Talk:Jean de Ferrières

A fact from Jean de Ferrières appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 November 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that although Jean de Ferrieres inherited immense riches, he died a prisoner in a galley, unable to pay his ransom?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/November.

Wikipedia

Use of accents on Wikipedia[edit]

An editor (Awien) has moved the page and added French accents throughout the article. I didn't do that when I created the article because I don't know how far the English language Wikipedia could or should go in that regard, and whether there are unintended consequences in terms of searches both on Google and within Wikipedia itself, not only with respect to French accents but also with respect to accents in other languages including Italian, German and many others. I've added this note just to highlight the issue. NinaGreen (talk) 18:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not an issue in my experience. Just googled "Jean de Ferrieres", and as I expected, the first two hits were the French WP article and this one, both with the accent. Cheers, Awien (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know. Thanks for your edits. NinaGreen (talk) 19:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating life[edit]

. . . in terrible times. And what a way to die! The stuff of nightmares. Awien (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"de Ferrières"[edit]

Call him "Jean de Ferrières", call him "Ferrières", call him "Jean", refer to him as "the Vidame", but not "de Ferrières", which usage wasn't helping to bolster confidence in this otherwise interesting and well-laid-out article.--Wetman (talk) 19:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem to me that this is an issue on which there's a hard and fast rule. We call Michel de Montaigne "Montaigne", but the Chevalier des Grieux "des Grieux". De Chirico typically gets to keep his particle, as does De La Mare. Some fused it with the following word (usually at the time of the French Revolution: Delacroix, Delaunay etc., some dropped it, though no example comes to mind right now. In other words, usage varies. Awien (talk) 19:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]