Talk:Palatinate Forest

Palatine Forest or Pfälzer Wald

This article was renamed by User:Rex Germanus from Pfälzer Wald to Palatine Forest, with the comment English Wikipedia.

But as both are proper names, I don't think is quite so clear cut as we are writing for the English Wikipedia, so lets use the more English sounding name, which is what I read that comment as meaning. (Rex, if you meant something else, please do say).

A Google search on the two names, in both cases specifying English pages only, gave the following results:

Pfälzer Wald - 917

Palatine Forest - 437

It is true that some of the pages on Pfälzer Wald were in German, despite asking for English only. But it is also true that some of the pages on Palatine Forest were about a place in Illinois.

My feel from looking at the Google results was that Pfälzer Wald is the more natural name for an English speaker to use, but I admit that the evidence is not overwhelming. So I'm not reverting the change (yet), but asking for other editor's opinions. -- Chris j wood 20:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Again ... lets not just base matters on google searches. I don't know which edition you used, but the English version gives:

Pfälzer Wald - 637,000

Palatine Forest - 1,250,000

Rex 21:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Palatine Forest: 549 hits

Palatinate Forest: 15,700 hits

Pfälzer Wald: 484,000 hits

Pfälzerwald: 512,000 hits

If you take these results and if you take into account the recent tendency of avoiding the use of exonyms, I must say that I have a clear preference for Pfälzer Wald or Pfälzerwald. Unoffensive text or character 14:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Rex, Matthead and others, can we please discuss this further before engaging in another revert war? Though I thought yesterday that the no. of Google hits spoke clearly against "Palatine Forest", I have definitely now changed my mind, as I found "Palatine Forest" in Encyclopaedia Britannica. And that should, to my mind, definitely be sufficient ground for renaming the article. Unoffensive text or character 09:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I support Palatine forest, who knows what Pfälzer Wald does mean. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 22:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, about the name. The forest is actually a nature park.Corpus1 (talk) 01:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Just bringing this up to date for the record... WP:GOOGLEHITS are very inaccurate when comparing English and German names because, unsurprisingly, most of the hits on the German name are for German articles not relevant to English naming. My recent survey, using Google books, showed that the most common English-source name by far was "Palatinate Forest"; five times more common than both "Palatine Forest" (strictly speaking a more accurate translation) and "Pfälzerwald". So I think we currently fine on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Palatine Forest/Leading Articles listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Palatine Forest/Leading Articles to the page Portal:Palatine Forest/Leading Articles. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Palatine vs Palatinate

I'm curious: A comment above says that Palatinate is more common, but Palatine is "more accurate"; as a matter of interest, how so?
Palatine refers to the ruler's title, the count palatine (German is pfalzgrafen?) while palatinate refers to the territory a count palatine rules over (Ger: pfalz): Is this place named for the ruler, or the territory it lies in?
And if it's the ruler it is named for, wouldn't it carry a possessive “'s”? The analogy would be “Duchy of Lancaster Forest” (for the place) but “Duke of Lancaster’s Forest” (for the ruler). Moonraker12 (talk) 22:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

In German Pfalz = Palatinate, the territory (a noun) and Pfälzer = Palatine, i.e. of the Palatinate (an adjective). So Pfälzerwald is literally "Palatine Forest" i.e. the "Forest of the Palatinate" and a more accurate translation. However, more English sources call it the "Palatinate Forest" hence the article title.

In English we often don't use a possessive e.g. Victoria Station, Georgetown, Queen Elizabeth Land. Neither do they use one in German; instead a linking letter is common, usually an "n" or an "s". But they are not possessive, they're used to make the word "flow" e.g. Hermannsdenkmal, Georgenthal. Churches weirdly use a Latin form, e.g. Jakobikirche for "St James' Church". --Bermicourt (talk) 08:20, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Ahh! Thank you for the explanation. And I had overlooked instances like Victoria Station, etc. Anyway, thanks, Moonraker12 (talk) 22:46, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Palatine Forest for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Palatine Forest is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Palatine Forest until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)