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This is similar to getting upset that in various countries an apple is called “pomme”, “manzana”, “apple”, etc. Shouldn’t we call it by the name it’s called in
by School-Cotton 4y ago
This is similar to getting upset that in various countries an apple is called “pomme”, “manzana”, “apple”, etc. Shouldn’t we call it by the name it’s called in whichever country it was first cultivated?
In fact no, we shouldn’t, because different languages and dialects have different words for things, and that’s just a fact of life.
- lmm 4y agoIf you're speaking a different language, using a different word is fine. But if you presume to claim to be speaking "English", then you should use the word they use in England.
- School-Cotton 4y agoI claim to speak American English. I don’t recognize any dialect of English, including my own, as the primary one that all others have to follow, because English is a pluricentric language. I’ll never tell someone from England, Ireland, Australia, India, Zimbabwe etc. that their version of English is wrong, and they shouldn’t tell me that mine is either. This phenomenon isn’t unique to English, by the way. Every language spoken in more than one country (AFAIK) has some words that vary between countries. Your argument is a bit ridiculous IMO, it’s like saying neovim should merge every patch that gets merged to vim.
- sasattack 4y agoAnd yet you don't know that the term soccer comes from association football and was coined by the English
- lmm 4y agoI'm aware, I just don't consider it relevant.
- sasattack 4y ago
- lmm 4y agoI'm choosing to discard it precisely because it isn't relevant, as I said. When and where a word was coined implies nothing about what languages it is and isn't a part of today.
- School-Cotton 4y agoIndeed, but “soccer” is part of American English today. Why should we stop using a word just because people in a different country stopped using it? Is your argument really that we should speak identically to people in England, because the language happens to be called “English” ?
- lmm 4y agoI think you should either conform to English English, or treat American as a first-class language of its own (and e.g. start offering translated websites).