Template talk:American English

Hyphen

The language is called American English. Let's just move these templates to their proper names. Please discuss at template talk:British-English#Hyphen. —Michael Z. 2008-12-14 00:14 z

Flag

March 2011

Why the flag? --John (talk) 01:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

It shows the region of the variety of English in question. Seems reasonable most of the time, on non-country specific articles, on US specific articles. It only causes problems on articles specific to a non-US country. Perhaps a parameter should be added "US=no" to remove the flag in cases where it is about a country that is not the US. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 01:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

What additional info is conveyed by the flag over the text string American English? --John (talk) 02:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Confusion over the meaning of "American" without needing to click on the link. American (disambiguation) lists many. It also clears up that this is US English and not US+Canadian English. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 05:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you have evidence that a significant number of people who potentially will edit the article will be confused by the text string with link and will need the flag to figure out what American English means? --John (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Flags are also used on the other templates of this type, such as {{British English}}. Why single out this one? - BilCat (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's say this one caught my attention first. What is the flag doing here, beyond decoration? --John (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry I wasn't more clear, but I meant that the IP was addressing US-specific reasons for having the flag, but those reasons don't apply to the other templates. Given the fact they all use flags, it's obvious the flags are just for decoration, no matter how one might justify an individual use. - BilCat (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

• I do not believe it is desirable to flag-wave about varieties of English. The varieties do not even map well onto the anglophone nation states. It is contrary to our successful engvar guideline, too. Tony (talk) 07:40, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Could replace it with a map of the US or silhouette of the US instead... 184.144.160.156 (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
    • It's no different. If the article on, say, Japan, is written in AmEng (I haven't checked; it probably is), it seems singularly inappropriate to use the template with a US anything on it, except to state "American English". Same for the article on ... the Sun, or the Atlantic Ocean. A low-key statement about the variety of English is what is required. The same applies to all of the engvar templates—BrEng, IrEng, AusEng, etc. (I'd say the article on Papua New Guinea is probably in AusEng. Why the Australian flag on the language template?). Tony (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

MOS:ICON only applies to the article space, doesn't it? These boxes are being added to talk pages, just like wikiproject boxes, which also commonly have images in them. 117Avenue (talk) 03:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

This should be directed towards templates in articles like Template:American and British English differences.Moxy (talk) 03:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how a talk page notice would be usefully redirected to an article page template, or how it illustrates that an article is written in American English instead of Australian English. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 04:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about flags in talk temples will not get far - However talking about flag removal in article temples like Template:American and British English differences will get heard. As for needing parameters we have Category:Varieties of English templates - if one is missing we can make it.Moxy (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

• In which case I would be inclined to remove any flag-waving engvar template on a talk page, unless directly connected with the country whose flag is featured. Tony (talk) 06:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

that would be a correct move (if all done in good faith)- as per MOS:TIES "strong ties" and MOS:RETAIN "an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in". Moxy (talk) 07:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Tony about flags on articles not related to the nation it represents. I can't imagine wanting to slap a "Scottish English" template on an article that was not about, or had a very strong connection with Ecosse. MOS:RETAIN doubtless has its uses, but in practice the idea that anyone could create an article about a topic related to (say) France using numerous Scottish/Australian/Trinidadian words and phrases, slap a template on the talk page and expect to be taken seriously, is absurd. Ben MacDui 08:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree a flag should not used in such templates on articles unrelated to that country. I also don't see any great need for a flag on articles strongly related to that country either. Let's just remove the flags from the notices. --Avenue (talk) 09:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Since there is a convention for icons on talk page templates (and given that many share the same styling (colour etc.) how about replacing the flags with images bearing the ISO langage codes, e.g. en:us, en:nz etc? dramatic (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support - best idea i have heard yet - a solution nice.Moxy (talk) 00:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Good. It's an important template and should be usable in a flexible way. Could I put in a plea that it be reasonably small: looks huge at the moment. Tony (talk) 01:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Why do YOU use your flag in your similar box? Do you have some special privilege that allows you only to use it, but we cannot use ours? NorthernThunder (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Before "ANY" changes take place i believe all the projects that have templates they may be affected should be involved in this talk (no way this little talk will fly over with some of the projects) - I see that the IP did posts this at some related projects - but were all notified Category:Varieties of English templates - any Ozzies or south African etc... members here  ??Moxy (talk) 01:25, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I did not inform all of them, only the larger ones with seemingly more active populations. I informed Canada, Scotland, UK, India, Australia and US, IIRC. 184.144.166.85 (talk) 05:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

May 2011

Notice to editors: discussions ar also ongoing about the flags at Template talk:British English and Template talk:Hiberno-English.

The flag should be removed, since "American English" spelling is used outside the US as well. Flags should be removed from the other templates too. I could support Dramatic's idea. ~Asarlaí 10:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

See my comments at Template talk:British English. This whole issue being debated above does seem to stem from and Irish minority dislike of the Union Flag. I have been watching the overall flag debate recently and there are currently a number of editors pushing for flag removal all over the place and it does appaer to be linked to an Irish flags POV.WizOfOz (talk) 13:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Flags should be deleted from all language templates. Languages know no country borders. GoodDay (talk) 16:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree with GoodDay. "American English" is not confined within the country implied by the flag. Flags should be removed from these language templates. Daicaregos (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I shall make a suggestion here which I have already made on the British English talk page. It is unconventional but highly practical, visually-appealing and hopefully would serve to avoid geo-political controversies. Why not replace the Stars and Sripes with an image of Mark Twain, and likewise replace the Union Jack with William Shakespeare?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I support removing the flag from all the templates, as they are mostly dfecoration, but that decision can't be made here. Perhaps an RFC is in order. As to the images, Will is English - I doubt the Anti-British zealots will ever accept that! - BilCat (talk) 17:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

He personifies English literature which is apolitical. A flag is just the opposite.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:38, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection to British/Shakespeare, but I was just about to ask who you thought should decorate Scottish English. I hope any passing anti-Scottish zealots don't mind. :) Ben MacDui 17:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's easy: Robert Burns!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Anything British or English is anathema to these type of zealots. - BilCat (talk) 18:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Replacing the flags with pictures of people will only lead to more arguing. If we must replace the flags with somthing, I think Sswonk's proposal is best. ~Asarlaí 18:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Assuming you mean File:Globe of letters.svg that's fine by me too. I do like the idea of Will and Rabbie, although a debating point is that neither spoke a form of modern English. Ben MacDui 18:12, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

No serious objections to the flag's removal have been made. A bold move seems in order. Daicaregos (talk) 07:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I seriously object to the flag being removed. The US flag indicates this version of the language originates in the United States as opposed to anywhere else in the Americas. While the original poster in this thread appears to have his own reasons for removing the flag (he maybe just doesn't like flags), the debate has been hijacked by others who quite possibly have nationalistic views on the matter. It's possible that much of the anti-flag movement can be traced back to editors who wish to remove British flags and because they can't remove only the Union Jack their fallback position is to try and get rid of all flags. LevenBoy (talk) 11:40, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks more like a case of damned if they do and damned if they don't. Unnecessary use of state symbols for unrelated issues should be avoided. It only leads to drama. RashersTierney (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

So what about British Columbia? Constitutional monarchy is underestimated, imho. What are alternatives? AgadaUrbanit (talk) 12:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason to make the nationalists happy --Guerillero | My Talk 16:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I suggested that an image incorporating the Rosetta stone might be acceptable as a common alternative to flag icons at these templates - see Template talk:Hiberno-English.

• , Other 'non-state' images have also been suggested there. Thoughts? RashersTierney (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Well no, if you don't mind me saying so. Who knows about that stone? So instead of addressing the subject of an article editors would think "what the hell's that" and then have to click on the image to find out. Quite ridiculous. The campaign against flags goes on, and I'm convinced it's really all about getting rid of British and some Irish flags. LevenBoy (talk) 15:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I think, if we must replace the flags, somthing simple like the File:Globe of letters.svg is the best choice. LevenBoy, you should address the arguments rather than just sitting back and claiming this is a conspiracy against certain flags. That's assuming bad faith. ~Asarlaí 15:57, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

You mean AGF is more important than stating facts? Have a look around at the editors who are right now causing edit wars all over the place by their persistent removal of flags. What are we to make of it? LevenBoy (talk) 16:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't be coy. Who exactly are these edit warriors? RashersTierney (talk) 16:20, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

As suggested at Template talk:British English, there is a centralised discussion regarding alternatives to flag icons on these templates. It is located at the MOS Talk Page. RashersTierney (talk) 18:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Strongly oppose the removal of the American flag. Why can American English not be represented by the American flag? This political correctness is silly. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Use on talk pages

Please notice that I just now added the template to this talk page. Why? Because even though the template describes itself as being an article-related template we see it on many, many talk pages. Using it so only clutters talk page headings. Can we change the documentation of the template so that it is limited to article pages only? (This request applies to UK, Indian, Australian English templates too.) – S. Rich (talk) 05:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

It's a talk page notice, and it not designed for use in articles themselves. Perhaps the notice can be reworded to make that clear. - BilCat (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, I think I have confused myself over a minor issue. If it said "The text in this article uses American English... " I may have understood better. In the words of the great Emily Litella (who was once my mentor) – "Never mind". – S. Rich (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Suggested link change

Suggest this links directly to Varieties of English instead of List of dialects of the English language via a pipe appearing as "varieties of English". - Brianhe (talk) 14:54, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Change docs to discourage pointless use of this template

We should change this text: "This template may be included on talk pages or editnotices to alert other editors that the associated article is written in American English. Usually, the article either has evolved using predominantly this variety or has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation that uses this variety."

Replace with: "This template may be included on talk pages or editnotices to alert other editors that the associated article is written in American English. It is not necessary when the English variety is obvious. It is meant for cases when there is no obvious, strong reason to use US English, and the choice of US English is circumstantial, per MOS:RETAIN "Retaining the existing variety", or the reasons for choosing US English were ambiguous, or were the result of a dispute, perhaps under the criteria "Opportunities for commonality" or "Consistency within articles" criteria of the Manual of Style's National varieties of English." (A less wordy way of saying the same thing is welcome.)

It's really pointless to have {{American English}}, {{British English}}, etc, in places like Talk:American football, Talk:California, Talk:Great Britain, or (seriously???) Talk:British English. The reason we have these templates is for edge cases and corner cases. It's not a contest to see who can put the most crap at the top of their talk page. They're talk pages. The purpose is discussion. The more cruft you have to scroll past at the top, the more you are impeding the goal of talk pages. Templates like {{American English}} or {{British English}} are important and helpful, but not for stating the obvious. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:12, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Generally agreed. We did an informal survey of usage, and found that some particular borderline obsessive editors have been relentlessly tagging thousands upon thousands of pages with these and related templates for no legitimate reason, just a "claim-staking" WP:OWN activity, and it needs to stop.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

In my experience, many of the editors making these kinds of additions are simply newer editors looking for something useful to do. They've seen these tags on other articles, and so think they are helping out by adding them where they appear to be needed. Calling such activity "claim-staking", without any qualifications, seems a little "bite-y" to me. - BilCat (talk) 05:27, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Some articles that don't have dialects have these templates arbitrarily added to them without discussion, such as the Democracy and International Space Station articles. It's like a way of quietly forcing an article into a person's preferred dialect without any consensus. To complicate things further, there are scripts to change to British English but not to change back to American English, meaning it can often be hard to reverse the changes if there are any intermediate edits. If an article didn't have a dialect originally (i.e. had a mixture of spellings), then there is no way to convert back, even if there were a script for American English. Master of Time (talk) 01:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Doc

Where is this documentation being pulled from, and why is it not editable here? That needs fixing, since it's a maintenance impediment. The "See also" sections at these things need a pointer to the "Use X English" templates, like the "See also" section at Template:English variant notice/doc, as the first item in the section, since more often than not, those are the templates people are actually looking for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:21, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

It looks like Template:English variant notice is the meta-template, and Template:English variant notice/doc is the document page for this one, and is accessible from there. I don't know if the doc can be made accessible from here or not. - BilCat (talk) 04:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I noticed a similar but different template at Template:English variant notice/documentation; perhaps this is the one you're looking for. Master of Time (talk) 05:04, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Realize is acceptable in British English

Of the four words used by this template as examples of American English - labor, traveled, realize and defense - realize doesn't really help to differentiate American English from British English, where both spellings (-ize and -ise) are acceptable. It's the same with defense to lesser degree; both spellings (-se and -ce) are used in both American and British English. I suggest changing the examples to labor, traveled, color and aluminum, where the differences are more clearly established. nagualdesign 00:01, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Having received no response, I boldly edited the template myself. I also made a similar edit to Template:British English. I hope that's okay. nagualdesign 21:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Punctuation

I've just been apprised that even when using American English, Wikipedia requires British punctuation. I wish this were changed, so that we consistently put commas and periods inside quotation marks, but if that doesn't happen, I think the detail should be added to the template. Otherwise, what's a poor American to do? How would we know we're supposed to break our own rules? YoPienso (talk) 00:09, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 September 2020

Change the following:

|spelling_examples = ''color'', ''labor'', ''traveled''

To the following:

|spelling_examples = ''color'', ''traveled'', ''center'', ''realize'', ''defense'', ''artifact''

Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 07:30, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: aren't 3 examples sufficient? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:49, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Restarted the EREQ. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 15:19, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

@MSGJ: Three examples don't show the -ise vs -ize, -ence vs -ense distinctions between US and UK. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 15:21, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

@MSGJ: see {{British English}}. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 05:29, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:27, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Convert all English variant notices to editnotices

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Convert all English variant notices to editnotices. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:37, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Edit this template please

I wish I could add a statement to this template; this statement is that the AE rule does NOT apply to "always put commas and periods inside quotation marks". Likewise the BE template should say that the BE rule does NOT apply to "use single quotation marks in general and double quotation marks for quotations within quotations". Any thoughts here?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:08, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

"Template:American Engilsh" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Template:American Engilsh and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 25#Template:American Engilsh until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TartarTorte 19:43, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

English is not the official language of the United States

It is the official language in 31 or 32 out of the 50 states. T g7 (talk) 01:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)