Talk:Somerton Man

Request for discussion on article name

Since the words in question are "tamám shud", is there any reason why this article is called "Taman Shud Case"?

In the absence of a specific reason for the current name, I would suggest that the appropriate name should be either "Tamám shud case" or "Somerton Man case". At the very least, the word "case" should not be capitalized.--NapoliRoma (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Taman Shud was apparently what it was originally erroneously reported as and the name stuck. I'm a bit ambivalent about whether it should be changed, but I guess I'd be inclined to leave it as it had always been known. As for the title, "Taman Shud Case" is just title case with initial capitalisation isn't it? Seems correct to me. Bronzepeach (talk) 09:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I came back to this article after several months and was disappointed to see how it's been renamed. At the very start, the reader is confronted with an anomaly. The title reads 'Taman' but the first sentence starts 'The Tamam Shud case...', so the reader is left with the impression that there's a typo and therefore the rest of the article can't be trusted either. My preference is that the title should use the word as it's printed in the book: 'Tamam', but I concede that it has been Taman for a very long time (and possibly from the article's inception). The only justification for capitalizing 'case' would be if "Taman Shud Case" was the title of a book, play, movie, or other work that the article is about. That doesn't apply here, and the 'C' should be lower case. Akld guy (talk) 01:45, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't have strong views either way, but I'm leaning towards it being Tamam rather than Taman. This matches the original quote, but the text should mention the long-running error. There does not seem to be any significant preference for either on the internet, with both in fairly equal amounts of usage. For now I have matched up the lede text to the title until this gets resolved. As for "case" this should be lower case. --Dmol (talk) 03:06, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Well that's irritating!! I had never paid much attention to the titles of Wikipedia articles. The title I was referring to was the title of the article, which a literate person would expect to be in title case. I see however that Wikipedia does not seem to use title case for article titles. That's going to irritate me now 'til the end of time! I have not tried to see if there's a style guide - I suppose there probably is, but I would be afraid to look. Bizarrely enough, the style seems to generally be to capitalise (or should I say capitalize) the first letter of the first word only, except for proper nouns. Why capitalise the first letter only? It's not a sentence and there's no full stop (or 'period'). Would be better to have no capitals than just the first word for no reason.

Anyway, it would seem appropriate to change it to 'case' to conform with what seems to be the house style, so by all means go ahead. (At least it will save me some money - I won't feel the need to donate to Wikipedia any more!! :) ) Bronzepeach (talk) 04:25, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There is indeed a style guide -- it's called, oddly enough, the Wikipedia Manual of Style, or WP:MOS. The section of interest is WP:TITLEFORMAT, where at least the partial justification is that rendering the titles in sentence case makes it easier to link to an article in running text without modification.

FWIW, I just grabbed a volume of the print edition of World Book Encyclopedia that was at hand, and it turns out the titles of entries there are rendered in... sentence case.--NapoliRoma (talk) 06:46, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the pointer to the style manual. However linking is not going to be that much easier as you'd still have to look at the article title and (good heavens) spell it correctly. As for the World Book Encyclopedia - it's about as World as the World Series! Bronzepeach (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There are three supporters for Tamam and lower case 'case' so far. Akld guy (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It should be "Tamam Shud case", I think. Everyking (talk) 07:20, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I have moved the title to "Tamam Shud case". This is a fascinating incident, and makes a good read. I think there is promise in the article if it could be tidied up. While not yet organised and appropriately cited, information has been gathered. I think there is enough information here and in linked sources, to enable a good article to be created. I will spend some time working on it, but my time and energy is limited these days, and I'm being asked to do some work on the Covent Garden article, so I may not be able to do much SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:45, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Tommy Reade

"A seaman by the name of Tommy Reade from the SS Cycle, in port at the time, was thought to be the dead man, but after some of his shipmates viewed the body at the morgue, they stated categorically that the corpse was not that of Tommy Reade." - Well, what happened? Did Reade ever turn up? I can't locate any work that says he did. Maybe Feltus answers the question, but I don't own a copy of his book. Akld guy (talk) 03:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Unknown Book Edition

I distinctly remember there being a section in this article devoted to some complexities in tracking down the exact edition of the book. This all seems to have been removed, why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.126.226.90 (talk) 12:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of tamam shud

An IP has tried a couple of times to change the meaning from 'ended' to 'the end'. Please see here for the opinion of a native speaker of Persian. While his/her opinion does not constitute a definitive ruling without references, long-time consensus has been that 'ended' is the correct meaning, and consequently the onus is on the IP to show evidence to the contrary. Akld guy (talk) 20:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Where can I find the reports cited in the article?

There are a few reports cited in the article like for example Don O'Doherty's report or the Coroner's Report but there are no links to none of these. Could anyone provide original documents, so I could read it? Tashi _{Talk to me} 23:05, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Possible timeline of events

It seems that this poor fellow quite possibly was a disenchanted Russian spy, who had a previous affair with Jessica "Jestyn" Harkness after meeting during (or perhaps after) the War, resulting in the birth of Robin Thompson (the Russian connection being suggested by his lack of identification in NATO aligned countries, his identity as a foreign service member during WWI when Russia was still an ally, and Jessica's unaccounted-for knowledge of the Russian language and culture). He may have arrived in Glenelg to visit his infant son, whom he had never seen, thus making peace with his unresolved past and perhaps accounting for the Persian line hidden deep in his pocket from a book which had deep sentimental value for both him and Jessica. This would also account for the short-hand message (or encrypted cypher using the text of the book itself), the presence of her telephone number on an impression from the lost (likely intentionally destroyed) scrap of paper, and the place where he met his demise. After this, he may have spent hours with mother and child in a final attempt to make up for lost time. Then, to protect the identity of his child and the child's mother, he poisoned himself by smoking one last cigarette on the beach as he watched the sun set. Jessica's surprise at identifying his features in the plaster cast may suggest both their past together and the fact that she had just seen him in the hours before his death.The Famous Adventurer (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)