Talk:Control node (The Girl in the Fireplace)

Rename

The {{speedy rename}} request asks that we de-capitalise (minisculise..lower-casify...there must be a word for this...) "Man", so that it should become Clockwork man (The Girl in the Fireplace). Given the reasoning, it absolutely should be disambiguated, but is there a case for retaining the capitalisation? Also, if we were to rename this exactly as requested, Clockwork Woman would have to lose her capital Woman, as well.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 19:08, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

Personally I think that all of Clockwork Man, Clockwork Woman and Clockwork Droid should either be lowercased [1] or the capital letter should be defended.T:HEAD SC prescribes to capitalise only proper nouns. And it's hard to claim that "man", "woman" or "droid" is a proper noun unless capitalised in-universe. For instance, "Mechanical" is always capitalised in the novel, making it a proper noun (and it is an unusual noun anyways).

While the "droid" case deserves some research, perhaps, I cannot imagine any in-universe insistence on Man and Woman being proper names. You wouldn't, after all, expect to see a crew list of SS Madame de Pompadour with "Clockwork Man" stated in big bold letters. The capitalisation clearly comes from the credits at the end of the episode, and it is a standard practice I've been pointed to several times by several admins to lowercase descriptive cast designations. Similarly, Time Works, being an audio story, never mentions which letters should be capitalised. Clockwork men are not mentioned in the publisher's description (I checked). Hence, there is no reason to capitalise them either.

To be honest, I noticed these capitalisation issues a couple of days ago, but putting in a rename request for such a small thing seemed not the first priority. However, since a rename is necessary for other reasons anyway, it makes sense to do it right. Amorkuz ☎ 20:05, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

So you're suggesting that they're not "Clockwork Droids", but "clockwork droids". I did a little research, and Moffat's script for Deep Breath calls them "Droids" and "Victorian Droids" (the latter never in dialogue). He calls one of them the Victorian Gentleman Droid.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 20:23, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

That's what I meant by requiring research. By default, they would have been "clockwork droids" just like we have "electronic calculators" or "mobile phones". However, if there is a precedent of capitalised usage, we can follow this precedent. Of course, the script is somewhere halfway between in-universe and out-of-universe. But ceteris paribus, we might as well use the capitalisation from the script. On the other hand, I wouldn't use "Victorian" because it was clearly stated that they are of the same origin as the droids in The Girl in the Fireplace, where droids are not Victorian. These droids are Victorian in appearance because that is the best disguise at the moment, that's all. Amorkuz ☎ 20:50, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

Also Clockwork Droid nicely matches with Clockwork Mechanical. Amorkuz ☎ 20:51, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

And perhaps it would folow in the same style of the Half-Face Man, which is definitely a proper noun (props nouns?). That said, I do agree that since credits always capitalise, often they will do the same to names that really should be lower case.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 20:27, December 12, 2016 (UTC)

I think Half-Face Man is a different usage, despite a seeming resemblance. Here the main word is "Man" with "Half-Face" adding a unique characteristic. In other words, among many men, this one is half-faced. But in "clockwork man", then main word is "clockwork" with "man" adding an additional characteristic. Among all clockwork droids, he is masculine and there is another droid who is feminine and is accordingly designated "woman". Amorkuz ☎