Talk:Hemlock

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References for Socrates drinking hemlock being a myth? WormRunner | Talk 19:49, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Water hemlock (Cicuta virosa) is identified here as being the state poison of ancient Greece, although the article on water hemlock indicates that the Greek poison is more likely to be poison hemlock (Conium maculatum).

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move from Hemlock (disambiguation) to Hemlock, as per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 06:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recently moved this page from Hemlock to here (Hemlock (disambiguation)). My reasoning was that poison hemlock, described by the article on the Conium genus, was the most commonly understood meaning of the word "hemlock". However, User:Calibas pointed out to me that in the United States, the word "hemlock" has come to be commonly understood to refer to the Tsuga genus of conifers, historically named after poison hemlock. Some internet research and a check through the pages linking to the Hemlock article suggested to me that there is a roughly even split between the two meanings. Thus, it would seem to be best that the Hemlock article be the home of the disambiguation page, with a mention of the two most commonly understood meanings to distinguish them from the minor ones. I suspect that Calibas will agree with this. -Kieran 17:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me, although the only evidence I can provide about what is most common is anecdotal, namely that I (growing up in the United States) assumed that Socrates drank conifer needles, until many years later I found out the real story. Note that the Tsuga article contains a link to Hemlock written to expect a disambiguation page, so the rename which you propose would cause that to make sense again. Kingdon 20:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support per above --Calibas 04:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Good teamwork. Andrewa 09:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It is always problematic to try to figure out what is the most common use of a word. When in doubt, let the name itself (i.e., hemlock) be the disambiguation page. Move this page to hemlock and redirect hemlock (disambiguation) here. ●DanMS • Talk 22:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just changed the Hemlock page to redirect to here. --Calibas 23:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

Conciseness of disambiguation between the poisonous herb and the conifer

I have reverted the concisification done by Kingdon. I think that in this case, where there is quite strong ambiguity, it is required to have slightly more information than would normally go on a disambiguation page. In particular, I think it is useful to indicate which hemlock was used in the poisoning of Socrates, and to show that the reason for the ambiguity is a US neologism that came into common use. I'm open to discussion on this, though. -Kieran 12:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably best to see what other people think, rather than arguing between us two (even the "concise" version struck me as longer than desirable). But look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) to see what is recommended. There's also Wikipedia:Disambiguation and the talk page thereof. Kingdon 13:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I think it should look like:

The word hemlock has two commonly understood meanings, and may also refer to a number of other things:

Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), a common European herb, invasive in much of Asia, North America and Australia, that contains the deadly alkaloid coniine. This is the more commonly understood meaning in European and most historical contexts.

Tsuga, a genus of conifers originally named "hemlocks" due to a perceived similarity in the scent of the crushed foliage to that of conium. This is the more commonly understood meaning in the United States and Canada.

Since it mentions hemlock refers to conium in most historical contexts mentioning Socrates or Greece is redundant. While I agree that disambiguation pages should be as short as possible they should at least briefly explain why the things have the same name. Calibas 17:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]