Anyway, by way of propsing a solution to the American-English problem, I want to offer this and intermediate measure: That there be no redirection for words that are in *a* correct orthography. Thus, if an American types a search for "color", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "color"; and if a non-American-English-speaker types in "colour", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "colour". ...for words with different meanings but identical orthographies you get a disambiguation page; and, for articles about the same subject that have a different word for the thing - like Aubergine (Am-En "Eggplant") for example: you get a page for each; in each respective orthography. I think this is a simple, effective, and practical solution for all languages where differences like this exist, like Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Chinese, etc... Above all I think it's pretty fair. Can we try and reach some consensus on this?

On 20/09/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:

"Jack & Naree" jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote in message news:c822ae8d050920043629b45332@mail.gmail.com... [snip]

...

Can we try and reach some consensus on this?

I suspect that what you are failing to realise is that there has already been a consensus

consensus between Americans, non-native English speakers, and unpatriotic Americanised English-speakers.

on this for some considerable time; this is why there are

not continuous edit wars over spelling and grammar...

Well, actually there are, but they're pretty small scale, and usually pretty lame, so no real problem.

So what; absence of evidence of dissatisfaction is not evidence of absence, is it.

HTH HAND

-- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]

---

Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Lars Aronsson wrote:

Jack & Naree wrote:

...

Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:

...

"Jack & Naree" jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

Can we try and reach some consensus on this?

I suspect that what you are failing to realise is that there has already been a consensus

consensus between Americans, non-native English speakers, and unpatriotic Americanised English-speakers.

The consensus is that "Jack & Naree" are trolling and should better leave this list before they are banned.

There is no consensus: I disagree. I find this an interesting discussion, and it has been educational for me. Perhaps I'm in a minority, but you are not speaking for me when you want "Jack & Naree" to leave this mailinglist. I disagree with the proposal put forth by him/them, and both sides could show a bit more respect, but if consensus is needed to ban someone, let it be clear that I oppose it.

regards, Gerrit.

P.S. I would be in favour of a Wikipædia that is only in British English, but, alas, this is not the case, and never will be.

I am sure that it is possible to make a software for conversion between British and American English, such Zhengzhu did for Chinese. All people would work on one Wikipedia and all people would use their own variant.

Mark Williamson wrote:

I'm not so sure it's needed.

Unlike Serbian or Chinese, rather than using different writing systems we just have slightly different spellings.

And the occassional different words. And somewhat more rarely (and more subtly) occassionally minor differences of grammar.

But the key test that we use, and should use, is whether or not it is mutually intelligible. The valid point that Jack and Naree would be making if they weren't so obviously trolling us, is that we can and should be sensitive to these language differences and try to make sure that our articles are mutually intelligible to everyone.

I have proposed in the past that we could have a form of redirect which I would call a 'hard link'. This is an analogy to Unix-style "symlinks" versus "hard links". There are some reasons this would be good, and some reasons why this would be bad, and in any event, the idea has never gained much support.

Right now, 'aubergine' (British English) redirects to 'eggplant' (American English), while 'rapelling' (American) redirects to 'abseiling' (British).

courgette -> zucchini but checkers -> draughts

There is no particular rhyme or reason to which direction we go, although it does seem that the Americans have achieved a sort of dominate in the vegetables, while losing out in the sports/games area.

--Jimbo

I am sure that it is possible to make a software for conversion between British and American English, such Zhengzhu did for Chinese. All people would work on one Wikipedia and all people would use their own variant.

But what if an American document was quoted in the article? Surely we wouldn't want that to be converted. Same if we say in the article colour that the American spelling is color, we wouldn't want that to be converted.

On 22/09/05, Milos Rancic millosh@mutualaid.org wrote:

I am sure that it is possible to make a software for conversion between British and American English, such Zhengzhu did for Chinese. All people would work on one Wikipedia and all people would use their own variant.

This is something that was indeed discussed when that software was being developed. Apart from how to deal easily with exceptions, there are problems with differences in meaning of the same word - to pull an example out of the air, if a British user types "pants", it should be converted to "underpants" when viewed by a US one; but if it was typed by the US one, it should appear as "trousers" when viewed by the Brit. I'm not 100% sure the Chinese orthography issue has these kinds of double-mappings, but I can't remember. And what of words with two meanings, such as "fall" for "autumn" - you wouldn't want text coming out as "large trees sometimes autumn over"...

Plus, as I was recalling elsewhere, another problem is that there are many more than two varieties of English, so if you gave every user a choice of US or British, an Australian wouldn't know which to choose. And if you created a version for every variety, you would have to create and maintain lookup tables for converting between all those different versions.

In the end, you'd be writing an entire machine translation system, which isn't something generally considered all that easy. As I've said, I'm not dead against such a system, but I'm increasingly sceptical about its implementation.

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 9/22/05, Pawe³ Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:

Rowan Collins napisa³u: Another solution would be something like

"He likes to wear //AmE pants/BrE trousers//", but it looks ugly and confusing to newbies.

The software made by Zhengzhu for Chinese has this capability already with this syntax:

-{language_code1: text1; language_code2: text2; ...}-

So it might be something like this:

-{en-us: pants; en-br: trousers}-

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On 9/23/05, Pawe³ Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:

...

So it might be something like this: -{en-us: pants; en-br: trousers}- -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

Yeah, but it's still confusing to newbies, still looks kinda ugly and has been discussed to death...

Don't worry, I don't support the move whatsoever.

Was just pointing out the capability is available in existing software.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

Can you embed links in that? ...and shouldn't it be en-uk rather than en-br? e.g.: -{en-us: [[pants]]; en-uk: [[trousers]]}- (hoi, that should screw up the links table something extra :-)

Especially if you add also Australian, Kiwi, Canadian, Indian, and other varieties...

Phil Boswell wrote:

Can you embed links in that? ...and shouldn't it be en-uk rather than en-br? e.g.:

-{en-us: [[pants]]; en-uk: [[trousers]]}-

After running, a person trousers until he catches his breath.

On 22/09/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:

...

The software made by Zhengzhu for Chinese has this capability already with this syntax: -{language_code1: text1; language_code2: text2; ...}- So it might be something like this: -{en-us: pants; en-br: trousers}-

...and shouldn't it be en-uk rather than en-br?

Actually, Andrew was closer: it's en-gb, because RFC 3066 defines it as an ISO 639 language code (en for English) plus an ISO 3166 country code (GB meaning, confusingly, the UK; I'm glad the IANA ignored this and gave us .uk for our domains)

For the really curious: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 9/23/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:

Actually, Andrew was closer: it's en-gb, because RFC 3066 defines it as an ISO 639 language code (en for English) plus an ISO 3166 country code (GB meaning, confusingly, the UK; I'm glad the IANA ignored this and gave us .uk for our domains)

To be somewhat more pedantic, it should be "en-GB", since IIRC the second ISO code is supposed to be written in uppercase. This is actually the system used for localization of Firefox in foreign languages (e.g. fr-CA and fr-FR for the French of Canada and France, respectively).

Steve

On 9/20/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

That there be no redirection for words that are in *a* correct orthography. Thus, if an American types a search for "color", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "color"; and if a non-American-English-speaker types in "colour", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "colour". ...for words with different meanings but identical orthographies you get a disambiguation page; and, for articles about the same subject that have a different word for the thing - like Aubergine (Am-En "Eggplant") for example: you get a page for each; in each respective orthography.

I think this is certainly a more reasonable proposal than splitting the English wikipedia.

The problem with this, however, is that the natural way to do it with the current infrastructure is to have separate articles for each orthography. Though this introduces less balkanisation than would separate wikis, it is still damaging.

For example, as a speaker of Canadian English I myself would never use "aubergine" for "eggplant" (well, except when speaking French or German), but I might possibly have something to contribute to an article on this fruit which would be of interest to English speakers who call it "aubergine".

A technical solution to avoid separate articles is to use some kind of template variable, e.g. "{{PAGENAME}} is a fruit" and have the variable filled in with the user's preference. But this is potentially confusing, and limits the way the article could be written.

Steve

On 20/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

Thus, if an American types a search for "color", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "color"; and if a non-American-English-speaker types in "colour", they get the article in their orthography with the headword "colour".

And what if they search for "red", which version does it link to?

...for words with different meanings but identical orthographies you get a disambiguation page;

Fine, logical, and what I would presume we'd do already.

for articles about the same subject that have a different word for the thing - like Aubergine (Am-En "Eggplant") for example: you get a page for each; in each respective orthography.

Why? Just because the headword is different, you suggest we manually copy all changes to one onto the other? Or perhaps the entry on that plant in a US encyclopedia and in a UK one would be fundamentally different in some way? And what, as I say, of other articles which happen to mention, and probably link to, the term in one form or the other? Should they link both?

Somebody has mentionned that something similar is done on Wiktionary, but that is a very different situation: in a dictionary, the entire article is discussing the headword, as a word; in an encyclopedia, on the other hand, the article is discussing the entity denoted by the headword. That is, a dictionary entry for "aubergine" is discussing the meaning, etymology, etc of that string of letters; an encyclopedia entry for "aubergine" is discussing the plant itself, using the string of letters merely as a label. It follows that whereas the dictionary entries for the words "aubergine" and "eggplant" are distinct (because they are two different words), the encyclopedia entries under those two words will always be *exactly the same* - you might even put the article under its scientific classification, but you'd still be discussing the same plant (and you wouldn't suddenly be discussing it in Latin, either).

I'm sorry to labour the point, but this is the major problem with splitting up articles by dialect, whether in separate wikis or not - it means that all those articles have to be written twice, or constantly kept in synch, *even though they are for almost entirely identical*. This seems to me a complete and blatant waste of effort.

Now, a few months back, when the orthography converter for Chinese was being written (and please bear in mind that Chinese really does have multiple different orthographies - they're related, but they're more like different alphabets than the odd spelling difference), it was suggested that something similar might be used in English (and Scandinavian, and various other situations). I was opposed to that, too, but less so - if implemented well, it would require very little additional effort (discounting the effort of those implementing it), because it would be automatic.

Indeed, the main problem would be defining the various variants (it would be as arrogant to claim there are only two "proper" forms of English as to claim there is only one) and making sure the right things were "corrected" in the right way. And, as people pointed out, there'd still be arguments over what the "correct" version was within a particular variety, and there'd still be compromises needed on grammar and punctuation issues, etc etc

Can we try and reach some consensus on this?

As others have pointed out, you seem to me to be very much in the minority on this; everyone else seems to subscribe more-or-less to the current consensus that it's really not that big a problem, and certainly not worth multiplying our workload to avoid.

On 20/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

...

And what if they search for "red", which version does it link to?

a single version of course, as mentioned, and as is surely obvious.

No, I meant would it link to "color", "colour", or both.

...

Why? Just because the headword is different, you suggest we manually copy all changes to one onto the other?

perhaps headwords are the problem.

Then perhaps a solution to that problem, such as one article having multiple headwords, might be more appropriate?

...

Or perhaps the entry on that plant in a US encyclopedia and in a UK one would be fundamentally different in some way?

in some articles, they may well be (and no, I don't have a list - I have a life).

Sure; and some don't; and some articles which don't have varying "orthographies" might contain different information. If it's a really fundamental difference, we use "disambiguation" of some form; if it's a more minor difference, the difference is incorporated and/or discussed in the article itself. There is no correlation between needing such disambiguation or discussion and having two spellings, so why build a policy as though there were?

...

And what, as I say, of other articles which happen to mention, and probably link to, the term in one form or the other? Should they link both?

yes; in each form, the [[same way it works now]]

So a British reader might come upon a sentence saying "it is made from [[eggplant]]/[[aubergine]]", and, seeing that the two articles were separate, assume that these were alternative ingredients. Then, following the links, they might realise that the two were actually the same text copy-and-pasted with a bit of search-and-replace, and wonder why on earth we didn't just have one article.

...

Somebody has mentionned that something similar is done on Wiktionary, but that is a very different situation: in a dictionary, the entire article is discussing the headword, as a word; in an encyclopedia, on the other hand, the article is discussing the entity denoted by the headword. That is, a dictionary entry for "aubergine" is discussing the meaning, etymology, etc of that string of letters; an encyclopedia entry for "aubergine" is discussing the plant itself, using the string of letters merely as a label. It follows that whereas the dictionary entries for the words "aubergine" and "eggplant" are distinct (because they are two different words), the encyclopedia entries under those two words will always be *exactly the same* - you might even put the article under its scientific classification, but you'd still be discussing the same plant (and you wouldn't suddenly be discussing it in Latin, either).

yes, you can

Can what? I was trying to point the absurdity of treating "aubergine" and "eggplant" as different subjects. But if you want a question to respond to, what "orthography" would you write the article in if it was under its scientific classification? Such an article would contain exactly the same *information* whichever of the 3 headwords you filed it under, so the only possible reason for having more than one would be to "translate" a few usage differences to suit the same dialect as the headword [I note from the Wikipedia article that this *wouldn't* be possible in this case, because there are two species, but the point stands]

...

whether in separate wikis or not - it means that all those articles have to be written twice, or constantly kept in synch

not necessarily

Well, since any "good" edit to the article "eggplant" would also be a "good" edit to the article "aubergine" (except for those edits correcting orthographical differences), I fail to see how synchronisation could be avoided.

to you, perhaps, but these are clearly two seperate languages

No. They are *arguably* two separate languages, though I've heard few people take such a strong stance, except in jest. If it was at all clear, we wouldn't be having this argument.

"blatant waste of effort" is invested in creating wikis for tiny, pointless languages and dialects: Ossetic, Tartar, Walloon, Interlingua, Limburgish, Western Frisian, Asturian, Sicilian, Scots, Macedonian, Esperanto, the list is bloody endless.

So, because we have wikis in languages which are "pointless" but unambiguously distinct languages, we should not have wikis which include minor variations of the same language?

But I won't go into this - if you want to read endless debates about wiki creation policy, go to http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/ Yes, we have lots of wikis. Yes, a lot of them are controversial. No, you're not the only one who thinks we have too many. No, you're not the first to suggest merging some similar ones. Right now, however, we're discussing the particular case of the English wiki, not some other case with different political, linguistic, and geographic facts.

You've even got the two forms of Norwegian! Yet English English speakers have to accept American-English!

And "American-English" speakers have to accept a little bit of "English English" in return. Most of us learn to live with it.

...

Indeed, the main problem would be defining the various variants (it would be as arrogant to claim there are only two "proper" forms of English as to claim there is only one)

there really are only two orthographies. Canadian and Australian just aren't anywhere near divergent enough.

I'm sure Canadians and Australians will be pleased to hear you pronounce that from your golden pedestal. As will Indians, New Zealanders, South Africans, etc etc. [It was pointed out, for instance, that an Australian user would not wish to select either "US" nor "British" spellings, because they would naturally use a mixture of the two.]

...

and there'd still be compromises needed on grammar and punctuation issues, etc etc

grammar and punctuation is a different issue - one for edit whores.

Why? Because it doesn't annoy you as much as spelling does? Because it's not as straght-forward to "correct"? It seems to be very much part of the same issue if you ask me.

the "we're all against you" playground routine doesn't wash. It's no surprise for a handful of Americans and Americanised types to oppose this, but I doubt you'd get the same from Brits and Irish. If this is to be an inclusive, uniting project, then this issue over American-English hegemony needs to be resolved in a fair way.

I am British, born and bred, and strongly object to being labelled "Americanised" simply because I am pragmatic enough to put up with two spellings of the word "colour". I hate to say this, but you're beginning to remind me of a much-discussed-on-this-list anti-semitic individual (sorry, "White Nationalist") who believed Wikipedia was run by a Zionist Conspiracy of Jews, with the unaware support of "useful idiots". I am not a "useful idiot" of either a Jewish or an American conspiracy, I am an individual who tries to examine propositions logically and reach his own conclusions.

That rant over, I would characterise it more as you coming and saying "I'm against all of you" than us saying "we're all against you" - you have yet to prove that there is even an issue to solve (except inasmuch as it is stopping you from contributing; and the more I hear of your biases, the less of a problem that seems).

On 21/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

it's link to "red" wouldn't it? and on the red page, you could have a link to both "color" and "colour" - unless of course you have previous selected the English (US) wiki, in which case, the issue shouldn't arise, should it.

Right; I was discussing your suggestion that those articles with alternate headwords be split. It just seemed like it would be rather tedious and ugly to go round replacing every instance of "[[color]]" or "[[colour]]" with "[[color]]/[[colour]]". Currently, either form alone will be a functional link.

...

Then perhaps a solution to that problem, such as one article having multiple headwords, might be more appropriate?

Agreed.

OK, so let's forget about duplicating articles, or entire wikis, and think about how this might work. One problem would be that even if "Color" and "Colour" were both treated as equally valid names for an article (neither redirecting to the other), all the references would still have to be one or the other (as currently) or both (which I think would look far more ugly). And there'd still be the problem of all the mentions which *aren't* links, so I guess this would only work as part of an automatic "translation" approach.

Otherwise it seems likely that the only articles that will be in English English will be ones about the British Isles. Pretty much everything else will end up American.

Well, I don't think that's *inevitable*. There's certainly a potential problem of having a larger userbase in the US than probably everywhere else put together, with the result that more articles will end up looking "USian". But perhaps all we need is a better way of ensuring that a better balance rises up. For instance - and I'm not sure this is a particularly good or necessary idea, but it's a thought - we could declare that certain topic areas (maths, biology, etc) should always use certain varieties of English, such that they would each get a share.

On the other hand, since the aim of the project is to make an encyclopedia - to share knowledge - maybe all we need do is make sure the text is understandable to most English-speaking readers. And if most of our writers use US English, perhaps most of our readers will too, so it actually works out fine. This is another issue which frequently comes up in discussing new wikis - to what extent should Wikimedia be supporting languages for the sake of furthering political or social causes, rather than making the knowledge understandable to the most people. To put it to the extreme, if everyone spoke Esperanto, would it be ok to only have one Esperanto Wikipedia, fulfilling the primary goal of sharing encyclopedic knowledge.

I actually thought an Eggplant was an Avocado, and I don't think it's fair to assume that all, most, or even any significant number of British people will necessarily know or understand the American language entries. It works against Accessibility and Inclusiveness.

No, I agree. Any article that has ambiguousness in this way should be carefully worded to make it clear. The beauty of a hypertext system is that as soon as you click on the word "eggplant", you can be taken to a page revealing that it is an aubergine

What you are advocating is effectively that British people learn American, and accept it; and also accept that the orignal English form is defunct, or "lesser", and is putting English English on linguistic death row..

No, you are completely misrepresenting - or perhaps just misunderstanding - my position. I am advocating that, wherever possible, we make things understandable to all English speakers around the world. I am indeed saying that British users may have to make the effort to put up with and understand the odd Americanism; but I'm also saying that American users should make the effort to put up with and understand the odd Britishism.

I have *never* held the opinion that British English is defunct, or inferior, or should be "put on linguistic death row". I'm not sure that it makes any sense to talk of "the original English form" - it always makes me wonder at what point in history this form was or should have been frozen - and I object equally to claims that US English is "inferior" as to claims that British English, Scots English, Yorkshire English, Estuary English, or any other form is "inferior". They are all different, and some are more suited to being comprehensible by a wide audience than others, but none is intrinsically "better".

It sounds like a very fair solution to have the scientific name as the headword for both "Eggplant" and "Aubergine" -searchers to be directed to.

As I say, unfortunately, this isn't necessarily possible because there are two different species. It's also not a solution which generalises to other problem pairings, like pavement/sidewalk, so it's a bit of a distraction. Besides which, text will still contain the words "eggplant" and "aubergine" in the middle of sentences, whether they are linked to a "neutral" form or not.

In some or many cases yes, but... blanket policies are flawed. it may be inconvient, but can't assume that two apparently identical articles should be entirely synchronised - even if they are talking about the same thing, because the articles can also contain other culturally-specific information.

If there is culturally-specific information, it should be included in the article *whatever* language/dialect/orthography it is written in. If there were notable cultural information about aubergines in France, I would expect them to be explained to me, in English, in an encyclopedia. Similarly, I would consider it an omission if a British-published encyclopedia neglected to mention American cultural information - especially if that encyclopedia held "neutrality" as its highest value.

Here is an American academic piece which supports my argument that these are not the same language: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/norton.pdf

An interesting article, although I'm not entirely sure it supports your argument. For instance, it talks about the forces "which ensure, in short, that English will continue as a single language, rather than a collection of dialects that are free to wander wherever they will." It actually seems rather admiring of those forces, and certainly doesn't suggest that they are now breaking down.

Meanwhile, its author clearly agrees with me that there is no "Standard English":

"Wherever we place the beginnings of English, though, there was never a time when the language was not diverse."

"People often refer to this basis for communication as "Standard English," but that term is misleading. [...] What English does have, rather, is a collection of standard features [...] which taken together ensure that certain kinds of communication will be more-or-less comprehensible in any part of the language community."

Interesting that he should mention comprehensibility, which I consider a far greater goal than "correctness" or "standardness". Another passage touches on this as a reason to strive towards unity of the language, rather than defining separate "standards" (by my reading, the author considered this striving a positive force, not a negative one):

"Maintaining the unity of a language over an extended time and space, then, requires a more-or-less conscious determination by its speakers that they have certain communicative interests in common that make it worthwhile to try to curb or modulate the natural tendency to fragmentation and isolation."

There is also a paragraph touching on another topic we've been discussing - that of whether England can claim English as its own:

"By now, in any event, the view of English as an essentially English creation is impossible to sustain even on purely linguistic grounds – the influences of the rest of the English-speaking world have simply been too great."

these are not minor (unless you can prove it) - they are quantifiably the same as several of the differences between wikis that currently exist.

Then maybe those wikis shouldn't exist. I'm not saying the situation we have is perfect, and given the frequency of debates about Scandinavian, Yugoslavian, and Eastern European languages/dialects, I don't think using precedent to override reasoning is sensible.

The discussion of the particular case of the English wiki, must include a justification of why other languages with similar degrees of difference - such as Norwegian - are allowed two wikis, when English is not.

There are several possible reasons: maybe the degrees of difference are not as similar as you think; maybe the cultural and political forces are stronger; maybe there just happens to be a different balance of opinion in the users of those wikis than the users of English ones; maybe we (or, rather, they - I'd imagine few users of the English wiki have had anything to do with any Norwegian ones) have just got it wrong.

If the situation is genuinely as similar as you are making out, I would probably be of the opinion that those wikis should be merged. However, I don't speak any of the languages concerned, and so have no desire to get involved in their linguistic politics, and no right to dictate the practice of their edition[s] of Wikipedia. I do, however, speak English, and contribute to the English Wikipedia, and therefore wish to have a say in how it is run.

...

I'm sure Canadians and Australians will be pleased to hear you pronounce that from your golden pedestal. As will Indians, New Zealanders, South Africans, etc etc. [It was pointed out, for instance, that an Australian user would not wish to select either "US" nor "British" spellings, because they would naturally use a mixture of the two.]

I'm sorry, but there's no evidence to support that view. Provide evidence, and I'll agree with you.

Well, I was merely recalling something contributed by an Australian Wikipedian to an earlier debate on this list. I can't remember the exact examples given, and don't know any Australians to ask, but it anyway seems rather unreasonable to me to assume that English can be divided neatly into two versions.

I should also clarify that I (or, rather, the Australian who I am recalling) was not arguing that Australian English had large numbers of features (spellings, vocabulary, etc) which were not present in either US or British English - although for all I know it may well - but merely that it contained some features from one, and some from the other. So if you present an Australian user with a choice between wikis, or articles, in "US" and "British" (or "American" and "English", as you put it) varieties of English, neither of them will seem "correct" - the US one will seem too "USian", and the British one too British.

Naturally, you could create a third option - and then a fourth, and a fifth, etc, as other groups come along - but this increases the work significantly.

...

...

grammar and punctuation is a different issue - one for edit whores.

[...]

No, because it's a different issue to orthography. The fact that you recognise the differences implies that you recognise that these are two different orthographies - just like the two forms of Norweigan.

Actually, one of the main differences we've been discussing - the aubergine/eggplant example - is not one of orthography at all, but of vocabulary. It's not that Americans say "aubergine" but write it "eggplant", it's a different word for the same thing. So you are saying that spelling and vocabulary together form something which is distinct from grammar and punctuation; whereas I am saying that all should be considered part of the concept of dialect, and considered as aspects of the same issue.

I accept that US and British English have different orthographies only in as much as I accept that they are distinct dialects, and that the distinctions between them include distinctions of orthography.

...

I am British, born and bred, and strongly object to being labelled "Americanised" simply because I am pragmatic enough to put up with two spellings of the word "colour".

"put up with". You may not like it, but if you accept and use American orthography (use in general), then you are Americanised to a degree.

No. I never said I used American "orthography", I said I put up with it - meaning I don't feel the need to "correct" it wherever I see it, unless it is in content otherwise written in British English. I don't think that makes me "Americanised", any more than talking to a Yorkshireman without picking up on their dialect would make me "Yorkshirised".

...

I am not a "useful idiot" of either a Jewish or an American conspiracy, I am an individual who tries to examine propositions logically and reach his own conclusions.

That is a disgusting and pathetic insinuation to make, and makes your declaration of trying to examine propositions logically, laughable.

My apologies - out of context, that looked like I was accusing you of something equivalent to fascism, which was not my intention. What I was reacting to was the idea that just because I don't strongly oppose the influence of US English I am somehow "Americanised", and the perceived insinuation that that made me somehow less British, and less worthy of respect. Maybe you didn't really mean it like that, but in contrasting "americanised types" to "Brits" you certainly implied it.

The point being, that just because I don't oppose something, that doesn't mean I think it should be welcomed with open arms as our new overlord.

It is not morally wrong to be patriotic; it does not make you a fascist - what If I told you I was Jewish-Scottish-British, would that make you look like an idiot?

Only in that I wasn't clear in making my point; once again, I apologise. However, I would like to point out that it is also not morally wrong to *not* be patriotic, as in my case.

Why should we? Why should we accept Americanisation? Why should we accept the abolishment of Britain? Why should we be ashamed and embarressed of who we are?

Why indeed? I have never promoted Americanisation, and I think there are genuine threats from it - I just don't happen to think that the variety of English used by Wikipedia is one of them.

...

That rant over, I would characterise it more as you coming and saying "I'm against all of you" than us saying "we're all against you" - you

and this is more "logical examination of proposals"?! I'm not "against all of you", I'm against unfairness, which is fundamentally what this is about. Inaccuracy is also the other major issue, on top of that, there's a lack of consistency.

The consistency issue, I'll grant you - presuming you're referring once again to the Norwegian precedent. Unfairness? I'm not sure that our current policy is fundamentally unfair, except in the sense that it doesn't artificially adjust upwards the amount of content in varieties of English native to smaller groups of users. And as for accuracy, I'm not even sure what you're referring to.

What I was trying to say is that you have come in and challenged an existing policy, which seems to be more-or-less supported by most existing users - it's not that those existing users are ganging up against you, so much as that you are challenging them all to consider your views. For what it's worth, I think there may be a better approach to the issue than we have currently, but I've yet to see a suggestion which isn't flawed in its own way.

...

have yet to prove that there is even an issue to solve (except inasmuch as it is stopping you from contributing; and the more I hear of your biases, the less of a problem that seems).

I'm biased towards fairness; you appear to be biased towards something else.

I was talking more about your biases towards patriotism, and the superiority of one form of English, and so on. But it wasn't a particularly productive comment, and could be seen as little more than a personal attack, so I apologise for it.

On 21/09/05, Gerrit Holl gerrit@nl.linux.org wrote:

Rowan Collins wrote:

...

On the other hand, since the aim of the project is to make an encyclopedia - to share knowledge - maybe all we need do is make sure the text is understandable to most English-speaking readers.

No, it's not enuf. This mait be undestandabel, but cetanly not apropiat for an anciclopedia!

No, obviously I agree - I was putting the point almost as Devil's Advocate, rather than something I agree with personally. But I do think that it's not as important an issue as some are suggesting - most of the time, either "standard" (the US one or the British one) will produce text equally fit for the purpose of distributing encyclopedic information throughout the English-speaking world.

Ambiguous phrasing, obtuse phrases which (often inadvertently) hide information, or lack thereof, repetition, redundancy, and other such overly long, sesquipedalian, or floccinaucinihilipilificatious constructions, are far more harmful than the odd wrong but understandable spelling, whatever "standard" it is "wrong" according to.

[sorry, I got a bit carried away there; I plead tiredness ;)]

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

I'm sorry but there are not a "few" usage differences, there really are quite a lot. And this is more than just dialect we are talking about: I'm not arguing for "equal rights" for each dialect; but for "equal rights" for the two orthographies, in the same way as Scots, and the two forms of Norwegian. this is just an example: http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html http://www.krysstal.com/ukandusa.html

You really are barking mad, aren't you?

The vast majority of those aren't even real differences.

Some examples:

"note" vs "bill" -- "bill" would probably not be understood in the UK, but referring to them as notes would be understood in the US.

A bill is something demanding payment.

"maths" vs "math" -- any good encyclopaedia should always say "mathematics" rather than abbreviating it so lazily.

Agreed.

"autumn" vs "fall" -- we use them both as synonyms on this side of the pond. You guys don't?

Nope. Fall is something that hurts.

"bank holiday" vs "legal holiday" -- I've lived in the US my entire life, and I've never even heard of the latter

Never heard of a "legal holiday", and I don't think we have "bank holidays" either.

"tick" vs "check" -- not the same thing. a check is a distinct symbol, as is a tick, and they are two different symbols.

Never heard of a check in that context...

"pissed off" vs "pissed" -- WTF!? first of all, this won't be found in most encyclopaedia articles. second of all, we say both here.

Also use both.

"trousers" vs "pants" -- although we consider "trousers" to be a bit old-fashioned, it will be widely understood here. I did used to think it meant shoes though.

Trousers are more formal than any old pants :)

"pedestrian crossing" vs "crosswalk" -- we use both here.

Never heard of a "crosswalk".

"store" vs "shop" -- this is probably the lamest one on there.

Agreed, but you can always buy things at a shop :)

"chemist" vs "drug store" -- "chemist" isn't common here, but it's better than "apothecary", which is probably less ambiguous than either of the other two.

Chemist and Pharmacy all the way...

"bill" vs "check" -- uhh... we use both.

You can make out a cheque to pay a bill...

".co.uk" vs ".com" -- that's not a linguistic difference. There are plenty of UK companies that have a .com, as it's supposed to be international (as opposed to .us)

Agreed, that's a historical difference - UK decided on .co.uk, NZ decided on .co.nz, Australia decided on .com.au, and US got .com because they could.

"car" vs "automobile" -- we usually just say "car" here. only people like you say "automobile".

I say good sir, that's a horseless carriage, and I shall dual any many who should say otherwise!

"jug" vs "pitcher" -- absolut rediculos~!

Except of course for a Pitcher Plant...

I could go on. But I'm getting bored. You're mad. End of story.

And I'm Australian.

Caroline Ford wrote:

It's not bank holiday vs public holiday - it's holiday vs vacation.

We have statutory holidays and annual vacations.

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

"tick" vs "check" -- not the same thing. a check is a distinct symbol, as is a tick, and they are two different symbols.

Never heard of a check in that context...

Ticks spread Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

...

"trousers" vs "pants" -- although we consider "trousers" to be a bit old-fashioned, it will be widely understood here. I did used to think it meant shoes though.

Trousers are more formal than any old pants :)

A dog pants

...

"bill" vs "check" -- uhh... we use both.

You can make out a cheque to pay a bill...

A bird can pick it up in his bill.

...

"car" vs "automobile" -- we usually just say "car" here. only people like you say "automobile".

I say good sir, that's a horseless carriage, and I shall dual any many who should say otherwise!

Go ahead and duel him, but I would prefer not to have a second copy of him.

...

"jug" vs "pitcher" -- absolut rediculos~!

Except of course for a Pitcher Plant...

That girl has big jugs.

These differences add to the richness of the language. For those of us with a capacity to find the wrong meaning at the right time it fertile nightsoil for endless puns.

Ec

On 21/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

You really are barking mad, aren't you? The vast majority of those aren't even real differences.

I think that is more than a little over-harsh. Declaring that the differences don't exist is exactly the kind of attitude purists like Jack object to.

Of course, it's amazing how many "Americanisms" end up being accepted to the point that you don't even notice any more - my mum still cringes at whichever of "fill in" and "fill out" came over from the US, but I don't even notice the difference. In contrast, "write me" instead of "write to me" still jars horribly whenever I encounter it. Who knows what will change in the future, but there are certainly many differences there.

Another point worth noting is that a lot of the US forms would be easily understood - if it was realised from context that the speaker was American - because of the large amount of US mass media encountered in the UK. But that doesn't make them part of British English - somebody else has mentionned not talking about your "fanny" [which if you weren't aware means vagina in the UK] already, so I will just expand on it by pointing out how [childishly] amusing the concept of a "fanny pack" is...

"note" vs "bill" -- "bill" would probably not be understood in the UK, but referring to them as notes would be understood in the US.

So, it's a difference. "Bill" would in fact be likely to be understood as "request for payment" - what is known in the US as a "check".

"bill" vs "check" -- uhh... we use both.

In the UK, a "bill" is never a banknote, and a "check" is never anything to do with money. We have "cheques", which are the things you write on and sign to pay for something, but that's something different again.

"autumn" vs "fall" -- we use them both as synonyms on this side of the pond. You guys don't?

No, we don't. Next question?

"tick" vs "check" -- not the same thing. a check is a distinct symbol, as is a tick, and they are two different symbols.

Although I agree that they're different symbols, I think the idea of "checking a box" rather than "ticking" it does sound distinctly American to the British ear. Like "fill in"/"fill out", it may well be forgotten in a generation which is which.

"pissed off" vs "pissed" -- WTF!? first of all, this won't be found in most encyclopaedia articles. second of all, we say both here.

Yes, and in Britain, we *don't* use both. "Pissed" means "drunk"; newspapers quoting New Orleans' mayor recently had to clarify that he had publically declared himself "pissed [off]", to avoid confusion over him drinking on air...

"trousers" vs "pants" -- although we consider "trousers" to be a bit old-fashioned, it will be widely understood here. I did used to think it meant shoes though.

So, once again, how is this "not a real difference"? You could never make that mistake growing up in, say, Southern England, because "trousers" is simply the single, normal, and unambiguous word for them. "Pants", meanwhile, are unambiguously what you call "underpants", another fun cause for confusion.

"pedestrian crossing" vs "crosswalk" -- we use both here.

And "crosswalk" would mean absolutely nothing to a Brit. As wouldn't, I would hazard to guess, a "pelican crossing" to you.

"chemist" vs "drug store" -- "chemist" isn't common here, but it's better than "apothecary", which is probably less ambiguous than either of the other two.

A "drug store", if we weren't subjected to so much US media, would sound like somewhere which sold illegal substances - we don't tend to talk about "drugs" when we just mean "medicines".

".co.uk" vs ".com" -- that's not a linguistic difference. There are plenty of UK companies that have a .com, as it's supposed to be international (as opposed to .us)

Agreed.

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 22/09/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:

"Rowan Collins" rowan.collins@gmail.com

...

In the UK, a "bill" is never a banknote, and a "check" is never anything to do with money. We have "cheques", which are the things you write on and sign to pay for something, but that's something different again.

To be fair, we do have "Mr Check Please!", but he's fictional, so he doesn't count :-)

Yeah, it's always bugged me slightly that he says it "in American" - but maybe it doesn't seem that way to the writers, in the sociolect they use; language varies, and language changes...

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

I live out in the boonies and have tractor crossing signs. And there's this sign with what looks like a guy riding a cow. I think it's supposed to look like a horse, but it looks like a cow. heh.

On 9/22/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:

Phil Boswell wrote:

...

"Rowan Collins" rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote in message news:9f02ca4c050922054468d07f8a@mail.gmail.com... On 21/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote: [snip]

...

...

"pedestrian crossing" vs "crosswalk" -- we use both here.

And "crosswalk" would mean absolutely nothing to a Brit. As wouldn't, I would hazard to guess, a "pelican crossing" to you.

How about trying to distinguish between these: a.. Zebra crossing a.. Pelican crossing a.. Puffin crossing a.. Toucan crossing a.. Pegasus crossing (no, I'm not joking, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_crossing )

Damn, I need to add Koala Crossing, Emu Crossing, Wombat Crossing...

(Yes, they're real - try http://ln-s.net/7fx)

-- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Well, here we just have ducks.

But I've seen two kinds of deer ("standing deer" and "kicking deer"). Apparently in San Francisco, they have crossings for California Quail. And I think that in Australia, they have them for kangaroos.

Mark

On 22/09/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:

Phroziac wrote:

...

I live out in the boonies and have tractor crossing signs. And there's this sign with what looks like a guy riding a cow. I think it's supposed to look like a horse, but it looks like a cow. heh.

Was it udderly correct?

Some of these caution signs reflect local circumstances. I've seen them with silhouettes of alligators in northern Louisiana, or horse-drawn buggies in eastern Pennsylvania.

Ec

---

Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Mark Williamson wrote:

Well, here we just have ducks.

But I've seen two kinds of deer ("standing deer" and "kicking deer"). Apparently in San Francisco, they have crossings for California Quail. And I think that in Australia, they have them for kangaroos.

And koalas, horses, and cyclists :)

And sometimes you see a sign which simply says "GRID".

"note" vs "bill" -- "bill" would probably not be understood in the UK, WRONG but referring to them as notes would be understood in the US. SO WOULD "SAYONARA", BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S PART OF THE SAME LANGUAGE. "maths" vs "math" -- any good encyclopaedia should always say "mathematics" rather than abbreviating it so lazily. THE DIFFERENCE STILL EXISTS "autumn" vs "fall" -- we use them both as synonyms on this side of the pond. You guys don't? ABSOLUTELY NOT. "bank holiday" vs "legal holiday" -- I've lived in the US my entire life, and I've never even heard of the latter NEITHER HAVE I. "tick" vs "check" -- not the same thing. a check is a distinct symbol, as is a tick, and they are two different symbols. VERB: "TICK A BOX"; "CHECK A BOX" IS NOT USED IN UK "pissed off" vs "pissed" -- WTF!? first of all, this won't be found in most encyclopaedia articles. second of all, we say both here. WE DON'T "trousers" vs "pants" -- although we consider "trousers" to be a bit old-fashioned, it will be widely understood here. I did used to think it meant shoes though. AGAIN, JUST 'COS IT'S UNDERSTOOD DOES NOT MEAN IT'S THE SAME LANGUAGE "pedestrian crossing" vs "crosswalk" -- we use both here. WE DON'T. "store" vs "shop" -- this is probably the lamest one on there. NO IT ISN'T. THEY MEAN DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT THINGS. "STORE" IS AN AMERICANISM FOR SHOP. "chemist" vs "drug store" -- "chemist" isn't common here, but it's better than "apothecary", which is probably less ambiguous than either of the other two. SO, "A DRUG STORE" IN THE UK WOULD ATTRACT THE ATTENTION OF THE POLICE. "bill" vs "check" -- uhh... we use both. WRONG AGAIN, THESE ARE VERBS. ".co.uk" vs ".com" -- that's not a linguistic difference. There are plenty of UK companies that have a .com, as it's supposed to be international (as opposed to .us) IS ".GOV" INTERNATIONAL? OR OFFICIAL AMERICAN DOMINATION OF THE INTERNET? "car" vs "automobile" -- we usually just say "car" here. only people like you say "automobile". NOBODY SAYS AUTOMOBILE IN THE UK, NOT EVEN ME. "jug" vs "pitcher" -- absolut rediculos~! WHY? EVEN IF IDENTICAL WORDS ARE USED, THEY DO NOT NECESSERY HAVE THE SAME OR SIMILAR MEANINGS.

I could go on. But I'm getting bored. You're mad. End of story YES, YOU COULD GO NO BEING WRONG. YOU ARE WRONG, END OF STORY.

I confess I haven't read it all, but half of your "rebuttles" are frankly, bollocks.

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

OK, after that e-mail, I think you really need to leave.

Arguing and trolling is one thing, but writing a response in all-caps is another.

Not only does nobody here agree with you, but you don't seem to be willing to start a poll on the matter, and you can't even cite a single other Wiki-an who supports you.

Go fork off from Wikipedia by yourself.

Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Jack & Naree to Mark, wikipedia-l

More options 16:09 (10 minutes ago) Dear Mr "I'm not a Troll", See if you can pass the Troll test: *If you're a troll, send me a reply.* *If you're not, don't.*

It takes two to Troll. "*So shut the fuck up already!*". Get it?

ReplyForward

Looks like he failed...

Thank you.

On 23/09/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

Arguing and trolling is one thing, but writing a response in all-caps is another.

Yes, so much worse than calling somebody you don't agree with "barking mad", only to find that the examples you are objecting to are verified by a number of other users. Hm...

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Ahh, and, in addition, due to some technical mishap, I sent my e-mail before I received his.

Mark

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

1. I don't call people I disagree with barking mad, unless they really

are barking mad. I believe this is the first time in a few months I've called anyone barking mad, and in the intervening time there have been plenty of people with whom I've had disagreements. I think most people on this list would agree that Mr Jack and Naree is "barking mad".

2. Yes, but how many of them? I never said with absolute certainty

that all of those were BS examples, only that much of the list was BS. None of the examples which I made it clear I was fairly certain were universal were objected to, and even many of the ones which were objected to proved a point, for example "autumn" vs "fall": there's one variant that's understood in both places, and another that is only understood in one. Which one should be chosen?

3. Mr. Jack & Naree's most recent message is a bit daft ("looks like

he failed"). If he had the sense to check, he would see that that message was not, in fact, a response to his "troll test" e-mail but rather to his earlier e-mail which was written in all-caps. And, if it takes two to troll, why is just about everybody else on this list calling him a troll? Does that mean that they're all trolls too? And, of course, this isn't a response to him, but a note to you which is related to but not in response to his message. And if anyone so wishes, I invite them to inform Mr Macdaddy that the troll test, from now on, applies to him as well: if he IS a troll, he'll make another post to this or related threads; if he ISN'T a troll, he won't.

Mark

On 23/09/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

Arguing and trolling is one thing, but writing a response in all-caps is another.

Yes, so much worse than calling somebody you don't agree with "barking mad", only to find that the examples you are objecting to are verified by a number of other users. Hm...

-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

1. I don't call people I disagree with barking mad, unless they really

are barking mad. I believe this is the first time in a few months I've called anyone barking mad, and in the intervening time there have been plenty of people with whom I've had disagreements. I think most people on this list would agree that Mr Jack and Naree is "barking mad".

I disagree.

Yes, but you're not most people...

...

3. Mr. Jack & Naree's most recent message is a bit daft ("looks like

he failed"). If he had the sense to check, he would see that that message was not, in fact, a response to his "troll test" e-mail but rather to his earlier e-mail which was written in all-caps. And, if it takes two to troll, why is just about everybody else on this list calling him a troll? Does that mean that they're all trolls too? And, of course, this isn't a response to him, but a note to you which is related to but not in response to his message. And if anyone so wishes, I invite them to inform Mr Macdaddy that the troll test, from now on, applies to him as well: if he IS a troll, he'll make another post to this or related threads; if he ISN'T a troll, he won't.

Who else agrees that he's a troll?

Lars Aronsson and Ray Santoinge do, at least as far as I know, and I'd be very surprised if nobody else did.

Mark

...

Who else agrees that he's a troll?

Lars Aronsson and Ray Santoinge do, at least as far as I know, and I'd be very surprised if nobody else did. Mark

I certainly do.

Pawe³ Dembowski stated for the record:

...

...

Who else agrees that he's a troll?

Lars Aronsson and Ray Santoinge do, at least as far as I know, and I'd be very surprised if nobody else did. Mark

I certainly do.

Either a troll, or barking mad ... or, of course, both.

Ray, I sincerely apologise for misinterpreting what you've said.

On a slightly related note, Jack and/or Naree can add Ronald Chmara and Jimbo Wales to the list of people who have called or at least implied that he and/or she is a troll.

Mark

On 23/09/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

...

Who else agrees that he's a troll?

Lars Aronsson and Ray Santonge do, at least as far as I know, and I'd be very surprised if nobody else did.

Please don't misinterpret me this way. IIRC I did respond to Lars, and I did suggest that If someone considered Jack to be a troll they should stop feeding him. I've never even called you a troll even though you have been making debatable comments on this list much longer than Jack.

Ray

Arbeo M wrote:

--- Gerrit Holl gerrit@nl.linux.org schrieb:

...

Who else agrees that he's a troll?

Troll or not, that's just semantics. But it's a matter of fact that it's extremely impolite towards the other members of the mailing list to bombard them with 20 or more messages on the same subject.

Please remember: some people here might have a life, too.

The label is not important, and somewhat inflamatory.

It's clear that Jack would not have defended his position with such enthusiasm if no one had answered.

Most keyboards have a feature which is consistent with having a life. It's the delete button. Some of us are even so advanced that we can delete several messages at once. :-)

Ec

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

1. I don't call people I disagree with barking mad, unless they really

are barking mad.

I didn't say you "always" or "often" did it. I merely pointed out that it seemed rather hypocritical to complain that somebody was emotional enough to [presumably deliberately] use all caps in an e-mail, when you yourself had just got emotional (and personal) enough to accuse that person of being "barking mad".

2. Yes, but how many of them? I never said with absolute certainty

that all of those were BS examples, only that much of the list was BS.

No, but you did confidently state that "The vast majority of those aren't even real differences", followed by a set of examples, which were, presumably, among those which you thought were in fact "BS" - otherwise what are they examples of? That many of the examples you picked were then confirmed as differences by other users considerably weakens your position, does it not?

None of the examples which I made it clear I was fairly certain were universal were objected to

So, the lists linked to weren't 100% brilliant. Perhaps a comment that "I'm not sure all those examples are accurate" would have been a better comment? And remember, nobody on this list [as far as we know] actually *wrote* either of those lists, they just pointed them out as a convenient example.

even many of the ones which were objected to proved a point, for example "autumn" vs "fall": there's one variant that's understood in both places, and another that is only understood in one. Which one should be chosen?

That's not proof that there's no difference (which you were, to put it charitably, strongly implying); it's proof that there is a difference for which a compromise solution exists. An interesting point, but not one which warrants labelling anyone "barking mad".

To respond to the implied suggestion that we always use "autumn", I'd guess it would more of a reader-oriented policy than a writer-oriented one. In my experience, US writers tend to more commonly and naturally use "fall", so even if they'd understand "autumn" easily enough, it might require conscious thought (or correction by other users) to always *write* it. Not that that's a fatal flaw, just a thought for discussion.

[I'm not sure arguing about definitions of "troll" gets us anywhere, so I shall pass over that part of the discussion] -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On 23/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:

What seems clear is that Mark has been consistently argumentative, facetious, and fallacious; and even more so since this post. Not satisfied with trying to start a "row", he wants to ban me for not agreeing with him. I think he is coming across as needlessly aggressive and pompous. However wrong or stupid anyone thinks my posts are, vomiting bile through the keyboard is out of order. 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. 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. 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. If you look trough Wikipedia, there is stuff on Commonwealth English, and on the differences. In the article it is recognised that some Canadians use a lot of Americanisms; however a lot of Canadians resent being mistaken for Americans, and like to align themselves with the Commonwealth. So some may find the term suits them. 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). Evidence has been posted (not by me) on this list (see the Wictionary posts) that AmE and BrE (OED terms) have distinct orthographies. Would anybody on this list disagree that AmE is a clearly distinct dialect of English? It would appear not. These two factors alone seem to be enough for other dialects to get a Wikipedia. Whether "British English" gets it's own Wiki is up to British people contributing. The problem is having an "English Wikipedia" that's mostly American-English, and a "British English" one. It's like splitting Portuguese into a "Portuguese Wikipedia" that's actually Brazilian-Portuguese, and having a "Lusitanian Portuguese" one for Portuguese Portuguese; as has also been noted, this issue is not simply one about English. 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".

what's the betting somebody focusses on me not proofreading that last sentence rather than the content - and you call *me* a troll!

On 23/09/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

1. I don't call people I disagree with barking mad, unless they really

...

are barking mad.

I didn't say you "always" or "often" did it. I merely pointed out that it seemed rather hypocritical to complain that somebody was emotional enough to [presumably deliberately] use all caps in an e-mail, when you yourself had just got emotional (and personal) enough to accuse that person of being "barking mad".

...

2. Yes, but how many of them? I never said with absolute certainty

that all of those were BS examples, only that much of the list was BS.

No, but you did confidently state that "The vast majority of those aren't even real differences", followed by a set of examples, which were, presumably, among those which you thought were in fact "BS" - otherwise what are they examples of? That many of the examples you picked were then confirmed as differences by other users considerably weakens your position, does it not?

...

None of the examples which I made it clear I was fairly certain were universal were objected to

So, the lists linked to weren't 100% brilliant. Perhaps a comment that "I'm not sure all those examples are accurate" would have been a better comment? And remember, nobody on this list [as far as we know] actually *wrote* either of those lists, they just pointed them out as a convenient example.

...

even many of the ones which were objected to proved a point, for example "autumn" vs "fall": there's one variant that's understood in both places, and another that is only understood in one. Which one should be chosen?

That's not proof that there's no difference (which you were, to put it charitably, strongly implying); it's proof that there is a difference for which a compromise solution exists. An interesting point, but not one which warrants labelling anyone "barking mad".

To respond to the implied suggestion that we always use "autumn", I'd guess it would more of a reader-oriented policy than a writer-oriented one. In my experience, US writers tend to more commonly and naturally use "fall", so even if they'd understand "autumn" easily enough, it might require conscious thought (or correction by other users) to always *write* it. Not that that's a fatal flaw, just a thought for discussion.

[I'm not sure arguing about definitions of "troll" gets us anywhere, so I shall pass over that part of the discussion] -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Mark, I'm going to respond to you, because I think you're crying out for help (...and because I want to try to adhere to Wikipedia ettiquette and repair any damage). You don't sound remotely calm or considered. I think you ought to re-read this post to me, and think about it. It's no surprise that you decide to focus on the fact that I submit "teh" as "the" without correcting it; it strikes me you do it to feel better about yourself. That is an example of troll behaviour. If you were interested in debating properly you wouldn't pump out such childish shit. I'm at fault for responding to it similarly, out of annoyance. I have read what I've sent. I have made errors. I have conceded, apologised, and corrected myself. You have simply had an air of a superiority complex right from the first reply. The things you've just ranted about "American English is ugly" - where did say that? I didn't. "...Americanised" - I made a case for it, not refuted. "..spell better.." - Wrong again, I never said or suggested that, more of your consistent bollocks. ...and no, (to add to the list of things I also never said) I didn't say it's not OK for you to call me xyz, several others said that. Frankly, you should know better. I'm not impulsive in calling you an impulsive, petulant, self-important twat. I've thought about it; I've read your crap; and you are definitely all of those things, and you're proving it now, and I'd be happy to scibble it all over your face. You're regularly being impulsive with your hurried replies making accusations you haven't checked the facts of, and it shows in your frantic style of writing; you're being petulant because of your frantic desperation to prove yourself right and "win", in addition to your general unreasoned, un-backed-up hostility right from the kick off; you're self-importance shows in the way you constantly write and mock as though you believe you are an ultimate authority, e.g.: "When Mark Wiliamson calls you a troll, you must be one, I think" - I bet you wrote the book on self-importance; it all adds up to being a twat, and your comebacks are hopeless. As far as "nettiquette" goes, there's one rule I know: "Don't say anything you're not prepared to say to someone's face." I doubt very much you and or chums have a cock and balls between you, except your boyfriend's. I am not the only person who feels dissatisfied with the Americanisation of Wikipedia. Someone else proposed this, I merely support it. Aubergine, as you must know, unless you're a complete fuckwit, is merely an example of one of the kinds of unintelligibility and linguistic preference problems. There are Wiki pages already listing unintellibilities between the two dialects, which are nowhere near completed; they will get much longer. The fact that we are having a heated row about this is no evidence of intelligibility; it may actually turn out to be evidence of the opposite. Do you actually know what evidence is? The instance I gave my encounter with an American over "What's Up" illustrates how identical vocab, grammar, and syntax does not equal identical semantics, it can be unintelligible. Do you remember what you responded with? I doubt it - too busy patting yourself on the back for your "witty" Trollish quips. The idea that American-English is an offshoot of English is actually a semantic issue. I am stating that the name "English" has already been used (like a domain name), and I'm talking about the written word as standardised in England, so arguing the toss over dialects inside England, and in people's living rooms is a red herring. You can argue that the term "English" be reappointed to name a genus of dialects, but I'm arguing that that particular name applies most aptly to the dialect that has developed in the same geographical place, among the same ethnolinguistic group where it autochthonously evolved from Anglo-Saxon into what we know today. That particular debate is over what names apply to what. Americans call what we speak "British English", but if you go to the wiki article, you'll see that that term is not accepted in Britain or England; people feel, and in my view, rightly, that the prefix is unwarranted. It's a result of having a country made up of countries. I've never said my English is better than yours; I've said that too much of the stuff called English in Wikipedia is not recognisable English in England and plenty of other places. The main part of what pisses me (and others) off, is the fact that most of the English is American, and non-English speakers are going to read articles written in American, and think that that is the standard form. I want them to know that it isn't; that it's the standard form for a dialect of English called American English - that's what the OED calls it, so should Wikipedia, in the name of accuracy, accessibility, inclusivity and fairness. . Finally, no, I'm calling you a bully and an ostracist. Your silly absolutist playground statements like "nobody agrees with you about xyz" are fluent trollish; plenty of people here are intelligent enough to pick and choose for themselves what they do and don't agree with, without your rather de-legitimised recommendations. You can't even respond positively to any constructive comments, you have to run for the cover of your "innernet buddies". How anyone as ridiculous as you can call me anything is beyond comprehension. On 23/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

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 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Mark Williamson wrote:

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

...

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?

I don't think Jimbo Wales called anyone a troll. He wrote:

But inflammatory and patently false claims are likely to be taken as _trolling_

That is not calling someone a troll. Or did I miss something?

Gerrit.

Jack & Naree wrote:

Would anybody on this list disagree that AmE is a clearly distinct dialect of English? It would appear not. These two factors alone seem to be enough for other dialects to get a Wikipedia.

I disagree with this one. Yes, there are differences between "British English" and "American English". But I think those differences are smaller than the differences between any two existing Wikipedia's. Those are languages that have own Wiikpedia's; not dialects.

Gerrit.

On 23/09/05, Pawe³ Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:

Well, I would say that if a word exists that is understandable on both sides of the Ocean, even if used not as often as other forms, it should be preferred. Other than that, however, I see nothing wrong with using either British, American, Canadian, Australian in any article.

There are some phrases that need stamped out, ones which can be easily made "mid-atlantic English". It might be useful to figure out a way of finding these and rephrasing them - yes, policy says not to go around "fixing" spellings, but this doesn't mean we can't change "he wrote his mother about this" to something which looks "good English" to all readers. Unfortunately, that very case is probably the hardest one to search out...

-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk

On 9/21/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote: [snip]

...

I'm sure Canadians and Australians will be pleased to hear you pronounce that from your golden pedestal. As will Indians, New Zealanders, South Africans, etc etc. [It was pointed out, for instance, that an Australian user would not wish to select either "US" nor "British" spellings, because they would naturally use a mixture of the two.]

I'm sorry, but there's no evidence to support that view. Provide evidence, and I'll agree with you. How does an Australian write "colour" then? They choose one or the other, if they wrote "culla" for instance, then I'd agree with you, but they don't, do they.

Whether Canadians or Australians have unique spellings or only use some combination of British and American spellings is not the issue at hand. The point is that their spelling conventions *differ* from both American and British conventions. (At least Canadian English does: I don't know Australian, and it seems closer to British.) If you believe that splitting the English wikipedia into "American" and "English Squared" forms over spelling differences is justifiable, then you should apply this rule consistently and have Wikipedias for all the other orthographic dialects of English. And that'd be reductio ad absurdum, eh?

Steve