Talk:Hugh Hudson

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Paternity[edit]

I now realize that the ambiguity or confusion might have been left in this section to gloss over some considerable unorthodoxy of Hugh Hudson's paternity, but the two uses of "his" in the 2nd sentence confused me utterly. Did both refer to Hugh? Or did each refer to the last-mentioned antecedent (father, great-grandf.)?

It said this: "Hudson was born ... the second son of Jacynth (Ellerton), the second wife of Michael Donaldson-Hudson ..." so the section's style is established (arguably) that each possessive pronoun ("his" repeated) introducing a description is of the last-named person; i.e. Jacynth, not Hugh, is the wife of Michael, because that part is obvious.

But it went on "... His father was Ralph Charles Donaldson-Hudson, and his great-grandfather was Charles Donaldson-Hudson". Now, does this mean Hugh's father was Ralph? If it does, we have apparently that Jacynth was the (2nd) wife of Michael but was in a relationship with Ralph who fathered Hugh. That would be a non-trivial statement especially in that age (mid 1930s) as compared to say half a century or more later. Or does the two-"his" sentence mean (as I hope, and assumed in making the alteration to insert a forename instead of the first "his") that Michael's father was Ralph? Either way, which does the next part mean?

  • Hugh's great-grandfather was Charles?
  • Michael's great-grandfather was Charles?
  • Ralph's great-grandfather was Charles?

I hope you see what I mean about this point, which is essentially a general Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies issue though I can't just now see any guidance there on this point (I may have missed it).

So I inserted the forename at the start of the section to prepare the reader's subconscious for the series of male family members to follow. This is not a violation of the style rule WP:Manual of Style/Biographies#Subsequent_use ("... by surname only,...") because of the proviso (People with the same surname) "To distinguish between people with the same surname in the same article or page, use given names or complete names to refer to each of the people upon first mention. For subsequent uses, refer to the people by given names for clarity and brevity." Hence "Hugh's", "Michael's", ...

I then inserted "his father" just before "Michael" to make that statement (hoping it is what is the case) and I changed the previously first "his" to "Michael's" and was going to change the second "his" to "Ralph's" but then I thought: maybe as it goes back so far, the second "his" refers to "Michael's" or even "Hugh's" great-grandfather for some reason. Why does it skip "grandfather" unless it is Hugh's great-g.? But then why doesn't it refer them all to Hugh going with father, grandfather and great-grandfather so the reader can follow much more easily where the paragraph is going??

If this is incorrect and it actually means "Hugh's" throughout we go back to how come his mother was married to Michael but Hugh's father was Ralph? Did they share her? And who was Ralph if not Michael's (as opposed to Hugh's) father?

And if Ralph was Michael's father, but Charles was Hugh's great-grandfather, the first should change to "Hugh's grandfather was Ralph" for consistency.

I hope you see what I mean in all this. It is, in fact, all a general matter of clarity of prose style and fact presentation (of relationships between generations of the same family) in biographies, but I am putting it here (rather than in a Talk page of the Style manual) so somebody will perhaps see it as primarily(a this stage) an issue for this particular life of a still living, though venerable and much decorated, film director. I came upon this gentleman via Neil Brand's The Music That Made The Movies on BBC iPlayer today, and I was curious about the man with my surname but of whom I had (until today, in my 66th year) never heard, though I'd seen his famous first movie at the time. Iph (talk) 15:07, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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External links modified[edit]

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