Talk:Sea monk

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"Sea monk" and "sea bishop" is quite clear Reformation satire on Catholic Church. Cheers.

Not so clear given their history! They were never used as such by any protestant writer I know of.

Please could someone provide a direct translation of "umi bozu"? Also a reference to the oriental material would be good.

I edited fish(?) to marine animal for the time being.Wiz kid

Why the above edit??? Paxton & Holland translated the primary sources that referred to it as a "fish" (I am guessing latin: pisces) so unless you know better (i.e. cite the original documents describing the sea monk) why the change? Tullimonstrum 14:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume that you are the same person as User:138.251.202.128, who committed a similar reversion on this article. I wish that you would not revert my attempts to improve the readability of this article.

For example: Using a latinate such as "e.g." within parentheses does not lend itself to easy reading by an interested and casual reader. I for one could not at first understand the meaning of the bit in parentheses, which is apparently citing both Steenstrup and Ellis in Harvard reference fashion. Also, referring to researchers by last name only may be de rigeur in scientific papers, but again does not capture the mind of the average reader.

If you feel that something is misrepresented in rewording the same claims in a colloquial tone, please make clear what it is. KWH 05:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine and I don't want to quibble about style (but "known by some" in an encyclopedia?) but it is the misrepresentation of the sources that I was complaining about (albeit no so much of a problem this time around). Surely you should take a look at them before correcting the text? I think that it is vital that wikipedia articles properly cite source material otherwise given its wiki nature it becomes useless as a resource. For example according to P & H, Steenstrup used *texts* and drawings from a number of sources to reach his conclusions. This generality was covered in the original edit it isn't in the current edit. Similarly they reckoned it dated from 1546 not "around" 1546 but "almost certainly" 1546. The two terms are not synonymous (I appreciate you have not edited it this time around). Another point is that citing the Steenstrup reference in the text as 1855 in Harvard style prevents falling into an error which the colloquial style falls into. Whilst Steenstrup wrote up his stuff in 1855 he presumably might have had the idea earlier (there is evidence he did apparently). Now this subtlety is too much for an encyclopedic article so just citing the 1855 paper covers all the vagueness. Pedantry maybe but words may be phrased in a certain way to convey a specific subtle meaning from the source material. Editing should be done in the light of this. 138.251.202.72 09:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)