Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/National varieties of English/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Different forms of English

I feel we should stop referring to American English v. British English. English is used as a first language in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Scotland, the U.S., and Wales, plus smaller outposts. Although a lot of written English-English and Scottish-English is the same, for example, written Scottish-English tends to follow the Oxford English Dictionary, and so will use -ize endings, and yet whenever I read about so-called British-English, I see -ise endings being recommended. I feel that some of the editors working on Wikipedia are basing their knowledge of British-English on what newspapers in England do, but newspaper style guides are often quite different from ordinary usage. In Canada, for example, they are completely different. And in the UK, a newspaper published in London will use quite different rules to the ones taught to a child in Scotland.

I'm not proposing we do a detailed analysis of Commonwealth and American usage because it would be close to impossible, but I feel we shouldn't simply assume there are two kinds of English, one American and one British. It would be preferable always to give a couple of examples when we talk about different usage, depending on context. For example, "check" as used in the U.S. and Canada, or "cheque" as used in Australia, New Zealand and Canadian newspapers, and so on. Slim 22:49, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

How about "Commonwealth English" or "International English", which one sees used in quite a few contexts to describe exactly this, pretty much.

James F. (talk)

Hi James, it wasn't me who deleted all the references to "full stop," but I do agree with the deletion, as it seems silly to keep on saying period/full stop. Everyone knows what a period is. While we shouldn't assume readers of this page are linguists, we also shouldn't assume they're stupid. Also, I reinserted America and Canada in the example about the spelling of center, instead of North America, because Canada and American spelling and other usage are sometimes quite different, so the two shouldn't be equated. Many English speakers in Canada do, as a matter of fact, spell center as "center," although some Canadian newspaper style guides spell it "centre." As I said above, I feel we should stop assuming there are two kinds of English. English is used in over 70 countries as a first or second language, and within the UK alone, punctuation, pronunciation and sometimes spelling differ between, say, Scotland and England. Commonwealth English wouldn't work because Canada is the Commonwealth, yet doesn't have the same usage as, say, Australia. I don't see that there's a need to use these categories in the Manual of Style. Examples tell people what they need to know, I feel. Slim 09:40, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with using the term "International English" in the style guide. At best, it is ambiguous and I don't see how it is needed. It might be best to make minimal use of labels of various nationalities here. For example, a few months ago, a few people were re-ordering the labels, presumably to put their own country first in the list. Maurreen 15:20, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Slim, not everyone understands Americanisms. Period. (or is that Full Stop?)

On the "International English" front, Maurreen's right, we should not use that term. The style guide should note that any form of standard English may be used in Wikipedia as long as it is used consistently within an article. It should recommend that when terms/words are used that are not universally understood they are either replaced with terms/words that are universally understood, or alternatively are explained. It should recommend (solely for the purposes of trying to avoid edit wars), that where a place, person or subject is linked closely to any one region that an article on that place, person or subject is written a form of standard English that is used in that place. And that is all.

Unfortunately the style guide does not yet recommend this. Though the inconsistency can be fun;) For instance, it does mean I can slate Slim mercilessly for appalling punctuation :)) (see the style guide recommendations on where to place inverted commas!) jguk 17:32, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Where to place inverted commas? Not sure what you're referring to, but if you mean "this," I take it you mean my placement of the comma inside the punctuation marks. If you look around at recently published books on both sides of the Atlantic, you'll find this is increasingly common. It looks neater, in my view, than "this", which to my eyes looks like a comma trying to escape from the sentence.

I agree about not referring to "international English," as it's not clear there's any such thing. As for period/full stop, in the UK, journalists use the term "dot" to refer to these - U.S. - and "stop" to refer to period, but they don't use "full stop" because it's too long-winded and brevity matters when you're dictating copy over a dodgy phone line, for instance. From my personal knowledge of British English, I'd say "full stop" is something people use in English schools, but not in all Scottish ones, but then probably don't use after that. And I wouldn't agree that "period" is an Americanism. But this is a very trivial point. Regardless of which terms are used on first reference, we should only use one on second and further reference, because otherwise we're assuming our readers are idiots. Hopefully, not all are, or we're wasting our time here anyway.  :-) Slim 00:29, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention that the largest English-as-a-first-language group will very shortly be in India. It is probably inappropriate to use "International English" (although there is a form sometimes called "Simple English"). A comparison of various dialects of the language is suitable for a Wikipedia article, and should be referenced by the style guide, but not reiterated in it. A simple and brief expansion of the terms (such as "period, or full stop,") on first use is suitable where there are multiple common terms, and then the more widely understood term should be used thereafter in that section. Simpler guidelines are to be preferred over complex ones; thus "be consistent in spelling usage" rather than "use southeastern-U.S. dialectical usage when discussing regional topics." - Amgine 07:50, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To me, “period” seems awfully more ambiguous than “full-stop”. To readers who aren’t familiar with the term could take it to mean a coma or a semi-colon, where as “full-stop”, when it context, is self-explanatory. Should not the term that is more easily understood be used?--211.29.1.34 06:47, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is not "self-explanatory". It is not understood in America. We have already established that much. Rmhermen 19:55, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

"Full stop" really isn't self-explanatory at all. My own view is that "period" is. To the anon user, as a matter of interest, what do you call the mark after ibid. ? Slim 08:22, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC) (sorry, forgot to sign this earlier)