Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I suppose the biggest area where we differ is in our estimation of the magnitude of the problem. I view the differences as relatively minor, and as far as I have been able to determine, the number of edit wars and acrimonious arguments about this has been quite small overall. Are people really getting upset about this?
Since it's been at least 24 hours since anybody has said anything inflammatory :-), here's my total-stereotype observation guaranteed to annoy the maximum number of people:
Empirically, the people most likely to complain about dialect are lesser-educated Americans and over-educated Brits. Americans with more education will have consumed vast quantities of British dialect in the process of getting educated, and it will usually feel pretty natural to them, with the occasional curveball (I knew "milliard" before this discussion, but not "courgette"). Conversely, our Brits (and to some extent Commonwealthers in general) with PhDs will sooner or later get fed up with reading American English, and start making remarks about "illiterate Americanisms", while regular Brits seem generally indifferent to the issue.
Now let the flames begin!
:-)
Stan