G'day John,
I fully understand that. The most common way you see
Dvořák's name
printed in English is "Dvořák," fully and diacritically correct.
That said, if the full policy is that the most commonly recognized
English name for the person or thing addressed in the article is where
the article should reside, then [[Jaromir Jagr]] is right where it
belongs.
<snip />
English is not --- any longer --- the twenty-six characters we learn
about in school. "Café" is still "café", even if a couple of very
silly
people in Millwall insist on pronouncing it "kaiph"; I find it rather
astonishing that there are people who would be very unhappy at the idea
that our article wouldn't spell it "cafe". "Göring" is
"Göring",
"Schrödinger" is "Schrödinger", etc., etc.
There are words we know best in their Anglicised form, and there are
words (and names) which we don't. I appreciate your approach --- the
most commonly recognised name, in English --- although I hope *you*
appreciate that English is not just a language spoken in parts of North
America ... and the views of an English-speaking fellow in Poland are
just as important as those of someone who once rang up and complained
because his copy of /TV Guide/ included diacritic marks over the names
of a football player.
Displaying an Anglicised word because that's how the word is best-known
amongst English speakers is bonza. That doesn't mean we need to operate
with a deliberate bias against those funny little foreign characters
used by funny little foreigners.
We're not saying "change Dvořák,"
we're saying "respect policy."
Fuck policy. Policy is a stick to hit stupid process wonks with until
they're willing to do the Right Thing. If policy currently prescribes
the Right Thing, then don't say "respect policy" --- it's senseless when
you could just say "do the Right Thing". If policy is *wrong*, then
don't say "respect policy", because then you'll be doing the Wrong
Thing.
(Well, policy is also useful when the identity of the Right Thing is
ambiguous. My alternative proposal --- everyone does what Mark
Gallagher says --- hasn't quite caught on the way I hoped it might, so
following policy can be a good compromise. But we should follow policy
for a good reason, *never* "just because it's policy".)
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse