On 29/11/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
The italic lightweight notes at the top of articles are "hatnotes" (per Wikipedia:Hatnote, in the Manual of Style). Anyone ready with the background of this term?
We made it up (or resurrected it from a very obscure usage, as with "disambiguation" - I must post my little study of this one day), I believe.
As jargon goes, it's not bad - it's succinct, and fairly clear. I've not yet seen anyone encounter the term and not realise immediately what it means, and I've certainly seen it used a lot as though it were a proper term of art.