Talk:Moggy

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I tend to regard this as peculiarly Australian, though I know that it comes from a pet name for "Margaret". I'm familiar with the term because of the Eric Bogle song He's Nobody's Moggy Now. Eclecticology

Eric Bogle is of UK origin. He came to Australia as an adult (he even wrote a song about it :)) I figured that the term was English/Australian. Seriously, what do they call common-or-garden domestic cats in other countries? We should add it. KJ

The only term I've ever heard (other than roundabout descriptions like ordinary cat, regular cat, non-purebred cat, etc.) in Canada is moggy. - Montréalais

In America, it's just a plain ol' mixed-breed cat. Maybe I'll try to get people to start using the word "moggy" :) [[User:Lachatdelarue|Lachatdelarue (talk)]]

I'm from Australia, and 'Moggy' was definately slang for 'cat' whilst growing up... and the schoolyard explanation of the word is that it was from the schoolyard joke: 'How do you spell cat?' ... "M-o-g" (write it on paper each letter above the other. M = ears, o = head, g = body + tail). If cat is spelt m-o-g, it's only natural to pronounce it as 'mog' too :) Has anyone else heard this origin? If so, it should go into the article proper... --Nemo 01:19, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is a back-formation. I've never come across this in Britain, although 'moggy' is the common colloquial term for a cat. John G Walker 14:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised to read that the term was first recorded as late as 1911. Does anypone have a refernce for this? The fact that 'moggy' is in use for a cat in Britain but not the USA suggests that its origin dates from after 1776, but the fact that it's found in Australia and Canada would make me suspect that it dates from the nineteenth century not the early twentieth. However, I'm not a sociolinguist so I'm willing to be put right by anyone who has the facts. John G Walker 14:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Why the obsession with the health or sickliness of feral cats in the first paragraph of this entry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.33.242.164 (talk) 02:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Why moggy?

Where did the word originated from? Stonerchic42069 (talk) 04:28, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary states 'Unknown, but probably originally Mog + -y, a Scots or Northern English variant of maggie (“girl”), from Maggie, a diminutive of Margaret and Margery. First attested in reference to mongrel cats in Cockney.'. If you're asking for an etymology section, I suppose it could be added if a reliable source can be found to support anything. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:46, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand why this was redirected?

I have literally never heard moggy used for a domestic shorthair cat. I am from Texas. You took a perfectly fine globally known, veterinary understood term for DSH and redirected into a very localized colloquialism Simmy27star (talk) 11:53, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Moggy is a term used throughout the Commonwealth. Domestic shorthair is a fancier neologism that doesn't include medium or longhaired cats. There was no proper article to compare pedigreed cats to non-pedigreed cats before I created this. The other title I had before was 'random-bred cat' but this is far more obscure. I've made an argument below and I'd appreciate replying there to centralise the discussion. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Move To Domestic Shorthair

Domestic shorthair is the correct term for this variety of cat. "Moggy" is a bizarre and unknown colloquialism.—chbarts (talk) 19:12, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Domestic shorthair is a recently coined term by cat fanciers that only applies to short-haired cats, and not medium or long-haired cats. Moggy is a well known term in the Commonwealth and I'm not aware of any suitable title that is also used in American English. I initially went with 'mixed-breed cat' for a title but decided against it due to the title being erroneous. Random-bred cat was another term I used but it is far more unrecognisable and natural than moggy. Moggy is simply the best title per the WP:CRITERIA. Domestic cat (landrace) is not something a person will naturally search for, has parentheses which is discouraged, and is not precise as there are landrace breeds (or at least claimed to be) such as the Thai cat and Turkish Van.

The term bach would probably surprise you, but it is the title of the article because there is no other term to naturally describe it. American English lacking a term to describe non-pedigreed cats cannot be helped. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The proper, globally understood title for this page needs to be Domestic cat (landrace) which will include sections for both the domestic shorthair and domestic longhair. People will search for domestic shorthair and domestic longhair, and be redirected to the page for Domestic cat (landrace), the whole point of the parenthesis is to specify that it is talking about the basic domestic cat found all over the world. Just because I added in landrace to specify does not mean that I've erased the presence of the other landrace breeds. As for your example of bach, using a localized term to describe a localized architecture/building found in that specific place is not the same as trying to push a word unknown to the rest of English-speaking countries about an animal that exists on essentially every continent on Earth. I don't care about the Commonwealth, I have not cared since 1776. See: french fries, cookie, etc. I won't force you to call biscuits a cookie if you won't force me to call a cat a moggy. Simmy27star (talk) 11:50, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 4 September 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Many people don't like the current title, but almost nobody likes the proposed title, and none of the other proposed titles gained traction either. (non-admin closure) —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:17, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

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Moggy → Domestic cat (landrace) – Wikipedia is a worldwide resource. Cats are found worldwide. There is no place for a localized colloquialism to be a MAIN page reference on Wikipedia. I am located in the United States and never once have I ever heard the term “moggy” used to refer to a cat. The merging of Domestic short-haired cat and Domestic long-haired cat was an appropriate move as the only difference is the gene for hair growth. However, I don’t understand why a slang term page was revived from like, 2007 to merge the two pages together. Wikipedia Manual of Style in the Opportunities for Commonality section states that as an international English-speaking Wikipedia, using universally accepted terms is much more appropriate. For example, “to mog” or “mogging” in Gen Alpha terms - see mog. Nobody outside of Britian or Australia even knows what a moggy is. To make things messier, there were previous merges and fights about “moggy” vs. “moggie.” Y’all do not need a page for your local colloquialism. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Opportunities for commonality bullet points 1-4. My new write-up for the beginning of the new article also explains this landrace breed, using hyphenation glossing as is suggested by the Manual of Style:

A Domestic shorthair or Domestic longhair cat, sometimes regionally referred to as a moggy, is a landrace breed of cat reproducing without human intervention for type. The vast majority of cats worldwide lack any pedigree ancestry. The landrace can include cats living with humans or in feral colonies. Gene flow moves between the two populations as feral cats are tamed, housecats are released, and free-roaming unneutered cats breed freely. Simmy27star (talk) 11:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC) — Relisting.  ASUKITE 16:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: as User:Traumnovelle notes a few times above, the problem isn't as simple as it looks. Domestic cat was merged to Cat, following discussion at Talk:Cat/Archive_12#Merge_Domestic_Cat? and Talk:Domestic cat, and perhaps elsewhere that I've missed. But I'm not clear on why Domestic cat (landrace) is an improvement on Domestic cat: Simmy27star, could you please clarify? Wikishovel (talk) 14:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

  The domestic cat/cat page would referring to the animal as a whole, including all exotic and purebred breeds; the landrace page would specifically be talking about the landrace, random-bred population of cats that exist without human intervention, which is what a landrace is.

  This paper calls them "races" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754307002510

  All these branches of cats that are not from a purebred https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0888754307002510-gr2_lrg.jpg

  This paper uses landrace cats https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44324-x

  Finland author using the term landrace https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/7/1991

  Swedish author using the term landrace https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/7/1991

  and again, this is excluding landrace-derived breeds such as previously mentioned Thai cat and Turkish Van. And they can't be called mixed breed cats because most of them aren't even from any breed to begin with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrace includes a domestic shorthair mentioned.

  I would be cool with calling the page landrace cat Simmy27star (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

  But they are not a landrace: locally adapted, often traditional. There is no serious difference between a moggy in my country and a moggy in the United Kingdom for one to be considered a landrace. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:48, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

There are many articles on Wikipedia that use a local variety of English for a term, see trunk (car).

>using universally accepted terms is much more appropriate

American English lacks a term to describe a moggy, this cannot be helped.

Landrace is an erroneous term, see the landrace definition from the OED: 'A locally developed breed'.

If you look at our category: you will see what it refers to. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:58, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The proposed name is inaccurate, misleading and results in unnecessary disambiguation. As noted above, many article titles already use one variety of English (trunk vs boot, for example). AusLondonder (talk) 19:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
• Support some move. Moggy is a terrible choice of name - it's a slang term, presumably derived from mongrel. I'm not keen on the proposed alternative Domestic cat (landrace) though, that title wouldn't suggest much to me and is not natural or recognizable. Something like mongrel cat might be a good contender, or maybe non-pedigree cat.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  I could definitely see non-pedigree cat as a good contender Simmy27star (talk) 02:59, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Cats and WikiProject Mammals have been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE 16:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Those are not natural term. Wiley has more results for 'moggy' than both terms combined. This slang term has more usage in veterinary literature than the ones you propose, and it is far more recognisable as a common name. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

• Support some move. It is true that article titles should not be changed from one national variety of English to another without reason, but we also expect article titles to exhibit a minimum level of MOS:COMMONALITY, and this informal term is not recognized at all in many varieties of English. Dekimasuよ! 00:40, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
• Move to Domestic shorthair and longhair cat. These are the terms that are universally recognized - and the terms actually used in the article (28-5 versus "moggy"). Since there isn't a universally used umbrella term, we can use a combined term with "and" (like Yes and no, Niece and nephew - see WP:AND). Dohn joe (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Those terms really aren't universally recognised. They're recently coined pseudo-breed terms used for classification purposes. Normal people don't talk about 'domestic shorthairs' the way you might talk about a Ragdoll or a Birman. Traumnovelle (talk) 19:02, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  I like this one Simmy27star (talk) 03:00, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

  And honestly it should have been combined like this in the first place. Simmy27star (talk) 03:00, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Not Moggy [EDIT: Nothing better is being proposed], this is the first I recall hearing or finding out about the term. Cat (non-pedigree) fits the description but that implies that Cat means pedigree. Seems to be agreement on renaming the page but to what, maybe come up with a list and then do one of those A, B, C, or D polls (this probably shouldn't be rushed, a pretty broad subject). Thanks for nominating the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:16, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

  It doesn't fit the description. Landrace cats have a standard appearance but lack a pedigree chart for example. I didn't start off with this as the title but all the other options contained inaccuracies which made them non-precise. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:31, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

  Good point, thanks. This seems to have become an open discussion about what to name the page and not if it will be renamed, which seems obvious. In that case a ping or two doesn't seem inappropriate to ask some of the cat-knowledgeable people to weight in so that Wikipedia gets this right. Meowing-out for SMcClandish, who knows a thing or three about cats. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: per MOS:RETAIN and, presumably, MOS:ENGVAR if other areas of the Anglosphere have their own terms. Moggy is a common term in the UK. I suggest setting up some redirects and secondary titles for whatever terms are used elsewhere. Often shortened to Mog, see for instance Meg and Mog, which originated in the UK. YorkshireExpat (talk) 10:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: Moggy is really the only reasonably title for the random, non-breed house cat. And it's common enough online that this American has heard it used. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:00, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that your wikipage states your passion for felids means that you have a higher chance of coming across the term. The average American does not Simmy27star (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't American Wikipedia. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Again, MOS:RETAIN says not to rename a page for no particular reason, or simply to switch to another variety. However, MOS:COMMONALITY states that "for an international encyclopedia, using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable." If a page name is not understood because the title is only recognizable to one part of the Anglosphere, that is a valid reason to argue for a title change. Dekimasuよ! 12:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  For this to apply you have to suggest what that common vocabulary might be, and I'm not seeing anything on here yet that meets that threshold. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's not British wikipedia either.. Dekimasu is correct. Simmy27star (talk) 16:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  The term "moggy" appears to be in widespread use in Australia [1], [2] and New Zealand [3], [4]. Wikishovel (talk) 17:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  The term is not in widespread use outside the Commonwealth, making it limited to a specific variety of English. This is not the Commonwealth Wikipedia.—chbarts (talk) 15:22, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  "The Commonwealth comprises 56 countries, across all inhabited continents. The members have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population..." So yes, this is the Commonwealth Wikipedia, and American Wikipedia, and British Wikipedia, and so on. Let's try to find as universal a term as we can for the global language. Wikishovel (talk) 15:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

• Support: It is the correct globally-understood term, as opposed to the regionalism.—chbarts (talk) 19:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

@Chbarts: when you wrote "correct globally-understood term", did you mean Domestic cat, or Domestic cat (landrace), the original proposed move? Wikishovel (talk) 08:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

@Wikishovel: sorry, I meant Domestic cat.—chbarts (talk) 09:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Domestic cat already redirects to Cat. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The fact that "mog" has other meanings in zoomer slang is not a reason to change the title, nor is the fact that the title is unfamiliar to Americans. The proposed title is ungainly and contravenes WP:NATURAL. Zacwill (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like landrace refers to breeds or species that only show up on an island. The Domestic Cat does not apply. The Domestic Shorthair is a well-known type of cat. There are 80 million in the U.S. alone. The majority of cats in the world are Domestic Shorthairs, so that should be the name of the article, and focus of the article. I read that moggy is similar to the term mutt used for dogs. Domestic shorthairs do have a history. Many breeders include DSH cats into their breeding program to make the breed they are creating healthier. All breeds are mixed. Wikipedia was founded in the U.S., so I think that the spelling should be in American English. British English could be used just for topics that pertain only to that, such as the British monarchy. You might want to explain what Commonwealth means when you mentioned that. Having a state emblem that is a domestic shorthair, tabby, calico, shelter animal, etc. is a big deal in the U.S., so that is another reason for DSH to remain the title of the article. See, this is why educators want to sue Wikipedia. Let's get this right. God save the King! Kinfo Pedia (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support some move, oppose the proposed title moggy is definitely not well known, however landrace is not appropriate here. Perhaps 'Mixed-breed cat'? Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 05:56, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Mixed-breed is an erroneous term here as the average cat has no breed at all. A mixed-breed cat would be a crossbreed or a cat with one purebred parent for example. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Then 'Non-pedigree cat' maybe. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 11:57, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe Moggy is the best name after all, at least it's a name that clearly covers the exact topic while editors (including myself above) are all coming up with possible but not-quite-there names. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:06, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Non-pedigree includes any cat without a pedigree. So a crossbreed cat is a non-pedigree cat along with landrace breeds and unofficial breeders. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose for now for want of a better title. None of the options so far discussed work, as each is incorrect in its own way. Neither can I think of a better title. The current title isn't great but it at least correctly defines the subject of the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:47, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.