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The examples here are hilarious. > Angels & Airwaves: Forty-six reverts in one hour by two editors. The point of contention? Whether "Angels & Airwaves" is a b
by willio58 7y ago
The examples here are hilarious.
> Angels & Airwaves: Forty-six reverts in one hour by two editors. The point of contention? Whether "Angels & Airwaves" is a band or "Angels & Airwaves" are a band. (British English requires "are", as the band comprises multiple people, while American English requires "is", as the band is a singular entity.) ALL-CAPS edit summaries laced with profanity and death threats liberally employed by one side.
- keiferski 7y agoIt's my impression that most articles on Wikipedia are written in American English, except for ones specifically relating to Britain. Is that correct?
- bawolff 7y agoBasically, the first person to write an article gets to choose unless its something related to a particular region. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Nati...
- keiferski 7y agoInteresting, thanks.
- quietbritishjim 7y agoInfamously including the British English spelling of "colour" in the article "Orange (colour)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour)
- KMag 7y agoAhh, yes, the HMS Rururu set alight in Boston harbor while unloading a bunch of printed Us and loading up a cargo of spoken Rs. To this day, Americans are almost as stingy with their written Us as the Brits are with their spoken Rs.
- juped 7y ago"British spellings" are an affectation Brits developed to make their language look more French and therefore more prestigious; Americans, who know we're the equals of France, kept the older spellings as recorded by Webster.
- LyndsySimon 7y agoThe "just so" story that I've heard is that post-colonial Americans have dropped the "u" from "-our" words for two reasons: efficiency, and to set them apart from the English. I was also under the impression that the "efficiency" argument was at least partially influenced by Thomas Jefferson. I just did a brief search and I wasn't able to find reference to this online, but from my visits to his home at Monticello I recall that he had a unique style of writing - for instance, he tended not to use capital letters in his personal notes. He seems like exactly the kind of person who would have been vocally in favor of dropping unvocalized letters from words.
- juped 7y agoThe 'u's are attributable to Dr. Johnson (and his desire to make English seem more French and therefore prestigious), but by the 18th century the cultures of Britain and America had diverged quite a bit. No 'u's were ever dropped - they were added - so I doubt this story. (Americans definitely liked setting ourselves apart, though.)
- Svip 7y agoWhich is why the article about GTA4, for instance, specifically mentions it is written in British English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grand_Theft_Auto_IV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grand_Theft_Auto_IV
- emmelaich 7y agoTime to start an en-gb wikipedia! (or is it en-uk? Hmmm)
- robin_reala 7y agoIt’s en-GB; Northern Ireland gets no say in language specification. (en-UK would be the hypothetical Ukrainian variant of English.)
- keiferski 7y agoOddly enough the Ukraine metaphor is pretty apt when comparing English to Russian, considering that Eastern Slavic languages came out of Kyiv / Kievan Rus civilization, just as American English originated in England.
- MichaelMoser123 7y agonow that would imply that England would have to conquer (the) Ukraine in the event that Scotland quits. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707 )
- robin_reala 7y agoWouldn’t be the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War
- OJFord 7y agoI doubt the names would change, personally, but even if they did it would presumably be to 'United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland' (ordering up for hot debate, I'm sure, here I've just replaced GB with consitituents, alphabetised, and removed Scotland ;)) - still a UK. But I don't think that would happen because I don't see why Scotland would want to leave the UK but cling to 'we are still in GB -- no-no, it's geographical guys'. You don't hear the Republic of Ireland self-descring as 'in the British Isles' much, that I'm aware of.
- mehrdadn 7y agoI had no idea this is different in BrE and AmE! What are some other such grammatical differences?
- pilaf 7y agoNot a native English speaker, bit I think got (Br) vs. gotten (Am)? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gotten https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gotten
- loeg 7y agoAmE definitely uses both. "I got sick" or "I've gotten sick" are both understandable.
- ziftface 7y agoI think this is in reference to the past perfect tense specifically. So "I have gotten sick" vs "I have got sick". I don't know if the latter is actually used in British English, but it's my understanding that the former would never be used since it's grammatically incorrect in that dialect.
- kentosi 7y agoAustralian here and we definitely use "gotten": - I've gotten to know him. - I hadn't gotten the concept yet, but then ... etc. I think it's the British that have lost the use of "gotten" in favour of "got".
- petjuh 7y agoOK, I had to search for the edits themselves, they're at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angels_%26_Airwaves&offset=20060222015316&limit=50&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angels_%26_Airwav... Here's a sample: 23:37, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - FOR THE LAST TIME, STOP AND DON'T COME BACK! undo 23:35, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - TYKELL, CAN YOU DO ME A FAVOR? DIE! undo 23:34, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - crying PLEASE STOP, PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU crying undo 23:33, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - I HAVE A GUN, I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU NOW! shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot undo 23:31, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - YOU REALLY HAVE TO STOP, FOR THE VERY LAST TIME, STOP OR I'LL KILL YOU! undo 23:30, 21 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 12,196 bytes +1 Reverted edits by Tykell to last version by Alex 101 - I KNOW YOU DON'T WANT TO STOP, BUT YOU HAVE TO STOP undo
- MichaelMoser123 7y agoi think that might actually be the way how they start real wars in the real world.
- Juliate 7y agoIt almost reads like lyrics of a comedy song.
- GrumpyNl 7y agoSouthpark comes to to mind with the super trolls
- smcl 7y agoIt looks like it dies down shortly afterwards but the next day someone gets unblocked ... 00:09, 23 February 2006 Tykell talk contribs 11,705 bytes -1 No, we can't. Don't you know when to quit, kid? undo 23:42, 22 February 2006 Alex 101 talk contribs 11,706 bytes +1 now that I'm unblocked and this page is unprotected we can change it undo I think if you're all-caps screaming you've lost the argument, and seeing this I'm actually quite embarrassed for the guy. Personally I think "$band is good" or "$team is winning" does sound a bit silly, but I've seen it so many times that I'm kinda used to it. Besides I suspect the same is true for an American hearing "$band are good" or "$team are winning". Either way it definitely doesn't warrant losing your cool like this.
- randyrand 7y agoThe Beatles are sounds more correct to me.
- INTPenis 7y agoWhat about Nirvana? Or Metallica? I think in the case of "The Beatles" it's clear cut because it sounds like you're talking about insects. But in other cases I think both sound ok because you could either be talking about a group of people, or a movement or a brand.
- nfg 7y agoAll I can say as a speaker of non-US English is that “Metallica is” and “Nirvana is” still sound completely wrong to my ear.
- vanderZwan 7y agoAs non-native speaker I think I'd intuitively go with “Metallica is” and “Nirvana is”, but “The Beatles are”. I guess my brain is more wired towards whether the name itself is plural or not.
- ajuc 7y agoSame, but I realized I'm just going with my native language rules on that one.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoCongrats, you're American.
- roelschroeven 7y agoWhat about "Dire Straits"? Also plural, but grammatically completely different from "The Beatles" (by which I mean: you could say that John Lennon was a Beatle, but you can't refer to Mark Knopfler as a Dire Strait)
- galuggus 7y agoIt's quite useful. For example Brazil ARE the best (refers to the Brazilian football team). Whereas Brazil IS the best refers to the country. Chelsea is good could refer to the place or a person. Chelsea are good refers to the team.
- DFHippie 7y agoSingle sentence utterances like this are rare. In context this distinction doesn't actually provide non-redundant information. So calling this "quite useful" is a bit of a stretch.
- dan-robertson 7y agoIt is however generally useful to have lots of redundancy in speech. It can help to sort out mishearings and misspeakings. Similarly in handwritten text.
- jccalhoun 7y agoI've noticed there is also seems to be debate over present vs past tense. I've looked up a few bands to see if they were still active and sometimes it seems like they still use "is" instead of "was" but sometimes they do use "was."
- cryptica 7y agoI actually prefer the American reasoning but 'are' is still OK in both cases because you can substitute "Angels & Airwaves" by 'singular they'. E.g. "Angels & Airwaves is a band. Some would say that they are a great band." or "The editor became frustrated because they could not understand the logic".
- 6510 7y agoIf they are 2 languages they shouldn't share a wiki. It could be heavily interlinked but duplicating an article into the British English wiki doesn't seem like a problem (all language wikipedias do it) Other language wikipedias also value topics differently. A British English wikipedia would prefer citations from Britain. In many national cases it would merit having more than one article or articles of different opinion.
- poutrathor 7y agosilly though ! and which wikipedia would be in English while the other pages are in American English (or in British English). I mean, neither side would accept their language name to be prefixed ; they are already infighting about what's the correct way to speak English.
- 6510 7y agoSimply US vs UK ?