Pin Eight talk:Manual of Style/Placeholder names

Colin
You have previously used "Colin" to refer to an individual of an Eloi-like species. Is there a reason that name is not listed as an example here? What specific objections do you have, other than that it doesn't quite fit with our current knowledge on Eloi phonology? Eighty5cacao 13:02, 9 November 2011 (MST)
 * I don't see how it wouldn't fit. If you assume Eloi phonology is not unlike that of Toki Pona, for example, I used jan Kolin in some of the examples in my early writing about Toki Pona. (The K makes the name sound harsher than it is, as Law of Alien Names and the discussion of Ďarcaln/Dhârkalen in Mark Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit point out. Blame Sonja and her phonetic spelling.) And Colin's still there on the Valency page. I just didn't want to give a detailed dossier of this character for reasons I've explained before: I got one-Mario'd by "Kalen". --Tepples 17:56, 10 November 2011 (MST)
 * Yes, I was aware of the previous discussion. I had in mind that word-final n, though an accepted feature of Toki Pona, might not fit well with the vocal tract physiology of the Eloi. I admit that there is little to justify such an interpretation. Eighty5cacao 22:02, 10 November 2011 (MST)
 * And, to a lesser extent, Colin's role as the mascot of a game that's since been 451'd. --Tepples (talk) 03:18, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Luina (criticism)
This example gets at least two things right: "L" is a liquid consonant, and "U" is consistent with our current analysis of "cooing."

However, I have noticed one problem: If Eloi phonological development resembles the early stages of present-day human phonological development well enough, then weak syllable deletion implies that Eloi words  begin with unstressed syllables, especially when they are likely to be misheard.

Can you think of any alternative that addresses both this issue and the innuendo issue? It's a bit unfortunate (confusing?) that all the examples end in "-ina" even though they point to slightly different innuendos.

This argument is not meant to exclude the use of "Luina" as a more general placeholder name (for any Eloi-like species); it only describes its applicability to the actual Eloi. Eighty5cacao 14:16, 10 November 2011 (MST)
 * In the DNYB-verse, Narter's children are named # and Π. Even if we posit initial stress, as in Czech, Finnish, and Toki Pona, "Luina" can still fit either by taking /ui/ as a diphthong or by treating  as the labialized lateral approximant /lʷ/. --Tepples 15:53, 10 November 2011 (MST)
 * Then let me rephrase my objections a bit: Both alternatives might be a little hard for the Eloi to pronounce. The diphthong's back-to-front transition may be more difficult than front-to-back, and the labialized lateral approximant would seem to be discouraged for the same reason as general consonant clusters. (Do the terms falling and rising apply to the former?) I am not denying that the Eloi language has diphthongs, but I believe they would be more drawn out (pronounced slowly enough that this type of confusion would be less likely to arise).
 * By "slightly different innuendos," I meant Gina = vagina and Tina ?= tits. Eighty5cacao 22:09, 10 November 2011 (MST) (last edit 15:25, 14 November 2011 (MST))
 * Regarding falling and rising diphthongs, quoting from Phonological development: "infants between 3 and 9 months of age produce primarily flat, falling and rising-falling contours. Rising pitch contours would require the infants to raise subglottal pressure during the vocalization or to increase vocal fold length or tension at the end of the vocalization, or both. At 3 to 9 months infants don’t seem to be able to control these movements yet." But as you objected elsewhere, it'd be a bit of a stretch to fit this into the Eloi developmental cycle. Eighty5cacao 22:33, 2 July 2012 (MST)

NPC technicality
"Sometimes one may use the names of NPCs from a video game" &mdash; but isn't Acha the second player character from Toy Pop? How could we modify the wording to accommodate this? Eighty5cacao 15:47, 14 November 2011 (MST)
 * Acha is also one of the NPCs from Thwaite, indeed named after Acha from Toy Pop. But then I bought a used copy of Namco Museum Volume 1 just for Toy Pop. --Tepples 17:30, 14 November 2011 (MST)
 * Sorry, I haven't had a chance to play Thwaite yet. I will not make any changes to the page for now. Eighty5cacao 19:52, 14 November 2011 (MST)
 * And with the reinterpretation of Pino in Thwaite from a fourth-wall-breaking Author Avatar to an NPC instructing Milo and Staisy on how to operate the ABMs, this means both Toy Pop PCs are Thwaite NPCs. --Tepples (talk) 03:18, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Page title: Subpage vs. parentheses
By the convention established on Wikipedia and followed here, this should be called "Manual of Style/Placeholder names" (i.e., User:Tepples/Manual of Style/Placeholder names if it were to stay in userspace, or Pin Eight:Manual of Style/Placeholder names once it is finished). I am not asking you to move it right now, but any comments or objections? Eighty5cacao 12:54, 9 February 2012 (MST)
 * Support But what needs to be done before this is promoted? --Tepples 13:22, 9 February 2012 (MST)
 * I have no specific requests for enhancement; you may assume I have no objections to promotion if I do not come up with any within 48 hours. Eighty5cacao 13:37, 9 February 2012 (MST)
 * At this point I am reasonably sure I have no objections. Eighty5cacao 13:52, 13 February 2012 (MST)