Talk:American and British English

The article is intentionally brief because Wikivoyage is about travel, not linguistics. Talk:English language varieties discusses that a bit. For more in depth articles about varieties of English that go beyond what is immediately practical to travelers, consider searching Wikipedia or Wikiversity. If you write or find a really good article about varieties of English there, why not link to it at bottom of this article? I am interested and expect others who read to bottom of our brief article might be also--language is one of travel's rich human wonders. --Rogerhc (talk) 05:11, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Editing problem

First, why isn't the zucchini/courgette pair still in the article? I put it there some time ago.

Second, it seems to be hard to edit those tables in a way that's visible. I don't understand why and don't get why I can't see the edit I made, to put that pair of words back in at "Eat." Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Merge was a mistake!

English language varieties appears to have been merged here. I would say the merge should obviously have gone in the other direction and the error should be immediately corrected. Even the article sometimes uses "Commonwealth English" instead of British, a more sensible term.

It makes no sense to merge a more general topic into a less specific one. Trying to make the US/UK distinction cover the world forces into nonsense such as this:

• British English is primarily used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Pakistan, and Malaysia.

• American English is primarily used in the United States, the Philippines, and Israel.

The information is correct as far as some vocabulary choices & most spelling -- Aussies use "labour" and "lift" and Filipinos "labor" and "elevator", for example. However, it is not even close for pronunciation, let alone as an overall description of dialects. Pashley (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the solution is to add columns to the tables, perhaps for Australia, etc; and for a more general description of the dialects to intro; and to rename the page "Varieties of English"? I like to tables, however, they are better for a user to read, if harder to learn how to edit. JimKillock (talk) 19:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's fine this way. "Commonwealth English" doesn't exist, it's just an umbrella term for many different varieties. It's impossible to say something about "Commonwealth English" as a whole, but it is possible to deal with British English, a standardized register. I think this article should just be about the differences between the U.S. and the UK, instead of becoming too unwieldy with dozens of different varieties.--Globe-trotter (talk)--- 17:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

In my view Pashley was right about the merger and Globe-trotter was right about "Commonwealth English" being an umbrella term. (Actually "US English" is also an umbrella term. There's as much of a difference in the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation between the US Englishes used in Newark and Baton Rouge as there is between British English and "Irish English".)

That's why I preserved this English language varieties article in my user space. -- Alice^✉ 00:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

How do other feel about moving it back to "English language varieties"? To me it seems obvious that is a better title. Part of the reason is that I'm a native English speaker but not of either an American or a British variant. Another point is that neither the US not the UK has one variant everywhere. Pashley (talk) 00:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

No comment in two months. Does anyone want to object before I move it? Pashley (talk) 00:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Another month without comment. I have now moved it. Pashley (talk) 23:39, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Alice^✉ 14:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Too much detail?

The first sentence on this page is "The article is intentionally brief because Wikivoyage is about travel, not linguistics." That is clearly correct, but have we put in too much?

I added discussion of dialects with/without post-vocalic 'r'. Is that actually likely to be useful to a traveller? I put it in because it is important in any linguistic study of English dialects, but if it cannot help travellers, it should go.

Does anyone care if "burrough" may be pronounced differently? Or that some terms were once trademarks? Even if some do, do those things matter for travel? I'd say obviously not, so delete them.

The current text on Canadian English is the longest paragraph in the introduction. I think all it needs is "Canadian English is quite similar to American in accent and in most word choices, but Canadians use Commonwealth spelling for most words." That is all a traveller needs to know, and specific words are dealt with later.

Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 02:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the length is fine. While you're right that a traveler doesn't need to know that laundromat used to be a trademark, it's probably not worth spending time on. If you do delete any information, please don't delete any of the paired words, which are informative - or at least not without bringing them up individually. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:21, 12 April 2013 (UTC)