[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Wikipedia English English

[Mark Williamson]

> What seems clear is that Mark has been consistently argumentative,
> facetious, and fallacious; and even more so since this post.

Hah.

> Not satisfied with trying to start a "row", he wants to ban me for not
> agreeing with him.

Ban you? No, that was someone else. I just want you to leave
peacefully, or quit being a troll.

> I think he is coming across as needlessly aggressive and pompous.

Likewise. Have you read any of your own e-mails? To say that you don't
like reading American English words, and that it troubles you, is one
thing, but to go around saying that American English is wrong, ugly,
etc, etc, etc, and then to call all non-Americans who agree with
current policy "Americanised", is nothing less than trolling for
suckers.

> However wrong or stupid anyone thinks my posts are, vomiting bile through
> the keyboard is out of order.

Maybe, before saying such things, you should take your own advice?

> Mark clearly didn't check his facts before digging his troll-hole, and now
> looks silly, that's not my fault. I apologise for using caps, I did it to
> distinguish my text from his, not for any other reason, Mark's drivel didn't
> get me remotely excited or annoyed - clearly you can't tell teh emotional
> content of everything in text form.

Before criticising teh other variants of teh English, perhaps you
should take a look at your own English? Don't tell teh Americans how
they misspell things when your own spelling isn't perfect. Teh teh teh
teh teh. Now, there is a time and a place for teh, as in "teh
internets", or "teh intarweb", or "teh website".

I will put up with misspellings from most people, as they're perfectly
natural. But for a pompous, stuck-up person like you, who insists that
they can spell better than a nation of over 300 million people, I am
willing to make an exception.

> Anyway, You can't just label everyone you disagree with a troll or make
> trollish statements like "x is so obviously trolling us" and not expect a
> negative response, if you don't understand what a troll is, search
> wikipedia.

Have I labelled everyone I disagree with a troll? I have disagreed
with people such as Fuzheado, Wouter Steenbeek, Walter van Kalken,
Lars Aronsson, and many others. At times, it has gotten quite ugly. I
have been called a troll before, and I've also seen some noteworthy
praise. But you are the first person _I've_ ever called a troll. And
for good reason.

When Mark Williamson calls you a troll, you must really be one, I
think. Especially if Jimbo Wales agrees.

>  I came here not to spend time arguing with impulsive, petulent,
> self-important twats like Mark, but to try and get a change that someone
> else proposed, in fact.

Ahh, so it's not OK for me to call you a troll and tell you you're
barking mad, but it IS aux quay for you to call me an impulsive,
petulant, self-important twat? Wow, Jack, you are really an impulsive,
petulant, self-important twat.

>  If you look trough Wikipedia, there is stuff on Commonwealth English, and
> on the differences.

There are differences. Nobody disputes that. You just seem to be the
only person to think that they're significant enough to merit a
separate Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of
articles. All of them should be easily comprehensible to all English
speakers.

Aubergine/eggplant might be a problem. But it's one article.

If you can link a few articles which you can't understand, then
perhaps people will be more receptive to your tro... err... ideas.

>  What's abundantly clear is that the language of the USA is markedly
> different to that of the British Isles. In Grammar, vocabulary, spelling,
> and semantics; and this means that it can make it unintelligible to non-US
> English speakers. It IS legitimate and accurate to call it a foreign
> language from the perspective of an English speaker from England and the
> British Isles in general, because a large amount of commonly used vocab,
> grammar, syntax and semantics are both unintelligible (to varying degrees);
> and simply not accepted as the way to speak the language (more than just
> spelling).

Occasionally unintelligible. But the very fact that you, a Scotsman
(or, perhaps, a Commonwealther), and I, an American, are having a
heated exchange of insulting e-mails is proof enough for me that
American and British English are mutually intelligible enough so as to
NOT warrant separate Wikipedias.

> Evidence has been posted (not by me) on this list (see the Wiktionary posts)
> that AmE and BrE (OED terms) have distinct orthographies.

No kidding!?

> Would anybody on this list disagree that AmE is a clearly distinct dialect
> of English? It would appear not.

Yes, but then, many people here are also arguing that BrE is a
distinct dialect of English. You, on the other hand, seem to feel that
one is a dialect of the other, which is a linguistic impossibility.

> These two factors alone seem to be enough for other dialects to get a
> Wikipedia.

Such have been considered carefully on a case-by-case basis, and in
such cases there was a consensus of ALL native users of that variety
that there should be a separate Wikipedia. So far, the vast number of
Brits to disagree with you has shown that this is not the case here.

> Whether "British English" gets it's own Wiki is up to British people
> contributing.

Yes. And besides you, nobody really seems to want that. Ahh, and Mr
My-English-is-better-than-yours, it's "its" (as a posessive).

>  Rowan's suggestion of a machine translation solution to the problem is
> worth looking at to satisfy Wikipedia "Unionists", but the needs of
> Wikipedia "Nationalists"can't be bullied and ostracised as "trolls".

So, are you calling Jimbo Wales a bully and an ostracist?

Mark