Talk:Conwy

Notable people added

I have added the section of notable people. Since Conwy Town is a medieval town having a medieval jester is important and the fact that Conwy hasn't had a jester-in-residence for over 700 years, the last being Tom Le Fol jester to Edward I, this makes Erwyd Le Fol a very important figure within the town. The section should not be deleted as it was previously and instead it should be built on and added to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rustymagic (talk • contribs) 09:03, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Please see your user page for my reasons for removing your edit. You could include either character if you provide suitable verifiable sources as per Wikipedia guidelines. Otherwise any attempts to keep including this will be reverted.Robynthehode (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Move to Conwy (town) and redirect to Conwy (disambiguation)?

• Whereas, if someone said "I'm from Conwy" and the speaker and I were not in Conwy (county) at the time [added], I would probably assume they meant the county borough unless there was information to assume otherwise (like references to "town"), and local newspapers seem to use "Conwy" to refer to the larger area when it is without qualification;
• whereas, especially given there is an election tomorrow, if it was in the context of a political sort of discussion, I would assume someone was talkng about the constituency;
• whereas, if someone precededed it by the definite article or it was in a geomorphological context, I would assume they were taking about the river or valley;

I believe, as a local person, that it is no longer clear that readers looking for Conwy would be necessarily looking for the town given the increasingly widespread use of Conwy to refer to more than the town; therefore, it is appropriate to move this article to Conwy (town) and redirect Conwy to Conwy (disambiguation).

(BTW, I'm not sure which came first--I think probably the river--not that would be relevant AFAIK.)

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 18:03, 2005 May 4 (UTC)

Therein lies the problem with people using local government areas in a wider context for which they were not intended. Conwy the town has existed for hundreds of years and now a local governemnt area that has existed for a mere nine years is assumed to usurp it? The town is much more famous world-wide than the local government area - think of the potential audience of these articles: People will be looking for the town than contains the castle rather than a local government area. Owain 18:41, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you are right, but I do feel that it is the county that is often been refered to these days in extra-county contexts. Personally, I always follow the county with county so it is clear.

I was all for calling it Aberconwy, Conwyshire or Sir Conwy; keeping it as Aberconwy and Colwyn, or naming it after an ancient Celtic tribe of the area. However, the newly formed council decided to rename Aberconwy and Colwyn to Conwy on its first day, for some unknown reason. One of the results was that people who added the county to the end of the snail adresses (which is de facto practice, though not actually required) had their mail delivered to Conwy (town) Post Office, because the Post Office's (both electronic and human--I believe) sorters look for the first postal town going from the bottom of the envelope upwards.

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 16:16, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Conwyshire? Uggh. That's almost as crass as Malvernshire. These local government areas are not replacements for traditional counties. They are not meant to be used in any kind of geographical sense, other than the extent to which local government services are provided. I am not surprised that people who put 'Conwy' on addresses found their mail going to the town of Conwy. What did they expect? Conwy is not a county! Owain 14:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Leaving aside your extreme views on the historic counties of England, do you realise Wales doesn't have traditional counties as it was traditionally divided into kingdoms? The historic counties were just local government boundaries without any cultural significance and were not static; Conwy and surrounding towns jumped between Caernarvonshire and Denbighshire on several occasions.

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 23:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - most commonly used to describe the town; where town name and potential disambiguator coincide we have attempted to leave the town article undisambiguated - e.g. Bromley, Newport. Warofdreams 11:30, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I accept this point. It appears that the status quo would be more in-line with de facto WP practice wrt places (which seems to tend a lot more towards not disambiguating compared to non-place articles). I, therefore, concede that the article does not need to be moved, although, maybe, the practice for places in general should be discussed more.

--Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 16:03, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

This was moved to Conwy (town) but, considering the comments above, I've returned it to Conwy. For the record I too oppose the move suggestion. violet/riga (t) 11:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

I've lived in the district since 1959, and most people always refer to this place as Conway, not Conwy. Is there some misplaced political correctness here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.253.48.80 (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The anglicised spellings for places like Porthmadog and Caernarfon (Portmadoc and Caernarvon respectively) were officially dropped in 1974, probably as part of local government reorganisation across the UK that year, and the Welsh spellings have since been universally accepted for use in written English though the anglicised pronunciations remain widely used informally especially among generations old enough to remember them given oral language tends to be less formal than written English. I presume the same happened with Conwy. Tk420 (talk) 22:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

mediaeval

As Joe Blakesley rightly says above 'Conwy the town has existed for hundreds of years' so too has 'mediaeval' as the correct spelling. When I learnt the English language in the 1950's it was still the preferred Concise Oxford Dictionary spelling. Have Wikifolk nowt better to do with their time and abilities than find fault with that which the Wikidictionary accepts? Answers within two days or I will change the spelling (not originally my entry) back.

NoelWalley 19:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Er, that was me! I agree with you — "medieval" is clearly an Americanism; Every time I've used the word I've also used the 'æ' ligature as well, so when you do your revert, slip it in! :) Owain 20:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies everyone - I changed it back without reading the discussion first (and have added the dipthong too).
Velela 17:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Jolly Good, many thanks NoelWalley 21:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Spelling (again)

The question was raised above but not answered. As someone of Welsh descent myself, I'm curious as to why this article uses the Welsh name for the town, Conwy (which is perfectly correct of course on Welsh Wikipedia), and not the English spelling, Conway. Authoritative sources do use both in almost equal measure, but I would have thought that English Wikipedia should use Conway and Welsh Wikipedia Conwy. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:57, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah, so we have somebody or Welsh descent with an opinion and somebody else in 2010 with an IP address in the University of Liverpool expressing opinions about the name. It would be more helpful to provide authoritative references to support the claim. In favour of "Conwy" as the correct name we have Ordnance survey and their maps, Google maps, Open Street Map, Welsh Assembly Government and all its multifarious publications. All the other local authorities in Wales in their dealings with other local authorities, all the Welsh quangos in their dealings with local government - all of whom use Conwy exclusively as the spelling. I know of no reputable body that uses "Conway". There are indeed many places in Wales which have recognised names in both Welsh and English such as Cardiff - Caerdydd and Isle of Anglesey - Ynys Môn for example and these names are reflected in all the sources outlined above, but not Conwy. So please produce the sources and let us judge how they stack up.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   22:14, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Please remember to be WP:CIVIL: rudeness and personal attacks on other editors do not promote the aims of the Wikipedia project. Turning to your points, of course the Welsh authorities favour Welsh spellings; they have a duty to promote the Welsh language, but even a quick search on Google Books shows that "Conwy" and "Conway" are about equally used. And you are right about other Welsh place names - English Wikipedia uses Newport not Casnewydd, Swansea not Abertawe and Cardiff not Caerdydd. So "Conwy" is the odd man out. Even the lede says the English name is "Conway" which begs the question: what language is the title in? Also strange is the castle article which is entitled Conwy Castle but in the lede says that the Welsh name is Castell Conwy and the English name is "Conway Castle". That suggests the article name is a Welsh-English hybrid.

All that said I'm fully content that Wikipedia is meant to go by the sources (although less sanguine that our fellow editors always put that ahead of their POV), so would be grateful if you could point us to neutral research that looks at both usages and demonstrates that Conwy is the usual English name used in authoritative (not just official Welsh) sources, and that usage is sufficient to justify the Welsh language name above the English name. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:57, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

There was no uncilvility nor any rudeness, simply statements about the observed history. It would be very helpful if you could provide the links to the searches that show "Conway" and "Conwy" as equally common - at present we have no reputable sources to support the assertions that you make. Conwy is not the add one out - it is simply Conwy. For the record, Welsh Councils do not favour Welsh spellings, they have a legal obligation to treat both languages as equal. To date we have no sources supporting "Conway" so I am content that the article is correct in its title and usage.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   20:54, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

"Ah, so we have somebody or Welsh descent with an opinion and somebody else in 2010 with an IP address in the University of Liverpool expressing opinions about the name," is a sarcastic comment pouring scorn on, or belittling, the contribution and comments of editors with Welsh ancestry or from Liverpool University.

Turning to the issue at hand, I am happy to supply sources, but will it make any difference? Or in other words, how many would need to be supplied to result in a) an acknowledgement that both "Conwy" and "Conway" are used by English sources or b) a change in the article title? Bermicourt (talk) 13:44, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

The spelling "Conway" has fallen out of modern usage in English and is considered old fashioned. Similar to how Y Felinheli is no longer referred to as "Port Dinorwic". Here is the welcome sign for Conwy. http://www.leanderarchitectural.co.uk/images/photos/full/SignsConwy.jpg As you can see the spelling "Conway" is not on the sign. Which means that "Conwy" is the spelling used officially for both Welsh and English. "Conway" is an Anglicised corruption of "Conwy" and I think that is the reason why it is no longer officially used. A lot of people still pronounce it as "Conway" however. Also a similar situation is happening in Aberdyfi. The English spelling "Aberdovey" is starting to fall out of usage. Owen4004 (talk) 15:58, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

'The spelling "Conway" has fallen out of modern usage in English and is considered old fashioned.' you evidence for this? Wikipdia is not a crystal ball this article should use the spelling most common in English language reliable sources, not the official spelling of a council in Wales (or for that matter people who graffiti signs in Wales). If indeed the spelling has changed since says 2000 then that ought to be reflected in a Google book search of English language books: I ran such a search using the castle as part of the search to keep it relevant:

• [Conwy -Conway castle] as a 21st century search returned just over 30 books
• [-Conwy Conway castle] as a 21st century search returned just over 30 books

So it seems that both spellings are about as common in a very small number of publications. I suggest that the article title remains where it is unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. -- PBS (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Conwy from Castle.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:52, 16 February 2020 (UTC)