Talk:British English/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Provocative, Controversial Language

The British English article is in grave need of refinement. In its current state, it pushes the limits of factual accuracy, with often provocative language. The history of this talk page (Example: Talk:British_English#This_is_ridiculous) is a testament to the generally provocative nature of this controversy.

Given the first sentence of the article as an example:

British English or Proper English is the original form of the English language all other forms of the language are dialects such as American English.

This seems to me to be a deliberately provocative statement, defining British English as the overarching language, as opposed to the English language. I would debate that British English and American English are both sets of dialects (in keeping with the definition of English English as a dialect within British English), neither comprising an entire language. To say that all forms of modern English are derived from British English would be oversimplifying and stretching the rather complex history of the English language—hardly the words of encyclopedic nature. (This sentence is also obviously lacking grammatical integrity, but that is not really what I am bringing to attention.)

However, others here have been debating, with perfect validity—example—that British English is synonymous to English English, and the definition implied in British English does not reflect general consensus.

Here is a (by no means complete) list of other factual discrepancies:

• Many of the citations are only relevant to the text immediately preceding them. This would not be a problem if it did not leave much of the article without appropriate citations. In the following copy of the first paragraph, bold text is linked to a citation, and italicized text comprises the actual citations. In this seemingly well-cited paragraph, many of the key facts remain without a citation.

  British English or Proper English is the original form of the English language all other forms of the language are dialects such as American English. This is also known as BrEn, BrE,BE, en-UK or en-GB^[1] is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere.^{[2] - scope unclear} The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English "as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain", reserving "Hiberno-English" for the "English language as spoken and written in Ireland".^[3] Nevertheless, Hiberno-English forms part of the broad British English continuum. Others, such as the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, define it as the "English language as it spoken and written in England."^[4]

  Citations:

  1. From the <ref> tag: en-GB is the language code for British English , as defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag).
  2. "Peters, p. 79." Presumably refers to a listed reference: Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
  3. "British English; Hiberno-English". Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1989.
  4. Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary
• 2 Dialects → 2.1 Regional provides information about Received Pronunciation, which can be compared—or contrasted—to respective information in Received Pronunciation article.
• 2 Dialects spends much text discussing the results of a survey without providing the background of the survey or justifying its significance. This is not necessarily controversial or provocative, but certainly makes that portion of the article difficult to understand.
• The Survey of English Dialects article notes that the survey only amassed information regarding various accents of the English English dialect, mostly from within England. This undermines the importance of the other dialects, and along with 2 Dialects → 2.1 Regional, helps to center 2 Dialects specifically on the accents of the English English dialect. Only the introductory paragraph makes mention of dialects other than English English.
• Nowhere does this article establish with citations the definition of "British English". I have been going along with the implied definition that British English is a set of dialects including those spoken within the various countries of the United Kingdom. There is certainly room to question whether "British English" is a suitable term for this definition, and I am sure that the matter would prove quite controversial, especially among individuals from the United Kingdom.

Possible Solutions

A good solution would probably include a combination of individual solution elements listed below. Without bias toward any particular solution:

1. The article could be deleted. This seems to have been performed previously, based on talk page discussion. The article is sizable enough that a significant amount of information would be lost; the debate would be whether this information is suitable for Wikipedia.
2. English English could be merged into this article, and much of the content in the existing British English article moved into a resulting English English section.
3. Much of the content in the British English article could be moved under an English English (or similar) header, thereby disambiguating many of the existing statements.
4. British English could be moved to a more suitable name to fit the implied definition of "the set of English language dialects spoken within the countries comprising the United Kingdom".
5. The definition of British English could be more formally established, along with the citation of significant, notable, and neutral sources. (A professor's webpage would be insufficiently notable and neutral, and a language-/British-related project's webpage would not provide the consensus implied by neutrality. Seeing as this is internally controversial, a reference book edited in the United Kingdom would also be too biased.)
6. The tone of the article could be changed by removing or altering certain statements, such as the first sentence.

Personal Opinion

I do not find deleting the article again to be a constructive idea.

English English should remain a separate article, as other dialects within the so-called British English set remain separate. However, I do promote the idea of an "English English" header within British English, along with a header for each of the other dialects. A brief summary English English could could go there, with a "Main Article" pointer to English English. Much of the information within British English as it currently stands should be transfered to more appropriate pages: for example, information about the Survey of English Dialects should remain in its own article and on English English.

Perhaps "UK English" would be a more appropriate name for the article. I have always heard "British English" in direct reference to "English English". I am American, so that should be a pretty neutral indication of the global definition. That being said, if multiple definitions are in use, which they same to be, a disambiguation page should be used.

Zenexer 15:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment

The first sentence of the article was changed yesterday in this edit. It seems like simple vandalism to me, so I've reverted it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:06, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I considered removing it, but as I was calling various aspects of the article into question, it didn't seem appropriate for me to go in and start editing out bits that weren't blatant vandalism. As there is a hint of historical truth to the statement in question, I think that it could have been added in good faith. It demonstrates a lack of knowledge on the topic more than anything, which in my opinion, makes it worth editing out. I don't really have enough experience editing Wikipedia to make that sort of direct call, though. Zenexer 16:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

"(A professor's webpage would be insufficiently notable and neutral, and a language-/British-related project's webpage would not provide the consensus implied by neutrality. Seeing as this is internally controversial, a reference book edited in the United Kingdom would also be too biased.)"

This article does need to be changed, the change would in fact be to use the correct description of the language rather than any remove any supposed bias. The Spanish opinion of Spanish is not invalid, neither should the English opinion of English. The English being those that make up the British speakers. English is correct for their version. The language that the English speak should be named as such.

"I am American, so that should be a pretty neutral indication of the global definition. That being said, if multiple definitions are in use, which they same to be, a disambiguation page should be used." This is not neutrality, U.S English is the primary cause of the title extension being needed. An American is the most biased of all, it is the American use of the word 'British' to describe the English that has led people to be incapable of understanding who they are discussing. When you are talking about the British in this thread, you are talking almost entirely about the English (particularly if the other associated languages of the Welsh and Scottish are taken into account, leaving the English solely with English) therefore replacing the use of British in the talk page discussion with English makes the resolution blindingly obvious. The ridiculous idea that the English are second hand users like the Australians or Americans is out of place on wikipedia. The argument that the modern version of language isn't the same as the original and so cannot be simply called English is invalid. The same rules rightly are not applied to Italian, Spanish or French. Applying this incorrect description to English because of another incorrect use of words just heightens the ridiculousness. The wiki page is currently incorrect. Equinos (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Why? Just Why?

Why is BRITISH and AMERICAN English compared in info box. American English is irrelevant on this page. --Warner REBORN (talk) 12:26, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I would say that a comparison between the two major branches of English would be relevant to both of them. This infobox is on the American English page as well. The actual problem here is that the British English page does not have an infobox about just itself the way the American English page has one about just American English. --Khajidha (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

2nd paragraph of the lede

Am I the only one who's got no idea what that paragraph is all about? 31.153.94.214 (talk) 18:43, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, it was vandalised. Not that it made a whole lot of sense in the first place, mind you. 31.153.94.214 (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense title

English is English, it is as simple as that. I certainly see justification for articles about bastardised versions of English, such as American English, Australian English etc, but to say "British English" is just wrong. English is the source, it requires no additional words in its title.Yevad (talk) 13:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Yea, but you know how it is with americans and such...thinking they own the fucking world all the time.. <.< 178.174.232.139 (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

...Different spelling forms (U and non-U as Nancy Mitford might have put it), different words (and sometimes concepts) (Scottish 'upwith') and different grammar ('to write someone' or to write to someone' etc.

With the 'This is written in British English' message should it not be '...different [to] or absent from...' (which sounds better in London English)? Jackiespeel (talk) 13:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Moved page to English (UK). Still should be called English, but at least this regains the page a little of what it deserves. Jackiespeel, you could create a London English page. --Warner REBORN (talk) 12:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

agreed. english is the common name of the language, British is redundant. a few words like aeroplane are commonly misspelled/mispronounced outside the UK, yet not enough to justify the title. Darkstar1st (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Baby shower

Whilst originally this word may very well have come from the US, I would say, based on my own experiences, that this has become fairly common in the UK. Google seems to agree, giving me a long list of hits for the search words: "baby shower" site:co.uk. 90.196.220.148 (talk) 12:53, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

English

Shouldn't this just be titled English? It's a bit offensive to claim a people's language is just a variant. There isn't a French French page, the French of France is just considered the original. Its quite racist to appropriate someone else's culture.

Actually there IS a "French French" page. It's called Standard French because French is a regulated language which recognizes the dialect of the home country as the norm. English is NOT a regulated language and all dialects are equally recognized. In linguistics all forms of English are variants with no one form being seen as the original, much as in chemistry all nuclides are considered isotopes with no non-variant form for any element or how in biology the two cells formed in the process of mitotic division are both considered "daughter cells" with neither being the original. British English and American English (not to mention all the other forms) have each diverged since their separation, neither can lay claim to being the "pure" original. And I fail to see how this could be "racist" as neither English (the nationality) or American are races. --Khajidha (talk) 13:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

KJV would be for?

British English and Archaic English would be seen in King James Bible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.209.65.144 (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Irish English

Is the English spoken in the Republic of Ireland considered British English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Optimistic Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 22:13, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Whether X is considered Y always depends on who it is that's considering it. A term exists specifically for the forms of English native to Ireland though, which is Hiberno-English. 178.16.2.125 (talk) 22:41, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Varieties or Dialects

"When distinguished from American English, the term "British English" is sometimes used broadly as a synonym for the various dialects of English spoken in some member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, excluding those which have separate and long-standardised dialects of their own such as Australia and Canada." Would the word varieties be better here due to the forms being too similar to count as dialects? Speakers of British and American varieties of English generally understand each other right down to the level of nuance rather than only with difficulty as would be the case with a dialect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.80.53 (talk) 11:27, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. There are certainly many dialects of English in Britain, or at least this is the term used to commonly describe them. I would have thought "variety" is more broad term, with British English and American English being "varieties", while regional accents within these are "dialects". So while there is a British and American dialect, there are other differences that make the two forms separate varieties of English, that might not be prevalent with regional dialects within Britain or America, for example spelling. So I would agree with changing the second instance of "dialect" to "varieties", but for entirely different reasoning. Rob984 (talk) 23:50, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Regional - Oxbridge

How about adding Oxford and Cambridge (University) accents? Oxford is very different from Received Pronunciation, and Cambridge, while closer to RP, is immediately recognizeable to one familiar with it (think John Cleese or Jonathan Miller). Or is that getting too detailed? I would also love to know whether Winston Churchill's unmistakeable accent belongs to a recognized class or region, e.g. "Edwardian" or "Late Victorian RP". D A Patriarche, BSc 06:56, 24 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by D A Patriarche (talk • contribs)

Removal of upper class

This text is from the article Received Pronunciation (RP):

Beverley Collins and Inger Mees use the term "Non-Regional Pronunciation" for what is often otherwise called RP, and reserve the term "Received Pronunciation" for the "upper-class speech of the twentieth century". Received Pronunciation has sometimes been called "Oxford English", as it used to be the accent of most members of the University of Oxford. The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association uses the name "Standard Southern British". Page 4 reads:

Standard Southern British (where 'Standard' should not be taken as implying a value judgment of 'correctness') is the modern equivalent of what has been called 'Received Pronunciation' ('RP'). It is an accent of the south east of England which operates as a prestige norm there and (to varying degrees) in other parts of the British Isles and beyond.

Collins and Mees consider RP to be "upper-class speech of the twentieth century", but others do not as the quote shows "prestige norm" does not automatically mean upper-class, particularly if one uses the descriptions in Wikipedia by following the links to the (bad) articles on Wikipedia about the upper class eg Upper Class#British Isles and colonies and social_structure_of_the_United_Kingdom#Upper_class. If a foreigner was to follow the links )(s)he would assume that only people with a seat (or their younger siblings) spoke RP. That is not the case. Given the section in which RP is discussed it is more usegul to explain that it is a form of standard English that is region-less accent and is the English usually taught to foreigners.

A an asides I have often found that the best speakers of standard English come from Scandinavia. The best speakers from Scandinavia speek a from of English that I can not place (either by region, or that they are foreign). Recently I was speaking to a Lithuanian girl of 15 (the daughter of Lithuanian expats), who has spent all her childhood going to state schools predominantly in east London, with a year in Bournemouth, and more recently in Essex. Her parents both speak with heavy foreign accents, Her accent does not sound foreign and is region-less, and she is not upper class. There are many people who speak Standard English who are not upper class of which she is one example.

References

-- PBS (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

PeerReview Suggestions

Article looks clean. I always believe less is more. Possibly add a phonetic chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rorschaq (talk • contribs) 22:53, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Oxford?

It uses -ize instead of -ise like Realize, etc. 124.106.140.87 (talk) 22:17, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Some errors in the article

I'm new here so sorry if I'm not doing this the right way.

This article has a couple of mistakes. I tried to correct them but they got reverted. Then I tried to message the reverter but that message got reverted for "POV pushing" - whatever that means :-/

1) R-dropping section implies that Northern Ireland is a part of Britain. "In most areas of Britain outside Scotland and Northern Ireland". This is incorrect.

"Britain" refers to "Great Britain", which is an island land mass. Northern Ireland, as it's name suggests is situated on the island of Ireland, and therefore not part of the island of Great Britain.

It would be fine to say that Northern Ireland is a part of "the United Kingdom", which is shorthand for "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

I think that sentence either needs to drop "Northern Ireland", or replace "Britain" with "the United Kingdom".

2) The article repeatedly refers to "Britain". It would be more correct to say "Great Britain", though I guess this is a matter of taste. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.208.181 (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Britain is commonly used as shorthand for the UK (check out the talk section of the 'UK' wikipedia article if you dont believe me) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Phonological chart

Article should have a phonology chart, and I'm suggesting a phonological chart which compares British English with American English, as people coming to learn English may have a sense of the American English as the standard, such that would make a good reference. -Inowen (nlfte) 23:43, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

why would they get that sense? surely everyone knows English originates in England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 17:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

New Zeland English?

Are there any occasions where it is acceptable to write in New Zealand English? Thanks Jeff Loveland 1970 (talk) 12:34, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

vague pronunciation chart

The dialect section contains a chart that shows the distribution of different pronunciations of the bath, grass, and dance vowels. Someone just changed the IPA values for it without a source. The problem is that the chart itself doesn't have IPA, nor is there even a source to be found. Can anyone come up with a proper source that lists the actual pronunciation in IPA and not just a spelling representation that everyone interprets differently? If not, I'll go ahead and delete it.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:50, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

As nobody responded, I have removed it for now.--Megaman en m (talk) 10:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

-ise/-ize spellings

In the absence of a consensus on which version to use per MOS:RETAIN, we should use the "first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety" of English. By my reckoning it is this: [1]. The -ise spelling is used in the word "standardised" so we can identify standard British English (as opposed to Oxford spelling) as the variety of English used in the article. Tammbeck (talk) 09:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this to the talk page. I am a little confused as I thought you reverted my edit to retain the 'ize' spelling and not 'ise'. The link you give above is evidence that 'ise' should be used. Also the manual of style states a number of things that would support using the 'ise' spelling, namely: MOS:SPELL states 'ise' is the more common variation in British English. WP:ISE states that 'ise' is more commonly used by European, Commonwealth and British organisations as well as major British publications. I realise both variations are used and there is no definitive answer to the usage but the more common one seems to be 'ise' so this would seem to be the one we should use here. Thanks. Robynthehode (talk) 10:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I reverted your edit in an attempt to follow policy, not in an attempt to use any particular spelling. On closer examination the rules set out in MOS:RETAIN favour "-ise" in this case. Had the "first post-stub revision" used "-ize" then Oxford spelling should have been used throughout. Tammbeck (talk) 10:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Although 'ize' would need to have been used I would have argued against this for the reasons above in an attempt to reach a reasoned consensus based on common usage and not a slavish adherence to policy. But this is moot now. Thanks Robynthehode (talk) 11:02, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The empty section

Should that empty section be removed? It seems rather pointless. AriTheHorse 01:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

"British variant" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect British variant. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2#British variant until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 11:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zoe1117. Peer reviewers: Rorschaq.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:16, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): George David Douglas.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

BrE??

I have never seen this abbreviation ever used for British English, it's often "English (British)" "EN-GB". It should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marccarran (talk • contribs) 17:29, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• The OED uses this abbreviation. Summer ^talk 20:47, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Realise/ize

There's a picture on here comparing spelling differences between the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada. It says the UK sometimes uses the USA's 'ize' ending for words like 'realise'. I'm a Brit and have never seen this happen, nor have I known anyone to use it or even heard of the like. Surely it's inaccurate? Dyaluk08 (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

It's called Oxford spelling. It's common enough in certain academic imprints, but isn't 'standard' British English. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the source of the image, the table appears to be original research. I couldn't find any citations on the Commons page it originated from, albeit my unfamiliarity with Commons might be at fault there.

I was curious as to what the source was, because Australian spelling is not at all consistent. Academia accepts either US or UK spelling, but the media and government almost exclusively use UK spelling. Except that in reality many UK spellings like gaol and programme aren't used by even the militantly pro UK spellers. Others use gray and skeptical without realising those are American spelling.

On top of that, so much software defaults to US spelling that many Australians end up using it rather than having to constantly change settings to UK - or they don't even realize they're using US spelling.

I'm not editing the article or image, I'm just raising this issue for anyone who is also sceptical of the table. 124.170.147.15 (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2023 (UTC)