semantical difference between LINEAR-NEAT and NEAT-LINEAR, which are two different comets. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 01:29, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a lexical rather than semantic distinction. Either one could have been named in either order. Similarly, Permian–Triassic and *Triassic–Permian are grammatically equivalent, as are the other non-reversible (or seldom reversed) Oxford examples. For me, eye–hand coordination sounds completely wrong, though it's evidently the common order in the UK. If there were a second war between Mexico and the US, writers might take advantage of the lexicalization of Mexican–American War to coin the name *American–Mexican War, but which is which would merely be a historical accident, not a semantic difference. — kwami ( talk) 02:05, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

See:

• "particle-wave duality" is a grammatical construction, there are two independent entities that can be reversed on a whim. Meaning doesn't change.
• "Sila-Numan" is a single-word hyphenated name. It's created by a naming authority that assigns a certain order that can't be changed. it's a fossilized single entity since the moment of its inception. Reversing the order changes the meaning, it creates a meaningless name that nobody uses.

P.D.: Kwami, the IAU orders comet names by order of discovery, they couldn't have been named "in either order". NEAT-LINEAR has a different meaning than LINEAR-NEAT, it has the reverse order of discovery. Now, "Shoemaker-Levy" is named after a team who could have been named in either order, but they chose that order when reporting the discovery, and the IAU picked the first 3 discoverers (C. S. Shoemaker, E. M. Shoemaker and Levy, the IAU prefers short names and chose not to repeat the first surname) and fossilized the order as a proper name. No reliable source will call the comet "Levy-Shoemaker" because that's not the name of anything. Similarly, "Hill-McGraw", "Barre-Wilkes", and "Cola-Cola" only mean that you have miswritten the correct name. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 13:30, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Enric, the thing is that you're missing the point of "the words can be reversed in order without altering the meaning". That's just a rule-of-thumb to help distinguish things like blue-green the color where you use a hyphen and blue–green, as in the range of colors between blue and green, where you use the dash; or Sino-American (hyphen) vs. Chinese–US (dash). It doesn't have anything to do with word order due to convention. You need to consider the context of the "can be reversed in order" clause of the rule you're quoting—it's about words with equal importance or lexical function, not about "can the order be reversed without changing anything in any sense whatsoever." ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Fair point there. But it still doesn't change the fact that they are not two indepedent element joined by a dash. "sila-Numan" is a single word, a hyphenated proper name, dictated by a naming authority. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 19:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Sila and Nunam are also the names of two bodies making up a binary. The response that you got from IAU makes it clear that they don't know or care about the distinction between hyphen and en dash. Dicklyon ( talk) 19:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

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