Talk:Jug

This talk page was somehow left behind from a previous title change. See Talk:Jug (disambiguation) for background. Pkgx (talk) 12:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Improvements

The lede section had been quite confusing. I have rewritten parts of it so it is much clearer. I have also put most of the many graphics into a gallery for better article formatting. Pkgx (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

MERGE

MERGE with Pitcher (container)? --Gaepakchinae (talk) 03:10, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• Do not Merge - There is no need to merge Pitcher into Jug. The term "Jug" has several meanings around the English speaking world. Only one of them is similar to Pitcher. Do not merge. Pkgx (talk) 14:40, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
• There is No Consensus for a merger, either on this page or on Talk:Pitcher (container). The question of a merger should be abandoned. Pkgx (talk) 20:49, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
•  Done Proposed merger tag removed. Pkgx (talk) 12:01, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

---

Proposed merge with Pitcher (container)

We do not need two articles on the same subject. There practically no difference between these two subjects. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 13:21, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, in my dialect they are different. And this jug article oddly includes both. To clarify: in my experience this is a jug and this is a pitcher. --Khajidha (talk) 13:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

In my understanding this is a ceramic growler. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 13:51, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• There have been two previous attempts to merge jug and pitcher - - - both failed with No Consensus. Pkgx (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm resurrecting this discussion. Even if we accept there is a slight difference in some dialects, we can cover both topics in one article. SnowFire (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

There are great differences - in British English, this is a jug, this is probably a jar, and a pitcher is only something you might get beer in in an American-leaning restaurant. Why only propose it here? Johnbod (talk) 22:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I read Khadija's comment already, yes, although please note that "jar" is not part of the merge proposal. Note that I'm not sure you're helping your case as you claim a jug and a pitcher are the same thing if I follow (Khadija called your "jug" a "pitcher")? Or did you mix up the pictures? I don't follow your question about "why only propose it here" - is there some other location that'd be better? The merge templates by default point the discussion to the merge target, i.e. this page. If there's some other location that'd be preferable, please specify where. If there's sourced material about dialect differences, then great, it can all be covered in one big article - neither article is particularly long or detailed at the moment. SnowFire (talk) 22:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

No, I did not mix up the pictures! Have you actually read either article? Johnbod (talk) 23:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

This... isn't helpful. Yes, I have, which is why I am making this proposal, because the current article text doesn't make clear what the distinction is in concept. Can you answer my questions before? I don't understand what your position even is here for why these need to be separate articles. I don't care about dialect nonsense, I'm talking about the encyclopedic concept here - pretend these were called foobars or widgets or whatever. Cover "Ceramic thingy that holds liquids" in one article, which can include dialect distinctions if you want. What is the problem with this? SnowFire (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Or, to put it more plainly, we don't have separate articles for airplane and aeroplane. If you're saying that these containers are divided differently by dialect, fine, but then that confusion should be covered in a single article. Per the current text, we have an airplane / aeroplane situation - BE jug = AE pitcher = have a single article on the topic. SnowFire (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

It's only 3 months since the last proposal. Too soon. Johnbod (talk) 23:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

The last "proposal" doesn't count for anything. Gaepakchinae said merge with no explanation, and Pkgx said no also with no explanation. It'd be one thing if it was a long and fraught RFC closed by a neutral admin, but it was closed by the only opposer. SnowFire (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#What_not_to_use_the_RfC_process_for - merge proposals don't use Rfc's. The proposal was open about 9 months, and in 2 places, and several people commented. Johnbod (talk) 23:33, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I am exceedingly confused as you supported the merge over on the other page previously. Anyway, there's no point in arguing procedure. Coffee & Crumbs and myself have added our voice to the "there needs to be a convincing explanation of what distinction these two articles support and what the value of separate articles is". If the old discussion was closed as no consensus, that means it's still up for discussion, and not merging the articles is just wrong as is and will remain wrong until it's fixed. SnowFire (talk) 00:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with Johnbod. This proposed merger has failed twice before and the last failure was only 3 months ago. Much too soon. Pkgx (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

• Humor me for one moment. Why, precisely, are you opposed? The previous discussion features practically no explanation for why these two should be separate articles when they cover the same concept that might have some slight variations in how varieties of English divvy them up. Again, we don't feature separate articles for "Sweater" and "jumper" or any of the myriad other BE/AE differences. SnowFire (talk) 09:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia asks for use of a common name. We are dealing with several things that all of us use and we cava a common name for them. The English language is rich and varried. Dependg on the country, region, and personal preference, there are several conflicting Common Names. Dictionary definitions also varry around the world. We are dealing with opinions and not Reliable Sources.

Thus we get people saying:

Everyone knows that XXX is the same as YYY

The common name for this is always XXX

My grandmother always called this a YYY

Around here we call it a ZZZ

Depending of the circumstances, there can be overlap between a Pitcher and a Jug. I most of the world, however, if you order a “jug of beer”, all you will receive is a strange look back. Pitcher is usually the common name [File:Pitcher (Beer).svg] [File:Beer and chips (8749311107).jpg][File:Florence Stevenson, Beer Pitcher, c. 1936, NGA 19521.jpg.] In much of the world, a Pitcher is used for serving household liquids: particularly in the UK, that would be called a Jug.

A Jug can also be a retail container for liquids [File:Carlo Rossi jug wine.jpg][File:WHISKEY JUG WITH BEAR.JPG] [File:Somerset Cider Jugs (2518375463).jpg].

A retail container of milk is often called a Bottle [File:Bottle of milk.jpg] but some people insist that it is a Jug [File:Milk jug upright.jpg]. There are also Growler (jug)s and Square milk jugs which are really types if Bottles.

Is there one Common Name for all of these? No. My thought is often: “If its not broke, don’t try to fix it” Let’s leave things alone; No merger.Pkgx (talk) 21:20, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. That said, while what you wrote is uncontroversially true, I don't really find it relevant to the actual question here, which is proper division of encyclopedia articles. It being non-idiomatic to ask for a jug of beer rather than a pitcher sounds like a perfectly valid thing to bring up at one combined article on the topic. Sometimes different local terms get used to subdivide a topic - masala chai is basically "the Indian style of tea". But that doesn't seem to be nearly as useful here; nobody has a British-style jug, while if you order chai in America you'll get something vaguely like the kind you get in India.

For your final comment, I'd argue that things ARE broken. When people keep on coming to this talk page to say "this is really weird that there's two separate articles on this," that's a sign that something might be up. SnowFire (talk) 00:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• No Consensus Clearly there has not been interest in merging. Pkgx (talk) 18:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm certainly astonished to see a jug (AmE) conflated with a pitcher (AmE). This is not one of those minor distinctions, since jugs are by their nature closed even when open, and pitchers are by their nature open even if sometimes temporarily covered. Jugs have a distinctive niche in both American and Swedish folk culture and literature, at the very least, and it would surprise me if there are not many other places where this is so. Perhaps it is not so in the UK. The salient characteristics of a jug, to use American English, are its narrow, usually plugged (though occasionally capped) mouth, its short neck, its large capacity, and its proportionally thick body. Just look at American dictionaries, which almost invariably refer to these characteristics. And the word rarely refers to anything with a capacity much less than a gallon, though a pronounced physical shape can sometimes mitigate in favor of the word for smaller sizes. The semi-pejorative description "jug wine" refers to low-end but in some circles party-acceptable wine that often comes in large, jug-shaped sizes less than a gallon. After more than six decades immersed in the culture, I find it hard to imagine that any careful user of American English would confuse a jug or even a jar with a pitcher. Certainly no dealer in antique objects would ever do so — the very thought of it is laughable. In our brains, a jug, a jar (a particular type of bottle), and a pitcher are three distinct kinds of objects. Call them what you will in different countries or regions, but the objects themselves are entirely distinct in character and purpose, and largely so in their use. Conceptually the type of container designated by the American word "jug" has very little in common with the type of container designated by the American word "pitcher." In fact, a glass and a pitcher have much more in common than a pitcher and a jug. Now language does shape thought, and it's possible that if Brits use "jug" and "pitcher" interchangeably, and if there are no cultural associations attached to the respective objects, British brains may not have separate categories for them. I'm here to say that hundreds of millions of people DO have distinctly separate mental categories for the objects Americans denote with "jug" and "pitcher." The effect of conflating them is rather comical. Tosiaan (talk) 02:52, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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• Lanier Meaders face jug, 1979.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:25, 11 September 2021 (UTC)