Talk:Bank of England

Requests for deletion - kept
Kept. See archived discussion of August 2008. 06:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

RFV 2019
Rfv-senses 2 ("The building in Threadneedle Street that houses it") and 3 ("The organisation which controls this bank").

In a quote such as "a small replica of the Bank of England building in London", "Bank of England" on its own doesn't designate the building; it's "the Bank of England building" that does. I don't see how "We're putting in enough new capital to make this little bank as strong as The Bank of England" points to that sense either.

And I don't see how a usex such as "I am an employee of the Bank of England" points to a different sense from sense 1 ("The central bank of the United Kingdom"). Canonicalization (talk) 20:04, 18 June 2019 (UTC)


 * In my opinion a bank can be a building, as well as a financial organisation. E.g. "I went into the bank". And this particular building is massive, you have to see it to appreciate it. DonnanZ (talk) 21:25, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I am surprised that you are not familiar with the 'building' definition. It's just an instance of the very common metonomic relationship between a building and its occupants: Number 10, White House, Pentagon, you can't fight City Hall. DCDuring (talk) 22:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, agreed. I just wasn't sure it could be used that way. I'm satisfied with the quotes you have just added, and consider that sense cited. (It's metonymic, by the way.) Canonicalization (talk) 22:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I tend to alternate my spellings. DCDuring (talk) 22:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The other metonymic sense may be attestable, but seems more universal and hence trivial. OTOH, Economists can certainly distinguish between the central bank function and the organization that conducts the function. It's not dissimilar from the distinction between a brand and its owner. DCDuring (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2019 (UTC)


 * If I look closely at a £5 note issued by the Bank of England I find in one corner "For the governor and company of the Bank of England (signed) chief cashier". So I imagine the chief cashier is an important employee of the Bank of England. DonnanZ (talk) 09:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved Kiwima (talk) 20:41, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

RFD discussion: December 2021–February 2022
Per Bank of Canada and Banca d'Italia. --Fytcha (talk) 16:03, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Previous discussion: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?oldid=5014791#Bank_of_England --General Vicinity (talk) 16:06, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete —Svārtava [t•c•u•r] 16:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * What would the do without the Bank of England? This is yet another overzealous RFD. Keep. DonnanZ (talk) 00:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The same thing Old Gray Lady already does? Link to Wikipedia. — LlywelynII  02:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * We should definitely include the idiom . --Lambiam 11:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether we do or not, all banknotes in England and Wales are issued by the Bank of England. Added an image for a tenner. DonnanZ (talk) 10:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Unlike Bank of Canada, this one does seem like it could have linguistic merit. Any other examples? DAVilla 22:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You're right, we should. — LlywelynII  02:34, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete as not being dictionary material, unless the term itself without added words has some idiomatic sense. In my view, the fact that other entries may refer to this entry is not a sufficient reason for having the entry if it does not pass CFI. We have many “derivative” entries such as and, but this doesn’t justify the creation of Charles Darwin or Ferdinand de Lesseps. — SGconlaw (talk) 05:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Lexico, Collins, and Cambridge (at least) all disagree with that assertion, all having entries. There may be others. My 2005 Oxford hard copy lists it, so it is dictionary material. DonnanZ (talk) 10:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I’m not seeing a principled way of distinguishing this from the central bank of any other country (should we create an entry for Monetary Authority of Singapore?) or, indeed, any government agency in any country. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We need some sort of rationale here, I wouldn't create an entry for the, but there is, quite rightly, , which Britain should belong to, but we know what happened there. Canadians probably think the more important than every other central bank, in England the B of E is probably more important than the government, even though it is government-owned. I think that perhaps only the most important or best-known central banks should be included, and the B of E is certainly well known (throughout the world?). DonnanZ (talk) 12:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm doubtful that the touchstone should be "most important" or "best-known"; that seems quite subjective. Presumably on that token the Central Bank of Russia, People's Bank of China and Reserve Bank of India should be added (not that I am agreeing). — SGconlaw (talk) 17:40, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm-yeah, on the basis that The, and  are included (all the same thing, not sure why the latter one has a plural), I guess the Russian, Chinese and Indian ones should be included. But I hesitate here, and don't think I will be the one who adds them - they are better known to those in the banking industry, and the populations in the countries concerned. But I have no objection if another editor dares to add them. DonnanZ (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's because there isn't any principled reason. We should either include all corporate entities (Walmart, Aldi, Piggly Wiggly, &c.) and building names (American Family Field, Minute Maid Park, Cannon House Office Building, &c.) or exclude this one, the Fed, etc. as Wikipedia material (a resource Cambridge & the OED lack, apart from their own chauvinistic reasons to include the BOE but not the PBC). That has no bearing on still including derived terms like safe as the Bank of England, BOE, the Fed, PBC, HSBC, etc. We should have them, but they should link directly to Wikipedia like (eg) BOE already does for its senses as "Blue Ocean Event" and Spain's "Official State Bulletin". — LlywelynII  02:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, particularly for sense 2. Looks like a well-established term, seeing as it appears in other wordbooks. ·~   dictátor · mundꟾ  15:50, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As well as that building it also has a banknote printing works in, Essex. DonnanZ (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete - WP material - well-covered at WP at and . Ditto, , , . Who would look those up in a dictionary? Facts707 (talk) 07:45, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * People who want pronunciations, lists of important quotes, or clear translations. That said, we should be consistent about it. There's no nonimperialist reason to have the Bank of England but not the Bank of Canada, People's Bank of China, the New York Times, or the corporate senses at Ford. There's less of a reason to have Bank of England than Bank of America, as far as SOP issues go. — LlywelynII  02:39, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * keep both Bank of England and Federal Reserve as these are not SOP, after all the Bank of England is actually the bank for the whole of the U.K not just England and the Federal Reserve is famous neither Federal nor does it have reserves, so is not SOP. By all means delete ‘Federal Reserve System’ and other ‘Bank of (insert country-name here)’ entries. Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:18, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * England's general use to the cover the United Kingdom is already well established and covered. This entry is absolutely SOP, as is the Federal Reserve, whether you understand the words,, , or none of the above. "By all means delete other countries' equivalents after all who cares" isn't how any of this should be done. — LlywelynII  02:04, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * England’s general use to the cover the United Kingdom is already qualified as proscribed and sometimes offensive. People might be forgiven for thinking that the Bank of England only prints notes that are legal tender in England itself much as the Bank of Scotland prints notes that are only legal tender in Scotland but they would be wrong; that’s why it’s fair to say that it can’t obviously and unambiguously be analysed as the sum of its parts, even though such a reading is possible, so it meets the inclusion criteria (it’s like the fried egg test in reverse, just imagine that the ambiguity centres around the word egg rather than the word fried). Overlordnat1 (talk) 15:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete unless we're importing Wikipedia entries wholesale. That said, be consistent. Federal Reserve should go if this does; Bank of Canada should be restored if this stays. The idioms and oblique references can be kept without the central SOP entry. We correctly have an initialism at HSBC but do not have a Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation entry. If we keep Bank of England just for feelsies we should include other corporate names as well. — LlywelynII  01:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete; leave this to Wikipedia. - -sche (discuss) 01:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep as absolutely not sum of parts per Overlordnat1. Theknightwho (talk) 02:52, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The argument isn't that they are SOP but rather that they're just the name of an institution, which in itself is not dictionary material. We also don't just add any company name as an entry (see WT:COMPANY). &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 09:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete, Wikipedia material. --Rishabhbhat (talk) 03:01, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * RFD-deleted —Svārtava (t/u) • 09:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

RFD discussion: September 2022–January 2023
I request undeletion: Expanded after the initial post. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:09, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) This is supported by lemmings: Collins and Cambridge; it is also supported by Dictionary.com and vocabulary.com, but these are not the classic lemmings.
 * 2) It is not transparently named: the bank of England is actually the bank of the whole U.K. We recently kept European Central Bank by near unanimity, which is arguably transparently named; it cannot be our intent to administer names of organizations in such a contradictory manner.
 * 3) It is an important and prominent organization. This should not really matter all that much but since we have policies for proper names (place names) that are based on classification of referents, this is not entirely without force. Out place name policy leads us to include United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, long and transparently named, probably included because of the prominence of the named entity; and it is in some lemmings, although not in M-W and AHD.
 * 4) If we exclude all multi-word proper names of organizations, why do we include United Nations, an organization that so far has not been deleted and is supported by very many lemmings? Is it because of the international importance that United Nations is included? U.K. is not an international organization, so why does our CFI regulate in favor of the inclusion of the full transparent name?
 * 5) Other names of organizations that are reasonably short and not transparently named include Home Office, Foreign Office, Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Salvation Army, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Tamil Tigers. Should all these be deleted, and if not, why not?
 * 6) If we exclude all multi-word proper names of organizations, why do we include NATO's nickname North Atlantic Terrorist Organization? What, then, is the implied de facto policy?
 * 7) We include multi-word nicknames Orange Man, God Emperor, Pharma Bro, Korea Fish, Vegetable English, and Elongated Muskrat. If we filter proper names by referents by saying that no organization shall have its multi-word name included, why are individual persons allowed to have multi-word names included? Even by the lexicographically inferior filtering by referents and not the names, this does not make sense: surely the Bank of England is much more important than individuals. Is it because these are nicknames, not official names?
 * I completely agree. undelete. Especially due to the fact that England is being used to refer to the whole of the U.K here, as I argued in the previous deletion debate. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Undelete, I think Scotland still has its own banknotes, by the way. DonnanZ (talk) 13:43, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted: Non-transparency of regarding proper names is not an argument. As far as I understand the BoE was founded in 1694 England. The Act of Union 1707 united Scotland and England and the Act of Union 1800 merged this union with (today’s) Northern Ireland into the (predecessor of the) UK. The BoE could’ve changed their name but they didn’t, so it’s their problem now. Why are we supposed to remedy the situation and give them a dictionary entry? I’m not gonna address the remaining whataboutism. Please refer to specific arguments. ‑‑Kai Burghardt (talk) 00:06, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The above states no rationale for deletion. It dismisses comparative analysis although it is indispensable. It dismisses a distinguishing property without stating any properties of its own. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:20, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted, for the same reasons as when it was deleted; leave it to Wikipedia. I don't think the bank having failed to update its name and thus now having a "misnomer" makes it any more includable: lots of organizations have misleading names (e.g., think how much has been said about the extent to which the National Socialist German Workers' Party was or was not socialist or a worker's party). - -sche (discuss) 01:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The reason in the RFD was "leave this to Wikipedia". This is not a proper rationale: it gives us no exclusion properties. "Name that is covered by Wikipedia" is the property following from the reason, but this is obviously no workable exclusion property, as per Ku Klux Klan or New York. The best implied property I can come up with is "A multi-word name covered by Wikipedia of an organization that has the entity type in its name even if the name is not transparent". If this is the property, it should be stated. It would exclude United Nations Organization, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and European Union; maybe it is the intent. It could be further refined as "A multi-word name covered by Wikipedia of an organization that is not international and has the entity type in its name even if the name is not transparent"; this would exclude Democratic Party and the mentioned NSDAP. Further candidate distinguishing properties could be mentioned, but none are. All the analytical work is left for others to be done. The misnomer principle is a lexicographical one and it would be lexicographical if we include the full name of NSDAP. We currently do have its German name Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, but it may still be deleted. For German, the multi-word property is of less utility; we have Weltgesundheitsorganisation and there are going to be similar names for smaller organizations, which may lead to opposition of including single-word names of organizations. The misnomer principle is applied to multi-word common nouns to show they are not sum of parts; it is a candidate lexicographical property. To sum it up, the deleters stated no workable distinguishing properties, thereby failing to provide a proper rationale for deletion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:20, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You think all exclusion properties are arbitrary anyway, so you’re asking for something without any clear idea of what it is that you want. Theknightwho (talk) 07:47, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The above is unproductive: 1) it is obviously false; 2) it makes things personal instead of discussing substance (surely having distinguishing properties for inclusion and exclusion is generally desirable); 3) it does not advance the search for distinguishing properties in any way. Is this a start of yet another interminable not particularly productive discussion? I hope not. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:54, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Haha. Okay, Dan. Make sure to write another 3,000 words saying the same handful of points again - I’m sure we all need to hear it for the tenth time. Theknightwho (talk) 10:05, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted, name of specific entity. - TheDaveRoss  15:54, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * An obvious non-rationale: we do include some names of specific entities, many of them. Where are the distinguishing criteria? This amounts of WP's W:WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Please read WT:NSE. - TheDaveRoss  17:59, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And? Some NSE should be included, some excluded => "name of specific entity" is no sufficient ground for deletion. Without a further distinguishing mark, this is a pure whim. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted until there has been a proper discussion or vote on the criteria for including or excluding the names of organizations. Dealing with the matter piecemeal is unhelpful. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a fine point. We have very few multi-word names of organizations and we should not be deleting them on a whim, one by one, with dubious non-rationales such as "encyclopedic content". We are not flooded by them, and will not be flooded any time soon. This should never have been deleted, hence I ask undeletion. My rationale is detailed above, perhaps too detailed for the taste of some. In sum: organization, important, untransparently named, lemming-supported. An encyclopedia is no translation name dictionary. Q183231: Bank of England has translations, but they don't trace to sources. For the reader, there is more at User:Dan_Polansky/Inclusion_arguments. I will note that in the vote about organizations, at least 4 opposers mentioned translations are valid lexicographical content. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:35, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep deleted. Ultimateria (talk) 20:24, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * RKD-kept-deleted per numerical consensus. Some of the votes have zero tracing for rationale. I leave here a finding against the English Wiktionary's failure to enforce the strength of argument principle, by which it is inadmissible to participate on a consensus process without tracing votes cast to arguments. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:10, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * As for the strength of the argument, which in general can be part of closure, I did not identify any strong arguments in the list. Two are empty; "name of specific entity" is an obvious non-argument. However, it does not seem to make sense for me to make the closure determination based on the strength of the argument since the power of those who said "keep deleted" is to undo such a closure. It follows that the only probably practicable closure is based on numerical consensus, no matter how misguided. An improvement could be made by adopting a policy: RFD votes with zero rationale shall be discounted. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:13, 6 January 2023 (UTC)