Talk:Mulholland Drive

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Is this page really all necessary? Who's going to write about the street? It's mostly residential. -Branddobbe

It's one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles, as it goes through the Hollywood Hills near many celebrities' mansions and past the Hollywood sign, and it's been featured in a few pop culture moments, so it's not a VFD candidate. --Howcheng 16:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, it's also a fairly important street in its own right (best described as a minor arterial road). CrazyC83 04:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe it might be helpful to add information about other things the road is famous for, such as racing (e.g. James Dean honed his skills there, as many have).--70.186.192.13 04:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I find it astonishing that anybody could suppose that the majority of people searching for "Mulholland Drive" are searching for anything except the David Lynch film. While I appreciate that there is a place for this article on Wikipedia, I imagine that the number of people looking for it is only a fraction of those seeking information about the movie--Aniboker (talk) 03:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Cost to Construct and Maintain

How much did it first cost to build Mulholland Drive?

How much goes into its maintenance?

If it is now completely paved, what year was it first completely paved?

Mulholland Highway

There's a page on Mulholland Highway, which is a different entity from Mulholland Drive, as Mulholland Dr. is mostly residential and the routing is different (it starts in Calabasas and ends in Hollywood; Mulholland Hwy starts south of Woodland Hills and ends near the LA/Ventura County line. Shouldn't the Mulholland Hwy section of this page be transferred to the Mulholland Hwy page? Floydspinky71 21:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose. There are often thought of as different parts of the same road, but for encyclopedic purposes we should probably treat them separately. -Will Beback 23:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Mulholland Raceway

What's the sales pitch on the Mulholland Raceway got to do with an encyclopedia? Asjoseph, please state facts, add images and so on, but always stick to the appropriate style. - --60.242.19.209 11:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

centers/revolves around/on

The movie centers around the movie, just as the city of Washington DC centers around the capitol mall, e.g. It doesn't center on it and it doesn't revolve around it. But don't take my word for it, see Merriam-Webster:

The intransitive verb center is most commonly used with the prepositions in, on, at, and around. At appears to be favored in mathematical contexts; the others are found in a broad range of contexts. Center around, a standard idiom, has often been objected to as illogical. The logic on which the objections are based is irrelevant, since center around is an idiom and idioms have their own logic. Center on is currently more common in edited prose, and revolve around and similar verbs are available if you want to avoid center around.

So you may want to avoid "center around," but it is a standard idiom. I quote them on "revolve around" to provide the full context, but, really, it means something different. From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/center or see the OED:

2b. to centre (or be centred) about, around or round : to have (something) as one's or its centre or focus; to move or revolve round (something) as a centre; to be concentrated on, to turn on (see turn v. 3); to be mainly concerned with.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Very good research. Because Wikipedia is "edited prose," though, we should use the editor's eye and avoid "center around." It really looks awful to many educated readers—many, not all. Note:

It’s “centers on,” not “centers around.” If you give it some thought, you’ll figure out why. If you can’t figure out why, your nearest mathematician specializing in topology will be happy to explain it to you. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/08/24/todays-grammar-gripe-seemingly-out-of-nowhere/

Center around is colloquial. It should not be used in formal writing.

(Faulty) The dispute centers around the effects of undocumented workers. (Correct) The dispute centers on the effects of undocumented workers.

http://www.majon.com/testprep/strat-gmatg.html

Since Mulholland Highway is a lengthy roadway, we can't use centers on because there is nothing to center on — too long and stripy. GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Surely every VERB+PREPOSITION phrase in English is idiomatic and therefore not subject to logical criticism. Why are we "at the wheel" (English) rather than "on the wheel" (Portuguese)? Like MW says, "the logic on which objections are based is irrelevant." I trust Merriam-Webster over SEO specialists majon.com and random writer John Scalzi. Majon's argument is based on teaching kids to pass standardized tests, which are hardly a touchstone for good writing. The fact that Scalzi claims that topologists can explain it discredits him immediately, since topological spaces don't have centers. He's probably thinking of geometers, but he's wrong there too. All kinds of things are currently less common in edited prose and yet not bad. Perhaps your many educated readers could use some re-education? See e.g. hits for "centers around" on google scholar. Many of these are false positives, but many are not, e.g.

1. The problem of reason centers around the topics of knowledge, language, and intelligence... --Richard Rorty
2. This volume centers around the theory, findings and applications of the author's Adult Intelligence Scales... --David Wechsler
3. The theory of cognitive dissonance centers around the idea that if a person knows various things that are not psychologically consistent with one another, he will, in a variety of ways, try to make them more consistent. --Leon Festinger

and so on and so forth.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:43, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, p.s.: The fact that majon.com thinks that "centers around" is colloquial also discredits their opinion. It's not colloquial or the OED would have marked it as such and MW would have noted it. It's idiomatic, which is a very, very different thing. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't need to fight this battle. I have been a professional writer for sixty years, I taught journalism for 20 years, copy-editing for the same amount of time, and if the Associated Press Stylebook prefers "center on," that it is good enough for me. Good copy editors know the language and the usage and the syntax without fuss or feathers. If any given editor does not have a feel for the language, that is not my responsibility. We J-profs used to call that lacuna a "tin ear." GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:12, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, goodness. The argument from authority doesn't carry much weight when it comes to linguistics, I don't think, and it certainly carries no weight on wikipedia. You're telling me that Richard Rorty isn't good enough to write for the AP and that the AP stylebook trumps the OED? Also, an interesting thing about tin ears is that their possessors can't, by definition, understand that they have them. Your ear is as likely to be tin as mine and neither of us would know. All we can tell from this discussion is that our intuitions about what captures the nuanced meaning we're looking for differ, I suspect because I am interested in actual academic descriptive linguistics rather than stylebook prescriptivism. However, perhaps we can discuss alternatives, since "revolves around" doesn't say what I want that sentence to say, and I think its use would make the sentence false. How about something like:

David Lynch, whose film Mulholland Drive is suffused with the atmosphere of the road, once said that one can feel "the History of Hollywood" on it.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Ooh! How about:

David Lynch, whose film Mulholland Drive is suffused with the atmosphere of its eponymous road, once said that one can feel "the History of Hollywood" on it.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:35, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

innumerable

The word is commonly used "with exaggerative force," as per OED: Incapable of being numbered or reckoned; not to be counted for multitude; numberless, countless. Often with exaggerative force. A salient attestation from the OED is 1689 R. Milward Selden's Table-talk 28 Twenty pound of Diamonds, which is a sum innumerable. Clearly 20 pound of diamonds is not innumerable, as it's enumerated right there in the sentence. The word can be used figuratively, and that's how it's being used here.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 07:18, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and for good measure, here's the Oxford Dictionary of American English: innumerable: too many to be counted (often used hyperbolically): innumerable flags of all colors. Obviously with sufficient time and resources, any set of flags, necessarily finite, can be enumerated. One cannot deduce the meaning of the word from a strict reading of its etymology.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 07:26, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, Alf, but WP cannot suffuse itself with hyperbole nor with exaggerative force. Though it strives for interesting and varied writing, it nevertheless remains an encyclopedia, rather formal in nature and striving to be accurate in all respects. Saying something is "innumerable" just doesn't cut it. GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry too, but all language is figurative. Is there some kind of policy you're citing against the use of hyperbole? Because I don't think it's possibly to write more than a couple of sentences without it. It's in the very nature of language. For instance, a simple search on "innumerable" shows that it's used in Wikipedia innumerable times in exactly the manner in which I'm using it here. This is an ordinary meaning of the word. "Exaggerative force" is a technical rhetorical term that describes the way "innumerable" functions in the sentence, it is not a claim that every sentence that uses it is an exaggeration. Here are some examples from Britannica, which surely also is rather formal in nature and strives to be accurate in all respects, (I don't know how to link directly into the paywalled version, sorry, the article name is bolded):

1. Judaism: Judaism, the religion of the Jews. It is the complex phenomenon of a total way of life for the Jewish people, comprising theology, law, and innumerable cultural traditions.
2. Ceremonial object:The types and varieties of instruments used in worship and religious ceremonies are almost innumerable.
3. Animism: animism, belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests.
4. Macaroni: macaroni, in art, Late Paleolithic finger tracings in clay. It is one of the oldest and simplest known forms of art. Innumerable examples appear on the walls and ceilings of limestone caves in France and Spain ...
5. Bertie Wooster: Wooster is rescued from innumerable complicated situations by the resourceful and innately superior Jeeves.
6. German literature: The era of confessional conflict and war had come to an end in 1648, but urban culture continued to decline, and the empire became a country of innumerable courts.
7. Kazan River: the river flows northeastward for 455 miles (730 km) through a tortuous course of innumerable rapids and lakes

I think that you're confusing etymology with meaning. This is a common fallacy but a fallacy nonetheless. See e.g.

• Etymology does not make a contribution to the description of the contemporary meaning and usage of words; it may help to illuminate how things have got to where they are now, but it as likely to be misleading as helpful (as with the 'etymological fallacy'). Etymology offers no advice to one who consults a dictionary on the appropriate use of a word in the context of a written text or spoken discourse. It merely provides some passing insight for the interested dictionary browser with the requisite background knowledge and interpretative skills.

— Howard Jackson from Lexicography: An Introduction. Routledge, 2002

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:22, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Pioneering engineer Mulholland

There are at least two scholarly articles that refer to Mulholland as pioneering:

1. <:ref>William L. Kahrl (Spring, 1976). "The Politics of California Water: Owens Valley and the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1900-1927". California Historical Quarterly. 55 (1): 2–25. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)</ref>
2. <:ref>J. B. Lippincott (Feb–Mar 1941). "William Mulholland—Engineer, Pioneer, Raconteur". Civil Engineering. 2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)</ref>

One of them even in its very title. I don't see how it's controversial, and I don't like footnotes in the lead. Dozens more are available. This strikes me as a case of WP:BLUE.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:35, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Mais non. L'amour est bleu. GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It runs along the spine of the mountains.

Something I put in that got taken out. Obviously, I think the article was better with it.

Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, significant because it runs along the spine (the peak) of the mountains. It has the best views in the county and is easily, along with the Pacific Coast Highway, the most dramatic highway in the state.

deisenbe (talk) 03:05, 27 December 2018 (UTC)