Talk:Le Juif errant (opera)

Ahasvérus

I noticed you (User:Smerus) changed the spelling "Ahasvérus" to "Ahasuerus", which I guess is the form typically used in English. I thought the common French spelling "Ahasvérus" was OK here, since this seems to be what Eugène Sue used in his novel (see here). This raises some interesting questions. It's a bit mysterious to me why Scribe changed it to the apparently far less common French spelling "Ashvérus". (Does this odd spelling predate Scribe? Was it just a mistake on Scribe's part or was it easier for versification? I suppose Halévy set it as Ashvérus, but I have not seen a score. In any case, the English spelling in this spot is also OK by me. :-) --Robert.Allen (talk) 06:57, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I only changed it because Ahasuerus is the 'standard' form in English and the WP user in the Clapham omnibus would not I think have recognised the 'Ahasvérus/Ashvérus' dichotomy. not a p[oint on which however I would fight to the death, or even to minor injury.--Smerus (talk) 07:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Not sure I understand what you mean by "the WP user the Clapham omnibus". [oh, you mean you]) Actually, I'm thinking maybe we should mention that Eugène Sue used the more usual spelling. What do you think? --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:33, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is a fogeyish archaicism; the Victorians used 'the man in the Clapham omnibus' to denote 'the common man'. The original name, in the Hebrew bible) is 'Akhashverot' (accent on last syllable) so Sue was closer to that than Scribe, who seems to have invented this version himself - or was it perhaps changed by Halévy to make it more singable? ......--Smerus (talk) 08:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did some checking at Google Books. The "Ashvérus" variant shows up as early as 1839 or so [1] (there are not a lot of examples, so it could easily have been earlier). Anyway, it doesn't seem likely that Scribe or Halévy were the first to use the rare "Ashvérus" spelling variant (which one might even label a misspelling). Edgar Quinet's poem (1833) was pretty widely known and uses the spelling "Ahasvérus" (here's an 1834 edition). --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK I've added this in a note in the article.--Smerus (talk) 10:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Year in parentheses in the "Notes"

This is a minor point, but I've been omitting the parentheses around the year in the "Notes" section. They are not used in the example shown at WP:CITESHORT. I think it actually helps to distinguish the notes from the "Sources", is cleaner, and works pretty well. Do you have any strong preferences on this? --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Um, this just my standard practice. No one has ever commented on it yet, not even in articles which went to GA-status.But, as above, I am easy over it.--Smerus (talk) 07:29, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I sometimes try to follow what is already established in the article, but I missed it, and habits are hard to break! --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is really no one right way to do these things, and we all seem to follow slightly different footnoting styles, which is unfortunate in a way. I sometimes think it would be easier if we had an editor-in-chief, like each of the journals do. Actually it was always a bit annoying, when one had a paper rejected and had switch to another journal, to have to reformat everything, since they invariably did things differently. Oh well, the WP is much less restrictive, so that's probably better overall. --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:53, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]