Talk:Salisbury

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This article has been rated "B" on the Wikipedia Version 1.0 quality scale.
On the project page you can find detailed guides on how to write about counties and settlements, as well as where to find statistics, references and other useful things. Additionally, the following have been identified as specific improvements this article needs: Add a map Cite sources! This isn't a bad article, and could pass WP:GA with sources Lists are frowned on: The "leisure" section is a bit of a tourist guide, I would create a "culture section" (incorporating media and sport): most of the leisure section belongs in culture or history sections. The areas/suburbs should be prose, describing anything notable about the areas or at least divide into things like "residential", "industrial", "council estate", etc. Trivia sections are frowned on. Some of the info would fit perfectly in other sections (tv/radio in culture, house prices in economy). Geography section: Physical setting: clay river valleys amoungst chalk downs, flood plains, etc Human setting: more on transport and include neighbouring places in prose form. Tidy up introduction to be an approx. 3 paragraph summary of the article.

seems to be some irrelevent info on where people live, looks like local people abusing the edit. i will delete what i can see, although i sure it will make its way back on :( please keep an eye out for these vandals as it is the few ruining it for the many.

The article says that the Normans built a castle and called it Sarum. This is not correct. The name Sarum is a corruption of the name Sarisberia, Sarrisbirie, or some similar form, used by medieval scribes. The first recorded use of the actual word "Sarum" is on the first seal of St. Nicholas's Hospital in use in 1239.

Eh? I don't know much about art, but I do know that Constable wasn't an impressionist...

Quite right - now fixed. -- Solipsist 14:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Pictures 2 Market 3 Pronunciation 4 Stonehenge 5 History 6 NPOV? 7 Sarumite ... Provide references 8 Salisbury & Sarum 9 Tourists, etc.

[edit] Pictures

I'm having some trouble with the pictures - there's too many of them, and huge white spaces keep appearing. I've put a couple of pictures in a gallery, but it doesn't look right. Please help! Thelb⁴ 07:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hope that's better. Part of the problem is that two of the pictures are taller than average. Its now generally prefered to avoid using specific pixel widths for pictures, so that user preferences can determine the rendered picture size. However, this tends to make portrait pictures too large.

Of course the real problem is the size of the Infobox... -- Solipsist 13:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's much better now. Thanks! Thelb⁴ 18:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Market

I've expanded the section on the market and fair. However, it previously contained the statement

annual funfair (the Sloe Fair) in October

Can anyone confirm whether this is true? Sloe Fair actually appears to be in Chichester, West Sussex. We might also need a reference for the statement that the fair can be moved to the Cathedral Close. -- Solipsist 14:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Call me old fashioned, but when I pronounce "Salisbury" I don't say Saulsbree, but Saulsb-uhree. Only the first half of the word isn't pronounced the way it's written.

Don't you know it's Zohzbree? --Gareth Hughes 16:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, I've lived in Salisbury for 28 years and I've never heard it called Zohzbree before! Sounds like a Bristolian version of the word. They have a tendancy to skip L's. Mallanox 04:56 06 May 2006

[edit] Stonehenge

There was a complete lack of mention of Stonehenge in this article, I have added a small addition to the economy section. Fosnez 19:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I have added more information about events occuring around the Close. I can name my sources though I am not sure where to most appropriately put them. Please can a more experienced wikipedian advise? Also I'm amazed that Salisbury's twin cities weren't mentioned. Mallanox 04:52, 06 May 2006

[edit] NPOV?

I was not sure what to label this under, hence the title.

It seems to me that the whole article is somewhat "generous" with the facts, particulary the 'Leisure' section. For example:

"Salisbury has many unique shops in the city centre" - such as? "A huge variety of restaurants and pubs" - again, what does this refer to? Pizza Express? Every town/city in the country has one. The variety of restaurants in Salisbury is appauling!

I could go on, as there are other things as well, but all I am merely asking is if the language could be made more NPOV, so that it doesn't read like tourist brochure.Awacs 09:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The trouble is, anything about leisure activities is difficult to put across without superlatives or they sound dull and don't read very well. Many towns across the South were surveyed, the results of which were on the BBC website, for the variety and uniqueness of shops. Salisbury scored very well for having unique shops. You just have to wander around to see them. I guess you're a local to Salisbury hence your vocality on the subject, open your yellow pages and see how many pubs and restaurants Salisbury has. This is a wiki site, if you don't like something, change it. I wrote a good chunk of it, I know it's not perfect, if you can improve it then everyone benefits. Mallanox 18:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess its a case of Avoid Weasel Words. Whilst what Mallanox says may be true, if the statement about the variety of shops is based on a BBC survey, it is much more solid to phrase it as such, and add a source reference. Something like,

According to a BBC survey in 2006 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/somearticle.html], Salisbury was found to have a greater variety and uniqueness of shops compared to other towns in Wiltshire.

On a related note, some fifteen years ago, I recall passing through Carlisle one evening in the hope of find a PizzaExpress on my way back from Scotland. Unfortunately, at the time, PizzaExpress hadn't spread much further north than Manchester. It looks like they have one now mind you.... -- Solipsist 19:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sarumite ... Provide references

There should be a documented use of this seemly unsubstantiated neologism, or it should be removed. The only other reference to it on the entire of the World Wide Web uses the identical wording in definition, down to the key stroke – as it's on a mirror site – and was seen first here before anywhere else. Christian Gregory (talk • contribs) 08:06, 6 October 2006.

Well there a pretty good online reference to substantiate the claim from Wiltshire County Council. However, it only confirms that 'Sarumite' was being used by The Salisbury Times to describe a resident of Salisbury in the first half of the 20th century. More generally it concludes that the correct term to use today is 'Salisburian', although they don't seem entirely comfortable with that conclusion.

To be honest I can find a number of other web pages using the term Sarumite in this context, but I would still tend to agree that the article should be changed to say 'Salisburian' with a note about the archaic use. In fact it would probably be a good idea to move all the discussion of New Sarum down the page a little in order to tidy up the lead para and keep it focused. -- Solipsist 09:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have only ever heard Sarumite used. Where is Salisburian used to define someone from Salisbury? It sounds like a more modern invented work to be honest. Mallanox 10:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Same reference. For Salisburian they are citing the Salisbury Times and South Wilts Gazette. Mind you all their citations appear to be from local newspapers published around 1914 and more recently the internet, so their conclusions are open to question, but they are looking to advise the OED.

The current Google hits would;

• 449 - Salisburian
• 329 - Salisburian & Salisbury
• 1360 - Sarumite - but most are not obviously related to Salisbury
• 49 - Sarumite & Salisbury - and many are Wikipedia mirrors, but its not a particularly fair test either

So that's somewhat inconclusive, except to say that neither term seems particularly popular. There is something of a bias in favour of Salisburian, based on the quality of the linked articles and the difference when Salisbury is also included in the search. -- Solipsist 11:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be very wary of looking this up on the net. Given how many Salisbury's there are in the world, Salisburian could easily be in general use for one of them. I've lived in the city for 28 years and have never heard the word Salisburian. Sarumite clearly stems for the classic name, Sarum. I will have a look in Salisbury library, they have the Salisbury Journal on microfilm going back a very long time. Mallanox 22:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

'Salisburian' is, admittedly, somewhat rare. (For the same reason, I didn't think there was much in the way of merit to adding it in). On Google, ' "Sarumite" +definition' yielded nothing other to this article as late as a month ago, and even now only includes one other reference, simply a Wikipedia mirror. An implication that such an arcane word as 'Sarumite' – or 'Salisburian' for that matter – is currently in popular or common use is inaccurate. Whether in time, either gain currency to the point that they be included in the O.E.D., their omissions back me up. I don't find 'period flavour' a moot point myself. Not when the writer above has lived in Salisbury for 28 years and can say 'I have only ever heard Sarumite used', whereas I could say the same of 'Salisburian' ... although so very rarely that I'd never bother to do. If either enjoyed any real popularity at some period, this comes as news to me. Thank you both for your contributions, and insightful information. Christian Gregory 7 October 2006.

I lived there for 20 years and I never saw or heard either being used. Not a lot of help I know, but it seems an odd reference. 80.43.94.114 23:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Salisbury & Sarum

There appears some disagreement on the relationship between the two names. Here Sarum is listed as a contraction, but I have read elsewhere that Sarum was the orginal name of the town but it was renamed after a local aristocrat named Salis (or something like that) and the name in the Doomesday book reflects that. Could someone shed some light on this? If there's disagreement or two plausible explainations, it should be noted in the article. Josh 17:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The names appear interchangable. For example, visit the cemetary on London Road and you will see a plaque on which the city is referred to as New Sarum. I believe the cemetary is not that old (comparatively). Judging by it's surroundings it probably isn't any older than Victorian. Mallanox 23:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

They are interchangable, but that's not what I was really asking about. There is a parargaph in the history section on the names of the town and their relationships to each other, but it's not entirely convincing or clear. The whole business about confusing a Latin contraction seems like speculation. At very least, it needs to be rewritten for the sake of clarity and documented better. Josh 13:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tourists, etc.

If there is some way to verify that many residents are annoyed by new age tourists and that they leave a lot of garbage, like a newpaper article, then that can be referenced and included as a fact, otherwise, that sentence is totally POV and needs to be deleted. A phrase like "due to the age and mysticism of the city" is not only dopey, but completely POV, and an exhibition of the author's ignorance of what the word "mysticism" actually means. This stuff is not worth a rv war. Josh 14:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a way to verify it. I will try to find a newspaper article. Salisbury is one of the original cities of England, it's age is beyond any accurate measure. OK, if you don't like the word mysticism, fine, change it but please do not delete real verifiable facts as well. Also, read WP:CIVIL, I think you'll find calling me ignorant and dopey is pretty uncivil. There's nothing like logging onto Wikipedia after a day's work and being insulted. Mallanox 23:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)