Talk:Member of parliament

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Member of parliament article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1

Politics Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Law Mid‑importance

	Law portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Capitalisation of article title

When used as a title obviously it should be capitalised (e.g.: Joe Bloggs Member of Parliament) but then the acronym is always used. Elsewhere it makes little sense (i.e.: it should be Joe Bloggs is a member of parliament). Even member of Parliament would be just acceptable if it was clear we were talking about a specific parliament (as Parliament could be shorthand for Parliament of ...) but we aren't in this article. The same thing applies to simlar articles like Assembly Member.

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _talk _contrib 00:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is not the House of Lords PART of the British Parliament?

My friends in the UK are describing the Wikipedia as "a great work of fiction" based in part on the claim that an MP is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district and that, therefore, members of the House of Lords are not Members of Parliament. I see absolutely NO sources or references in the article for restricting the term MP to the Commons in the UK (There seems to be a little somehting for that in Australia.) Can someone provide an authoritative reference? Pzavon 01:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's undoubtedly the case that some peers are 'members of parliament' but they are not nor have they ever been called either that or MPs. Alci12 20:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That answer rather escapes the point, as the question isn't about peers who are eligible to be elected to the British House of Commons. Members of the House of Lords aren't ever referred to in the UK as members of parliament, although the House of Lords is of course part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and they are members of it. We could call it an anomoly that somehow over the centuries members of the House of Commons have come to monopolize the description 'member of parliament'. Moonraker2 (talk) 16:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is obviously speculation, but I would hazard the guess that Commons members would have adopted "MP" in order to make clear that they were Members of Parliament, whereas peers haven't ever needed to do the same - they already had titles, which (until very recently) would have come with a seat in the Lords, so it didn't need to be stated seperately. 86.170.165.125 (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Missing: Parliament of Kenya

Kenyan Parliament, homepage http://www.bunge.go.ke/parliament/ To be added --RicHard (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Details on UK MP's remuneration to new section?

I think the topical importance of MP's remuneration means that this section warrants its own entry. I'll look at seeing how this might be done Cloversmate (talk) 22:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welsh Assembly and Welsh Government

The subsection on Wales currently starts:

  The Welsh Assembly ... forms the Welsh Assembly Government, which 
  unusually combines legislative and executive functions[citation needed].

I'm no expert on the relationship between Assembly and Government, but this statement seems to contradict what is said on the Assembly's website:

  http://www.assemblywales.org/abthome.htm

where the "The Assembly" section says:

  This section explains ... the difference between the National 
  Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government ..."

Perhaps somebody who knows the details could rewrite the start of this subsection.

Eebkent (talk) 11:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The term Member of Parliament is often shortened in the media and in every day use to the initialism 'MP'."

Despite having lived in the U.S. for some 20-odd years, I saw the term, "MP," to refer a member of parliament for the first time today. It might be a good idea to change this text to something along the lines of, "In many English-speaking parliamentary countries, the term...." It's additionally confusing because the term, "MP," typically refers to military police in the U.S. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.121.17.189 (talk) 05:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem with the sentence. It is factually accurate and there is no evidence that usage is limited to within English speaking countries only. There are many acronyms with multiple meanings but we don't constantly have to worry about the alternative meanings. The context of "Member of Parliament is often shortened... to the initialism 'MP'" makes it clear this is not about the US military police. Road Wizard (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 1

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus, not moved (non-admin closure) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Member of Parliament → Member of parliament – As the lead explains, the topic is the generic member of parliament, not some proper noun. Dicklyon (talk) 05:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This is a proper noun; it is a title, which is always capitalised in use. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move: let's get our facts straight

In response to BrownHairedGirl:

Titles are capitalized when used as titles before names:
- Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller
Titles are not capitalized when used in other ways:
- In the state election of 1958, he was elected governor of New York by over 600,000 votes.
  - Many Wikipedia editors are careless and capitalize titles even when not used as titles before names.
In any country that has a parliament, Parliament is a proper noun, and should be capitalized when referring to a specific parliament.
When Member of Parliament is used as a title before a name, it must be capitalized.
When it is used in any other way that refers to a specific Parliament, member should not be capitalized in American English. Other varieties of English often do capitalize Member.
- The New York Times uses member of Parliament in constructions such as
  - he became a member of Parliament
  - a member of Parliament from Britain
  - a Conservative member of Parliament
Numerous titles, including doctor, senator, professor, etc., are routinely lowercased when not used as titles.
- The senator said to the professor, "call a doctor!"

In response to Dicklyon:

You are correct that the topic is the generic member of parliament, not some proper noun, and if this discussion were still open, I would Support the requested move ... except that this article is written in British English, where Member of Parliament is routinely used even when not a title before a name.

— Anomalocaris (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Even in UK English the generic lowercase version is not uncommon. The caps one is for their own Parliament, natch. Anyway, if you would support, we can try again. I don't know why this one wasn't relisted to get some opinions. Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Unless there's some special case, member of parliament should not be upcased, in any variety of English (Oxford and Chicago guides both say minimise capping generally). Nor is there a good argument to upcase parliament alone; in Australia there's one parliament every three years, generally and generically. Tony (talk) 13:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So should I just do another RM, or perhaps question the non-admin close that should have been a re-list at WP:MRV? Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just do another RM. Dicklyon (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

UK newspaper usage is mixed. Some papers use "Member of Parliament" (UK) and "member of parliament" (non-UK). Other always use "member of parliament" even for the UK.

The Guardian seems to use member of parliament for the UK and other parliaments:

"To refuse to talk to someone just because of their nationality is pure racism, and totally unacceptable for a member of parliament."—Galloway refuses to debate with Israeli student at Oxford
"the member of parliament representing Ikror has been Rahul Gandhi" —India elections: domination of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty under threat
"Her son is a member of parliament and head of the Congress party's youth wing" —Sonia Gandhi puts son Rahul in charge as she flies abroad for surgery

The Times (London) seems to use Member of Parliament for the UK and "member of parliament" for other parliaments:

Zaehner’s successor was C. M. Woodhouse ... a Member of Parliament [of the UK]." —The significance of Muhammad Mossadegh
David Cameron ... had also been hoping to meet separately with Mr [Rahul] Gandhi, 40, who became a member of parliament in 2004 ..." —Cameron fails to secure meeting with Gandhis on trip to India

The Telegraph seems to use Member of Parliament for the UK and "member of parliament" for other parliaments:

"Mr [Gordon] Brown ... is, and will remain, Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath ..." —Will Gordon Brown step down?
Mr Vajpayee, a previous member of parliament for Lucknow —Indian election 2014: Narendra Modi 'could face internal challenge from BJP president'

— Anomalocaris (talk) 02:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 16:24, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Member of Parliament → Member of parliament – The previous RM was prematurely closed as the discussion section above shows. There's no good reason to treat parliament as a proper name in this context. Dicklyon (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support as nom. Please review the article to see that the title is not referring to a particular entity, so can't possibly be a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 16:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support This term in itself is as generic as it comes. capitalisation is very context dependent. There are many parliaments, including the Mother of parliaments. . There are also many members of parliament, like the member of Parliament for Finchley. People often fall into the trap of excess capitalisation, as demonstrated by BHG above, and just asserting it's a proper noun does not make it so. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 06:57, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support – reasons above, and not only mine. Tony (talk) 13:32, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support for all reasons already listed here, and my research documented under Requested move: let's get our facts straight showing that British English allows member of parliament even for a member of a specific national parliament, let alone the completely generic use. —Anomalocaris (talk) 02:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't see how this can even be considered a proper noun in this case since the article is not about members of a particular parliament. This is different than something like List of House members of the 41st Parliament of Canada because that is not an article about members of one specific parliament not a general article on the subject as this is. It's also the same reason that List of Vice Presidents of the United States is capitalized whereas the general Vice president article is not.--67.70.140.89 (talk) 02:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To add to my argument, since there is evidence that the use of the uppercase term Member of Parliament is not even consistently used when discussing specific parliaments the case for using uppercase in this general article is even weaker than I initially thought.--67.70.140.89 (talk) 03:14, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support This is about the generic concept of "member of (a) parliament". ^walk victor falk^talk 07:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Westminster vs others

Isn't Israel a Westminster system? The articl on the Westminster system says it is.

If the two sections are split according to the use of the english term member of parliament/MP, then that should be made more clear, perhaps by renaming the sections "usage by country" and "other titles". Hydromania (talk) 07:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article title

Alright, I know the 2014 RFC result was/is Member of parliament instead of Member of Parliament. But it is rather odd, comparing to Member of Congress, not to mention that we use the abbreviation MP, rather then Mp. 19:04, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 12 November 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 08:50, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Member of parliament → Member of Parliament – This is a title which is capitalised in reliable sources, including the UK Parliament's own website. [[1]] [[2]] [[3]] Google ngrams shows capitals to be most commonly used. [[4]]. I confess to only having looked at British English sources but that is purely because the article is written in British English. Ykraps (talk) 06:16, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support - The abbreviation alone, seals it. They're know as an MP, not Mp. GoodDay (talk) 06:54, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:CAPS says "Do not apply initial capitals in a full term that is a common-noun phrase, just because capitals are used in its abbreviation", so the abbreviation shouldn't make a difference. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sticking with supporting Member of Parliament. GoodDay (talk) 07:21, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per previous discussion in 2014, which reached a clear agreement, and per MOS:JOBTITLES: "Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, grand duke, lord mayor, pope, bishop, abbot, prime minister, leader of the opposition, chief financial officer, and executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically". Nothing has changed. We don't capitalize vice president, prime minister, grand duke and lord mayor, so why this one? I suggest a speedy close of this, since it doesn't have a WP:SNOWball's chance of success. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:58, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But, isn't this about the article title? not the content. See Prime Minister of Canada, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, etc etc.GoodDay (talk) 07:08, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An article's title is part of its content, and per WP:TITLEFORMAT, Wikipedia article titles are in sentence case, not title case. A formal title "where the position/office is a globally unique title" is a different matter – this discussion is about the generic position, not a full formal title like "Prime Minister of Canada", and there is only one person holding the office of Prime Minister of Canada at any given moment, while there are many members of parliament. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sticking to my position. GoodDay (talk) 19:45, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Shouldn't Parliament be treated as a proper noun here? Calidum 14:34, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question to think about, but I don't think so, because this could refer to any parliament, and there are many parliaments, so the article is about parliaments in general rather than a unique body. Something is a proper noun only if it identifies a globally unique thing. In the context of a particular parliament, we seem to capitalize it – Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (Canada), Member of Parliament (India), etc., but this is about the generic concept of a member of any parliament. I'm tempted to ping some Wikipedians who have more expertise on this than I do, but I don't want to be accused of canvassing to solicit support for my own opinion. I have included it in the list at the top of WT:MOSCAPS where all current capitalization discussions are listed. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:09, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose at best the sources provided provide evidence that specific houses of parliaments should be considered proper nouns though evidence provided at Talk:Member of parliament#Requested move: let's get our facts straight shows that reliable aren’t consistent treating them as proper nouns. Also, no evidence has been provided that the general term has ever been treated as a proper noun. Finally, the current title is constant with articles such as Vice president, Rear admiral, Attorney general,Secretary of state, Supreme court and most relevant International parliament.--67.70.100.169 (talk) 18:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per MOS:JOBTITLES, even if we capitalize specific positions (even though I'm not sure we should) this is clearly generic as it doesn't even refer to a specific position never mind a specific person like "President Nixon". Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:33, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose it does look a bit weird (and it is weird that it is different from Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)) but it is correct as-is. We don't capitalize this as a job title (per Crouch, Swale and others), it would only be capitalized where "parliament" is capitalized, which only happens when it refers to a specific Parliament. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 22:43, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: This is about the general concept of members of parliaments, not any specific parliament. Member of Parliament (United Kingdom) is as it should be, because that's a specific parliament, but this should remain lower case; it's a common noun. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 22:54, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Per SchreiberBike and MOS:JOBTITLES etc. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:57, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose See reasoning of BarrelProof from MOS and SchreiberBike's description Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 07:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per BarrelProof. No specific parliament is being referred to. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 15:23, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would have preferred to see some reliable sources, which is what we are supposed to be following. I concede that the sources I have presented refer to a particular parliament but they do not refer to a particular member, and yet member is still capitalised. In addition, can anyone explain why, in this same article, Member of Congress and Senate Parliamentarian (both job titles) retain their capitals? Thanks --Ykraps (talk) 08:44, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anomalies that can be corrected. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:40, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, those should be moved to, many sources over capitalize but we follow the standard English capitalization rules unless there's strong evidence to say otherwise, so far it doesn't seem to be because the overcapitalization at least seems to be for specific positions while this article is clearly a generic concept. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Categories: