Talk:English in the Commonwealth/Archive 1

message: "Historical ties with Britain tend to pull Canadian spelling in that direction; physical proximity with the United States has tended to pull it towards the American standard. As a result, Canadian spelling has tended to waver between the two, taking some of each."  i think this is bad grammar but can't think how to change it. Can anyone help. 18:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: Has anyone seen any surveys on the respective popularity of both, among non-native English speakers? It would help to resolve an amicable dispute at talk:Football (word). Thanks. Grant65 | Talk 01:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Commonwealth v U.S. English

message: We all know there is no such thing as Commonwealth English.
There is British English, American English, and an English for each country that has English has its primary language (e.g. Australian English, Canadian English etc.).
Attempting to lump all the pseudo-British Englishes under the common label 'Commonwealth English' is aggregation for aggregation's sake.  They don't need to be aggregated.  They each
have their own quirks, and will sit somewhere on the spectrum from BE to AE. They are individual locations on that spectrum; aggregating them is pointless.
Who cares what Commonwealth English is?  Nobody, since nobody thinks 'what is the correct spelling for [...] in Commonwealth English?'.  Is there a Commonwealth English dictionary?
No. For which reason, there should not be a wikipedia page on Commonwealth English. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.163.107.34 (talk) 12:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's it, exactly.  According to Google, this term appears to be chiefly a Wikipedia shibboleth, likely popularized by people who know a lot about computers and little about the English language. —JackLumber /tɔk/ 13:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

text: One of the funniest uses of this term on Wikipedia:  —JackLumber /tɔk/ 13:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, you think it's funny, you wrote it.  :)  Or did you actually mean that you thought what you were reverting (anachronistic use of the 1926 term "Commonwealth" (as in "Commonwealth of Nations") to describe dictionaries extant 98 years earlier in 1828) was funny?    — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 10:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, wasn't it?  There has never been a "commowealth English dictionary,"  let alone 98 years before the British Commonwealth came into being!  —JackLumber /tɔk/ 17:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is ridiculous. 

message: I oppose deletion on the grounds that I have come across the term before, although it is not very common, it is not just a wikipedia invention.  It may have been coined by Linux programmers, but that does not make it invalid, it gives it a certain legitimacy.  The term may be problematic, the article may be unreferenced, but you could say that of a lot of other articles. PatGallacher 18:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yet that doesn't give it notability.  Books like McArthur's Oxford Companion to the English Language, Crystal's English as a Global Language, Peters's Cambridge Guide, or Trudgill's International English make no mention of it.  The exact definition of the term is not clear, either---and no one else has actually defined it so far.  The only reliable reference I have found states in fact that such a thing doesn't exist! —JackLumber/tɔk/ 21:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose deletion