A fact from Pinol appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 November 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that although pinol(pictured), a beverage made with toasted barley flour, unrefined sugar, and spices, was invented in the 20th century, it is already considered a traditional food of Ecuador?
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Good point. Corrected. Yoninah (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Pinol is italicised throughout the article, as are the other foodstuffs mentioned, what's that all about? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's customary to italicise words in a language other than that of the text as a whole. Awien (talk) 23:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's why the title was and should be italicised too. Awien (talk) 02:13, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting question, but I notice that this doesn't seem to be the convention generally used on Wikipedia. I checked Piñata, Carnitas, Pisco, Menudo (soup), Pho, Taco, Taquito, Al pastor, Burrito, Shawarma, Doner kebab, Tequila, Pulque, Mezcal, and a few other articles. None of them use {{italic title}} formatting, although a couple of them use italics in the boldface description at the top of the article (among those, Al pastor and Shawarma). In my experience, italic titles seem to only be used for things like book titles, album titles, newspaper titles, and scientific binomial nomenclature. However, WP:ITALICTITLE does list "foreign phrases" as one example of something that may justify using an italic title. It certainly has implications way beyond this particular title. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It would appear that this needs to be handled via an RFC so consistency can be applied, right now it seems entirely inconsistent... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:13, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That wouldn't really help, because what's perceived as a foreign word, and a word that was originally "borrowed" (i.e. stolen) from another language but has come to be perceived as regular English is in a constant state of flux. Most people would probably say that "piñata" is thoroughly naturalised at this point whereas "pinol(e)" clearly isn't, and opinions would no doubt vary concerning the rest of your list of exotic (or not) food and drink. Maybe like the varieties of English spelling it's a situation where the choice of the person who created or expanded the article should simply be respected. Awien (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I agree at all, piñata complete with its diacritic most certainly is not a naturalised word in my variation of English. We certainly need to clarify the phrasing of WP:ITALICTITLE. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:55, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That convention is followed for some non-English loanwords or phrases, such as ad hominem, in flagrante delicto, and ipso facto. I was mostly limiting my search to names for food and drink, since those seemed the most directly applicable, and mostly looking for examples from Mexican and South American Spanish. I don't know why I included Piñata – I guess it was just something that popped to mind before I became more systematic about what I was looking for and restricted myself to food and drink. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:28, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Rambling Man, you illustrate my point very neatly. It won't ever be possible to draw a line saying that a loanword is or isn't now a naturalised English word. Royal - in? Lèse-majesté - still out? Angst - in? Weltschmerz - still out? What I'm saying is that if we can't define the thing, we can't make a rule about it. I could roll out examples ad infinitum (out, according to the OED), but I have things to do, so I will make my adieus (in, according to the OED). Cheers, Awien (talk) 23:25, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, it's purely subjective, I understand, so if I was to un-italicise this and all use of such similar phrases, there'd be no problem, I understand now. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:31, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not what I said. On a continuum and purely subjective aren't the same thing. Like varieties of spelling, it seems to me to be a case where we should respect the choice of the person who created or expanded the article. Awien (talk) 23:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well sure, but your "adopted phrase" is completely different to mine (and millions of others of my brethren) so thanks for the advice, but no thanks, we can correct issues where they're wrong, there's no need to "respect the choice" of the creator or expander, we just need to provide a consistently formatted encyclopedia. Anyway, I thought you'd bid us farewell, so ciao. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:51, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ciao, Rambling Man. (The absence was just temporary, sorry). Maybe the best use of your reforming zeal would be to eradicate the problem at the source by setting the OED, American Heritage, Gage, etc. straight on the subject of their reprehensible practice of italicising loan words. Awien (talk) 01:13, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Very helpful, thanks. Meanwhile, we'll try to improve Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:43, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
