Talk:British English

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Former featured article candidateBritish English is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 19, 2004Refreshing brilliant proseNot kept

BrE??[edit]

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 (talkcontribs) 17:29, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Realise/ize[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

External link[edit]

I have found a video about British accents (20 British Accents in 1 Video), but I do not know whether Wikipedia will accept it. תיל"ם (talk) 15:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Generally no. See WP:UGC Robynthehode (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And what about this one: A Tour of The Accents of England? תיל"ם (talk) 13:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The dustbin[edit]

@Isochrone: This is my term for the parenthesised bit in the standard opening between the title of the article and the description of what it is. Here it contains three supposed alternative ways of writing "British English". I cannot see that any of them belongs here: "BrE" is a fairly common, and self-evident abbreviation; "en-GB" is an ISO 639-1 code for "English (UK)," which might or might not be the same as "British English", and "BE" is someone else's code. Anyone writing a dictionary is entitled to make up their own abbreviation, if they have such a category. I pinged user Isochrone because you put the Lexico reference next to the dustbin; I can't see anything at this reference other than an explanation that "British English" means the noun (language) "English" qualified by the adjective "British", so I don't really understand this. The objection to the dustbin is that it clutters the lead sentence, causing people like Google to cite the lead paragraph with anything in parenthesis omitted, sometimes seriously distorting the text. I suggest that mention of codes and abbreviations could be made further down the article. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Imaginatorium thanks, I moved the Lexico reference because someone on this talk said it was mentioned in the OED and I moved it without checking (oops). OED is on the Wikipedia Library so I can check in a bit to use that as a source. I agree that it might not be best to put these in the lead, I like how American English has done it, where they used a footnote in the lead to offer the alternative abbreviations. – Isochrone (T) 09:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You mean ODE? The OED isn't in TWL. Nardog (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, I also have access to the OED from another source. I can't check it now, but I'll get to it later. – Isochrone (T) 21:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

About Brits changing “British English” to “English”[edit]

I went through the revision history for my own entertainment and was surprised by the amount of British people changing “British English” to “English” justifying that it’s the default English and other dialects (like American English) branch from it.

Since we all know in reality American English is the true default dialect of English,[sarcasm] should something be added to the top of this talk page discussing the current consensus (or at least I’m assuming there’s consensus, all of their edits immediately get reverted) to keep the term “British English” in the article? I’ve seen Q&A sections in talk pages before, I was thinking one of those could be added. 15:09, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit: I've gont through the revision history again, it seems like there's less edits making this change than I previously thought, I was fairly tired when I initially went through the revision history and probably clicked on the same revision a few times without realising. I still stand by what I said above though Theooolone ( Talk ) 17:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]