Talk:Isaac Asimov

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"Believing" ???

One sentence reads as follows:

"When the family arrived in the United States in 1923 and their name had to be spelled in the Latin alphabet, Asimov's father spelled it with an S, believing this letter to be pronounced like Z (as in German), and so it became Asimov."

This is a ridiculous statement, because S is often pronounced like a Z.

Consider the words "is", "as", "was", "does", "words", "trains", "cars", "cans", and many, many others that are not even slightly exceptions to any rule.

So Isaac Asimov's father did not merely "believe" that S is pronounced like a Z in English.

Rather, it very frequently is pronounced like a Z.

(Conversely, there are many cases where a Z is pronounced like an S, like "waltz". In its plural, "waltzes", the Z has an S sound and the S has a Z sound.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:200:c082:2ea0:9cf0:82c3:f2ea:74c4 (talk) 18:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Misbegotten sentence

"Asimov refused early suggestions of using a more common name as a pseudonym, believing that its recognizability helped his career."

This sentence contains no antecedent for the pronoun "its". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:200:c082:2ea0:9cf0:82c3:f2ea:74c4 (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Nobody is going to be in any doubt about what it is referring to. Richard75 (talk) 21:23, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggested new section: "Controversy"

The following paragraph is hidden in "Writings > Other Writings," and I would strongly recommend that a new "Controversy" section be created to house it. I had to search the word "harass" to find it, so a reader who doesn't already know may not see it, and it's important. The wording of the paragraph itself is already very mild compared to the extent of his behavior, but at least it should be in a more logical category.

"Particularly in his later years, Asimov to some extent cultivated an image of himself as an amiable lecher. In 1971, as a response to the popularity of sexual guidebooks such as The Sensuous Woman (by "J") and The Sensuous Man (by "M"), Asimov published The Sensuous Dirty Old Man under the byline "Dr. 'A'"[181] (although his full name was printed on the paperback edition, first published 1972). However, by 2016, Asimov's habit of groping women was seen as sexual harassment and came under criticism, and was cited as an early example of inappropriate behavior that can occur at science fiction conventions.[182]" 142.115.97.35 (talk) 20:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

There is a "sexual harassment" section already. Schazjmd (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

There is indeed, and it isn't hard to find. Look, there it is in the table of contents. You didn't need to do a word search. Richard75 (talk) 00:10, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Picture used

Isaac wore big sideburns for most of his adult life. Is there any particular reason to use this atypical image? If not, should we use an image with his common look? Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

It is probably because it is the only, or best, free image. Check the Commons category here; this is the only other image that is suitable. MarcGarver (talk) 08:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I found a stack of cc 4.0 non commercial licensed images of him, I've updated the page with one. Please revert if it isn't up to snuff. I think wikimedia has some sort of clipping capability to improve the image I will look into Big Money Threepwood (talk) 07:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Non-Commercial No Derivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND) are not acceptable I'm afraid. Wikimedia projects require commercial and derivative licenses. MarcGarver (talk) 12:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)