Talk:Superstition in Great Britain

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 00:45, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... Source: Express
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/2015 Heze bombing

Created by Mhhossein (talk). Self-nominated at 07:23, 13 October 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

QPQ: - Not yet
Overall: all good! MRN2electricboogaloo (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@MRN2electricboogaloo: Hi, welcome to the list of DYK reviewers (though I'm not sure if such a list exist! :) ). Perhaps the most important point raised by you is the sourcing issue. I have replaced the contents belonging to the Daily Express with a more reliable source. What about the following hook:

ALT1:... that Knocking on wood is the most popular superstition in Britain with 'crossing fingers for good luck' coming after it, according to two independent surveys in the UK?

Best. I will do the QPQ within the coming days. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: Thanks! Barring the lack of QPQ, this article should be ready to go. I did make a couple minor edits, but I’m pretty sure that’s fine. MRN2electricboogaloo (talk) 05:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

• Mhhossein we're still waiting on the QPQ. Also, let me suggest a shorter variation:

ALT1a:... that according to two surveys, Knocking on wood and 'crossing fingers for good luck' are the most popular superstitions in Britain?

-- RoySmith (talk) 00:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I like your suggestion RoySmith. Btw, QPQ was provided some days ago. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:41, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Reference issues

ForayHistory:

The reference <ref name="Opie1996">{{Cite book |last=Opie |first=Iona |last2=Tatem |first2=Moira |title=The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-14-051381-3 |pages=1–15}}</ref> is bollixed.

• ISBN points to The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs Yearbook, 1997/8
• The book by that title has a different author and is actually Roud, Steve (2006). The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-194162-2.

The reference <ref name="Trevelyan2011">{{Cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=Marie |title=Welsh Traditions and Superstitions: A Historical Collection of Welsh Mythology |publisher=Read Books Ltd. |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4474-2000-2 |pages=45–55 |url=https://www.google.com.sg/books/edition/Welsh_Traditions_and_Superstitions_A_His/ctb7DAAAQBAJ}}</ref> is bollixed.

• The ISBN is for the 2011 edition of the book, The URL goes to a page for the 2016 edition of the book, with URL 9781473356405.

The references

• <ref>{{cite book |last=Roud |first=Steve |title=The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2003 |isbn=9780140515496 |page=816}}</ref>
• <ref>{{cite book |last=Roud |first=Steve |title=The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2003 |isbn=9780140515496 |page=xvii}}</ref>

have an invalid ISBN.

The reference <ref>{{cite book |last=MacDonald |first=John |title=Superstitions: 1,001 of the World's Wierdest Myths, Fables & Old Wives' Tales |publisher=Arcturus Publishing |year=2016 |isbn=9781784282582 |page=102}}</ref> has an invalid ISBN.

The reference <ref>{{cite book |last=Roud |first=Steve |title=A Pocket Guide to Superstitions of the British Isles |publisher=Penguin |year=2004 |isbn=9780141012819 |page=90}}</ref> has an invalid ISBN.

The reference <ref>{{cite book |last=McNeill |first=F. Marian |title=The Silver Bough: Scottish Folk-lore and Folk-belief |publisher=Canongate Books |year=1957 |isbn=9780862412319 |page=88}}</ref> has an invalid ISBN.

Before I edited it, the article had conflicting definitions for but "HistoricUK". I renamed one to "HistoricUK Wales" and the other to "HistoricUK British". I left "HistoricUK" intentionally undefined, and the three uses of it should be moved to either "HistoricUK Wales" or "HistoricUK British".

Show preview is your friend. When there are messages like

• {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

it's best to fix the problem before saving. —Anomalocaris (talk) 18:47, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough review of the citations — much appreciated. I've gone through and corrected the references to the best of my knowledge, including updating ISBNs, fixing misattributions, and cleaning up formatting. If any issues remain, I’m happy to revisit them. Also, thank you for the advice regarding citation consistency — I’ll definitely keep that in mind for future editing. ForayHistory (talk) 06:13, 30 May 2025 (UTC)