Talk:Foreman Thuridur

Rectifying some errors

@Aciram: Hi. Great you have done this page, but it contains several errors. If you email me directly, I will give you the correct information so you can correct it. Best, Margaret Willson Cascadepass2021 (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, no one owns an article in Wikipedia; if you have noticed anything incorrect, then its perfectly allowed for you to correct it yourself (provided you have references for it of course). Happy editing! --Aciram (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Aciram: Hi, please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History#Captain Thuridur page.

While it is true that there is no ownership of content, as per WP:SELFCITE, When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion: propose the edit on the article's talk page and allow others to review it. That is what Cascadepass2021 would like to do here, & I think it would behoove us to heed this editor & incorporate any suitable edits. Peaceray (talk) 02:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cascadepass2021: What is(are) your proposed correction(s)? Peaceray (talk) 02:28, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested edits from Cascadepass2021's email to Peaceray

@Numberguy6, Aciram, Cascadepass2021, and Ipigott: I received an email from Cascadepass2021 a couple of weeks ago. Cascadepass2021I is a novice editor but an experienced author & researcher. Cascadepass202 has asked me for help in including this & formatting it here. I have indented & formatted the text like this:

Plain text: my comments

Monotype font: Cascadepass2021 quoting text from the article.

Green text: Cascadepass2021's comments & suggestions

Here goes.

Foreman Thuridur or Þuríður formaður (1777 - 13 November 1863) was an Icelandic sea captain and foreman.[1] She is known for her success as a fishing steerer and for solving the case of the infamous Kambur robbery [is] in 1827.

Foreman is a difficult word to use in English because the meaning is very different from the Icelandic formaður. I would suggest just Captain or Skipper.
Also, a captain in English is not a ‘steerer’; that is the helmsman, so I would delete that usage. Just repeat captain, she was a fishing captain.

Life

She lived in the Árnesþing district in southern Iceland. She was the daughter of a fishingman.

She started rowing (I would put ‘fishing’ here since that is what she was doing, or as a ‘deckhand’) on her father’s fishing boat at age 11 during the spring and autumn fishing season for her father and (after her father died when she was 14) for her brother Bjarni (who quickly changed her standing from a teenaged half-share deckhand to full, unusual for a woman so young). (She was already a rated seafarer in her teens, so I would change this next line to: At 20, Thurídur began fishing winter season with Captain Jón Thórdarsson of Móhús farm, for whom she worked until she became a winter captain herself in 1816.) until she became a fully rated fisherman aged 20 for the winter season for Jón in Móhús. (this next line I would change to: After her father died she, like a number of Icelandic women working at sea at this time, started wearing trousers while fishing. Unlike other women, she soon began wearing them on shore as well, never to disguise herself as a man, but because she liked them better. Later in life, she also adopted wearing a fashionable men’s tail coat and short top hat.) (this next line I would delete. She never got permission to wear trousers from anyone, indeed, after exhaustive research, it seems clear no such license ever existed. The county commissioner, sýslumaður, just said she needed one to blackmail her into helping him solve the Kambur crime.) In her work she dressed as a man, for which she was given special permission from the district governor. (Next line: she was a summer and spring skipper from about 1801 or 1802; she started being a winter captain in 1816, went to Thorlákshöfn—I would stay consistent, either use Þ or Th—in 1830, and stopped being a captain in 1840, although she fished for others for a few years after that) During the years 1802 – 1847 she worked as a steerer, first during the spring and autumn season, then for the winther season as steerer in Þorlákshöfn from 1816 – 1830. (this next line is inaccurate, there were actually a number of female formaður, aka captains, in Iceland, from Saga times and with records of them starting in the early 1700s. Thurídur was just the most well-known) As far as it is documented, she was the first woman foreman position in Iceland and has been referred to as the first. (I am not sure I would say ‘cautious’ since she, like most captains of the time, took her share of calculated risks. She was brilliant a reading weather—and she consistently caught the most fish) She was considered a cautious and careful captain who was popular among her crew. She had a successful career and moved around along the south coast during her working life. (I would just skip this last line for now. She stopped fishing in 1843, but worked at a merchant store and as a guide until the early 1850s. Older people, particularly women and those without children, often had to go on ‘poor relief’ in their elder years. Thurídur did because she spent all her money fighting the government to ensure care for her disabled adopted daughter—she won but it took everything she had. This is a complicated story that would take lots of archival citations, so I think it is best to just leave this line out for now. We can amend it later) She retired in 1856 and when she stopped working she was forced to accept monetary help from the parish.

She is also known for having assisted the authorities to identify the robbers of the infamous Kambur robbery in 1827. (She actually analyzed clues and figured out who the robbers were, so not ‘assist,’ she solved it)

Memorial

In 1949, the replica of a fishing bothy (in English, I would just call this a hut) called Þuríðarbúð was erected in Stokkseyri in her memory.

Cascadepass2021 has suggested that we use the following citations:

• Willson, Margaret (2016). Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-80647-1. JSTOR j.ctvcwnkqh. OCLC 949276285.
• Jónsson, Brynjólfur (1954). Jónsson, Guðni (ed.). Sagan af Þuríði formanni og Kambsránsmönnum : með viðaukum og fylgiskjölum [The story of Þuríður the Captain and Kambsránsmönnar: with appendices and accompanying documents] (in Icelandic). Menningar-og fræðslusamband alþýðu. OCLC 4059895. There is also a 1893 version available online at Sagan af Þuríði formanni og Kambsránsmönnum / skrásett af Brynjólfi Jónssyni frá Minna-Núpi (in Icelandic). 1893. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)

Okay, that is it. Peaceray (talk) 22:38, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments and responses

I think the following changes are in order:

• Change the name of the article and move it to Captain Thuridur & remove or substitute any mention of the word foreman. Wiktionary defines forman as:

1. management The leader of a work crew.

A foreman is thus generic & does not refer to a ship, whereas, English Wiktionary defines captain as:

2. The person lawfully in command of a ship or other vessel.

The captain is the last man to leave a sinking ship.

I apologize to native English speakers for this Captain Obvious explanation, but translators who do not natively speak the target language are sometmes unaware of the nuances. Witness some of my own attempts to translate from English to another language.

• Change "fishing steerer" to "captain and helmsman" or "captain and helmswoman".
• Change "fishingman" to "fisherman"
• Change "bothy" to "hut". Bothy is a Scottish/Irish/Northumbrian word not common to English like hut.

I also favor the changes that Cascadepass2021 has suggested providing we can verify them from the citations. Peaceray (talk) 22:38, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Peaceray: I think it would be useful to draw on this introduction which is in English. I see no reason to change the title as the woman in question is known as Foreman Thurídur, although a word of explanation would be in order. Alternatively, the title of the article could be Thurídur Einarsdóttir. It would be good if someone could access the relevant chapter in English.--Ipigott (talk) 07:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ipigott: If by the relevant chapter in English you mean the Willson 2016 book Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge, well, Cascadepass2021 has claimed that authorship. Please see the first thread of this page & Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History § Captain Thuridur page.

I am going to contact some of the users in Category:User is-N to see if they can help with this. While a couple of the editors on this page can communicate in Icelandic as a second language, I am oblivious, so it might be good to get some native speakers involved. Peaceray (talk) 05:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Peaceray: Thanks for this clarification. I had not realized this all started with the item from Margaret Wilson / Cascadepass202 on the WP Women's History talk page. I think it would indeed be useful for Cascadepass202 to add her suggestions in more detail on this page or simply communicate her reactions by email as she originally suggested. (She could, for example, write to me at my user name at yahoo dot com.) Ideally, she could provide access here to the relevant chapter/passages from her book. I'll now look more carefully at the article in Icelandic although it seems strange to me to have to work on an Icelandic version of information originally presented in English. Sooner or later, we should be able to sort this out.--Ipigott (talk) 07:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

So, I reviewed the whole proposed change to the article, checked the sources. I did in-line comments like the proposed change did above.

(Formaður is the head of an organization, foreman is not even close. Captain is not the same either.) She lived in the Árnesþing district in southern Iceland. She was the daughter of a fisherman.

She started rowing (agree with changing rowing to fishing) in the spring with her father at age 11 (until her father died when she was 14, yes), then in the spring and autumn with her father and her brother Bjarni. (lets use an change in role here, changed share is too complicated, agree with sentence change in next line) Finally, when 20, she became a fully competent seafarer, able to go out in winter too for Jón in Móhús. While working, with special permission from the local governor, she dressed as a man. (Unnecessary to put further emphasis on her clothes, lets just say she chose herself to wear them and the governor used an fake licence to get her to help with the Kambur crime case). During the years 1802 – 1847 she developed her seamanship, first during the spring and autumn season, then for the winter season as a foreman in Þorlákshöfn from 1816 – 1830. (she hired a man to work for her in 1816. Use Thorlakshofn, as per rules here. Stopped being a captain in 1840, yes, for 7 years, while working in a store.)(Delete the next line, yes, as it is not correct) As far as is documented, she was the first woman in Iceland to have the title of foreman of a fishing fleet. She was considered a cautious and careful captain who was popular among her crew. (Sure, remove the previous line.) She had a successful career and moved around along the south coast during her working life. She retired in 1856 and when she stopped working she was forced to accept monetary help from the parish.[2][3] (Agree with removing the last line, per neutral pov, also all Nordic countries are considered welfare states so this is not considered a big deal.)

She is also known for having assisted the authorities to identify the robbers of the infamous Kambur robbery in 1827.[4][5] (She did analyze clues yes.)(Agree with calling the "fishing bothy" a hut)--Snævar (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Revised version

I've worked quite a bit on the article, drawing mainly on various Icelandic sources. Please let me know if there are any inaccuracies.--Ipigott (talk) 16:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ipigott: Thank you so much for your work here! Peaceray (talk) 17:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Peaceray: It was a pleasure and really interesting. If ever you have problems with articles in Icelandic, Faroese or the other Scandinavian languages, just let me know.--Ipigott (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2022 (UTC)