Needs Help: Antiquated Linguistics

The trope's a Self-Demonstrating Article.

Too much of a Self-Demonstrating Article.

So much, that it even crept into the examples (something we must never do).

The entire page's hard enough to read as is because we don't talk in the older version of English as portrayed in the trope anymore, so the description needs to be rewritten to at least include the modern English version for readability reasons.

Aye, that is too much of it.

Even the comments?? Could be dialled back a bit.

Move it to the Self-Demostrating namespace and make the Main a clean copy. Does that really need discussion?

"Does that really need discussion?"...Yes. I for one like the article as written and think it should be left alone. It's clever and interesting. I do agree that the example list needs to be rewritten into modern English.

edited 7th Nov '14 9:55:57 AM by gallium

That was exactly what I was thinking.

My thumb has decided to stand upright in support of moving the existing content over to Self Demonstrating followed by a rewrite.

@Gallium: Our priority of everything on this site is, in order, "Clear Concise Witty". We can't have a witty article at the expense of clarity.

Anyway, support Madrugada's proposal. It's telling that others like the joke if even the after-aforementioned Image Pickin' thread itself started out joining in on the self demonstrating itself, only for it to be Lampshaded and defied two posts later.

edited 8th Nov '14 3:50:29 AM by KarjamP

Well, that's only if you grant that the article is unclear. Rewriting it would certainly destroy the "witty" part of that equation, and make the trope description dull.

edited 8th Nov '14 6:22:35 AM by gallium

That's just a sacrifice we have to make.

I didn't say I can't read it to get the trope out of it. I said it's difficult to read because its attempt to be witty's hindering the understanding of the article. This must not happen.

edited 8th Nov '14 9:53:08 AM by KarjamP

I agree with Karjam P.

Personally, I find the trope page as it is is a rather fun read, but it requires some concentration to parse and to penetrate the antiquated linguistics. This obscures the actual content. Also, as with most self-demonstrating pages, the joke gets tired very quickly. There's just too much of it.

Now imagine what it must be like for someone who does not appreciate the joke but is just looking for examples of trope usage. It's in fact not inconceivable that this may be somebody's Pet-Peeve Trope, and in that case the page will be a real pain to read.

edited 10th Nov '14 6:57:52 AM by GnomeTitan

Clock is ticking.

It's cute in the description, but the examples need to be cleaned and written in standard English. It's too much and it makes the information difficult to get to. I could barely get through the first folder before I got sick of it. Split off a self-demonstrating version if you want, but those examples can't stay.

2 issues to consider:

1. This-here is the Worldwide Web. That means the Whole Wide World webs hereabout. Many Wide Worlders are not native speakers of English, and for them this article is utterly unreadable. This is a bad case of America is the Whole World, tropies. (Or at least Anglophonia is.)

2. Also, the f-like variation of the letter S was generally used only in the middle of words. Though the rules weren't hard-fixed, and some cases of initial f S's existed in the 18th century, it's rare and bad form. So if this article is going to stay in Captain Cook's English, it ought to be edited to Royal Navy standards, i.e., revert the initial f-S's to s-S's.

Extending clock.

Clock is up; closing.