Ray Saintonge wrote:
I don't think that a vote would help. It will
only show one group to be
dominant, and may just divide that community even more. Accepting the
other side's way of expressing itself is worth a lot more.
I think it's the opposite, but maybe I misunderstand you.
If a handful of Americans got fed up with those crazy British
spellings and insane measurements that no one has ever heard of, like
"kilometre" and such nonsense, and asked us to create an American
English wikipedia, we would quite properly refuse, right? What we
would say is "Accepting the other side's way of expressing itself is
worth a lot more".
And that's what we do on en, i.e. "try to relax" about it. There are
some conventions and standards, but it really (in my opinion) boils
down to that: let's just relax and respect and accept that other
people use words a little bit differently.
It would be unwise, I think, for people to declare that _only_
Brazilian Portuguese is acceptable, or that _only_ European Portuguese
is acceptable. The best solution, I think, is for people to try to
relax about it and get along. This will usually involve avoiding
local expressions as much as necessary, and trying to be
understanding.
--Jimbo
p.s. Just in case anyone asks, I'm just teasing *myself*, my own
provincialism, when I make those jokes about crazy British spellings
and the metric system.