Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Do not use the precomposed ellipsis character (…)

I propose to rethink this rule. It was established by one user, having extreme opinion on this issue, 20 years ago, as stated in this discussion (latest discussion about this rule that I found in archive of this talk page). It was justified by problems with display of this Unicode character in very old browsers and fonts, all of these problems should be irrelevant now. The problem that brought me here is this:

1. AWB replaces Unicode character to three dots as a part of "minor fixes" pack, containing hundreds of fixes, and this pack could only be turned completely on or completely off, there is no way to turn off only this replacement.
2. In Russian Wikipedia, my main wiki, local MoS prescribes usage of Unicode character instead of three dots. AWB with "minor fixes" enabled brokes our MoS.
3. If I file a ticket to AWB developers, they probably will use enwiki's MoS as a reason not to change AWB minor fixes. Only when enwiki's rule will changed, I can request AWB developers to remove and even inverse this harmful replacement.

MBH (talk) 16:54, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Why not change the ruwiki MoS? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

If the rules for this differ across various Wikipedias, getting the AWB developers to add a toggle button for this feature seems like the best solution (or maybe it could be autodetected based on the wiki one is in?). Gawaon (talk) 07:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

There are lots of differences between English and Russian; it seems weird to use the same AWB configuration to try to tidy up both? -- Beland (talk) 05:43, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

I've not used AWB in other languages, but it makes sense that different rules would apply in different languages. At least we need to check with the AWB developers before changing the MoS on this topic. Last time I looked, the precomposed character and the three dots looked significantly different depending on fonts chosen. SchreiberBike | ⌨  11:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

We discussed it here last year. The discussion didn't require a formal close; there was some support for but some marked opposition to switching to or even allowing the Unicde character, and consensus for change was not in prospect. NebY (talk) 11:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Maybe a formal close would have been better; as I see it, while the discussion went against deprecating the three dots in favour of the precomposed character, there was no clear consensus against allowing the latter as an alternative. In any case, the discussion should not be used as argument in favour of an outcome it did not have. Gawaon (talk) 06:53, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't see why we wouldn't use the Unicode character. Graham11 (talk) 04:08, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Like many other special characters, it is difficult to type, so people are more likely to enter "..." when searching. This can cause problems and confusion; for example, searching a page for "..." in Firefox does not find instances of the Unicode character. -- Beland (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Even if it's prescribed by the MOS and not everyone uses it, that's fine. Wikipedia is a work in progress and it will be taken care of by the gnomes. Graham11 (talk) 03:40, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Even if Wikipedia were to use the character perfectly consistently, it would cause a lot of confusion because most people don't know that it's possible to have a single character with three periods in it, and certainly don't know how to type it, so their searches would be mismatching whenever it occurred. -- Beland (talk) 14:35, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Browsers should simply treat "…" as equivalent to "..." when searching, just as they treat different kinds of quotation marks as equivalent. But you're right, currently that doesn't seem to be the case, and that's a plausible argument against allowing both. Gawaon (talk) 15:23, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Do browsers not treat it as equivalent? I just pressed ⌘+F in Chrome and tried searching both "…" and "..." and, in both cases, it turned up all instances of either on this page. Graham11 (talk) 05:32, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

That doesn't happen in Firefox. Chrome has the severe limitation of not being able to distinguish between dashes and upper/lower case, so it's useless for this kind of gnoming. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I suspect that's true with respect to letter case, but Chrome can definitely distinguish between hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes (unless it's different on PC vs Mac?). Graham11 (talk) 02:56, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Fooians in Barland, Fooians of Barland, or Barland Fooians?

This is a WP:TITLECON question. I notice an inconsistency in titles of articles about minority A in country B. These can be roughly grouped into four forms:

1. Fooians in Barland
2. Fooians of Barland
3. Barland Fooians
4. Fooian Barlanders

A good example is articles about Serbs.

• Form 1: Fooians in Barland
  • Serbs in Austria
  • Serbs in Germany
  • Serbs in Hungary
  • Serbs in Italy
  • Serbs in North Macedonia
  • Serbs in Russia
  • Serbs in Sarajevo
  • Serbs in Slovenia
  • Serbs in the United Kingdom
  • Serbs in Vojvodina
• Form 2: Fooians of Barland
  • Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Serbs of Croatia
  • Serbs of Montenegro
  • Serbs of Romania
  • Serbs of White Carniola
• Form 3: Barland Fooians
  • Kosovo Serbs

A similar inconsistency exists for Croats of/in Barland. In addition to Forms 1, 2 and 3, it has also a...

• Form 4: Croatian New Zealanders (Fooian Barlanders).

Is there a guideline for title consistency in such articles? If not, should we establish one, and what should it be? Anecdotally, Form 1 seems the most common, but it might not necessarily be the most accurate. Thoughts? NLeeuw (talk) 19:07, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

PS: I might add that Form 1 indeed seems to be the most common in the larger category trees Category:Ethnic minorities and Category:Ethnic groups in Europe. In particular, Category:Romanian minorities in Europe and Category:Hungarian minorities in Europe always take Form 1 Fooians in Barland. Category:Polish minorities is divided between Form 1 (Poles in Barland) and Form 4 (Polish Barlanders), with Form 1 being slightly more common, with two slight variations (that I'll label Form 1b and 1c):

• 1b: Polish minority in Ireland
• 1c: Polish people in Pakistan

Forms 2 and 3 seem to be rather uncommon outside the Balkans. The only other examples I know of Form 3 is Sweden Finns, and Finland Swedes, which is a redirect to Swedish-speaking population of Finland. These two articles alone may be cited as evidence that Form 3 can be rather confusing for readers, and should be avoided wherever possible. Form 4 may be confusing for similar reasons. Form 2 seems okay to me, just much less common than Form 1. Forms 1b and 1c are also fine in my view, but not as WP:CONCISE as Form 1. NLeeuw (talk) 19:41, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

I do see a slight semantic distinction between these options. For example, I would expect an article titled Serbs in Mongolia to have a more historical and demographic tone - outlining the story of Serbs (as an ethnic group) in the region - when they first started to emigrate in significant numbers, any patterns of discrimination they faced, their current demographics. Meanwhile I would expect Mongolian Serbs to focus on individual Mongolian citizens of Serbian heritage. It might even be a list.

I suppose what I am saying is there might be a reason why these articles are titled inconsistently. And over-consistency isn’t always desirable. Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Completely agree this is an area that I would not expect title consistency if we go by reliable sources for naming. It likely depends if the group is sufficiently large to be consider part of that country's culture, or if it's just the case of people from one nation living in another. Masem (t) 20:55, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

The 'of' form is the most awkward to me. I do see subtle semantic differences between all four. The differences may be more relevant, or more reflective of common usage, in some cases than in others. In the US, the Fooian American form is standard, from relatively recent arrivals like Hmong Americans to older populations. Note that controversy around the title Native Americans has meant the name for the original inhabitants was previously a DAB page and is now (as of very recently) a primary redirect to Native Americans in the United States. It may be possible to achieve more consistency for a particular country but I'm skeptical that we can or should enforce a standard across the board. Some of these titles probably reflect local consensus/POV but others are surely the result of reasonable discussion around the particulars for different ethnic and national groups. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 23:24, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for both of your feedback! If indeed these article titles are the result of local consensus, then I suppose it might not be a good idea to strive for consistency, particularly as ethnography in the Balkans can be a sensitive subject. What Myceteae says about Fooian American does seem to hold true for the Template:Croatian diaspora articles when it comes to the Americas and Oceania, but for Europe, there are other tendencies. For example, Form 2 Fooians of Barland, seems more like a direct translation from the South Slavic Wikipedia versions, such as hr:Hrvati u Španjolskoj and hr:Hrvati u Francuskoj as cited in the Template:Croatian diaspora:

Americas

• Croatian Argentines
• Croatian Bolivians
• Croatian Brazilians
• Croatian Canadians
• Croatian Chileans
• Croatian Ecuadorians
• Croatian Mexicans
• Croatian Peruvians
• Croatian Americans
• Croatian Uruguayans
• Croatian Venezuelans

Oceania

• Croatian Australians
• Croatian New Zealanders

Europe

• Burgenland Croats (Austria) - compare Serbs in Austria, but a better comparison is Carinthian Slovenes
• Croats of Belgium - compare Template:People of Belgium:

• Albanians in Belgium, Armenians in Belgium, Georgians in Belgium, Greeks in Belgium, Italian immigration to Belgium, Polish diaspora#Benelux, Portuguese in Belgium, and Russians in Belgium.

• Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina (apparently removed from Template:Croatian diaspora without good reason) - compare other articles in the Category:Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina:

• Form 1 (8x): Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, National minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albanians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poles in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romani people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavs in Bosnia and Herzegovina (redirect to Yugoslavs).
• Form 2 (4x): Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegrins of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Category:Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina (redirect to Bosniaks).

• Croats in the Czech Republic - compare Macedonians in the Czech Republic
• Croats of France [hr] - the Category:Ethnic groups in France overwhelmingly uses Form 1 Fooians in France and Form 1c Fooian people in France
• Croatians in Germany - compare Serbs in Germany
• Croats of Hungary - compare Serbs in Hungary; the Category:Ethnic groups in Hungary favours in Hungary over of Hungary
• Croats of Italy - compare Serbs in Italy; - the Category:Ethnic groups in Italy overwhelmingly uses Form 1 Fooians in Italy and Form 1c Fooian people in Italy, while some subcategories and articles use Form 1b Fooian minority in Italy (or actually Fooian diaspora in Italy). No other articles or categories use Form 2; Croats of Italy is the odd one out.
  • Molise Croats
• Janjevci (Kosovo) - compare Kosovo Serbs
• Croats of Montenegro - compare Serbs of Montenegro; the Category:Ethnic groups in Montenegro has about equal favour for in Montenegro (mostly articles) and of Montenegro (mostly subcategories)
• Croats in North Macedonia - compare Serbs in North Macedonia
• Croats of Romania - compare Serbs of Romania; the Category:Ethnic groups in Romania favours in Romania over of Romania
  • Krashovani
• Croats of Serbia - compare Serbs of Croatia; the Category:Ethnic groups in Croatia favours of Croatia over in Croatia, while the Category:Ethnic groups in Serbia favours in Serbia over of Serbia
• Croats in Slovakia - compare Serbs of Slovakia
• Croats of Slovenia - compare Serbs in Slovenia
• hr:Hrvati u Španjolskoj
• Croats in Sweden - compare Swedish Serbs
• Croats of Switzerland

In that case, Form 2 article titles may not really reflect 'local consensus' so much as a direct translation that has arguably not been properly localised to English Wikipedia conventions. The only times the Croats and Serbs article titles seem to agree on Form 2 is for Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania. The same seems to apply to Montenegrin minority articles: Montenegrins of Serbia, Montenegrins of Croatia, Montenegrins of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (But Montenegrins of Kosovo, Montenegrins of Slovenia and Montenegrins of North Macedonia are not in agreement with the equivalent articles on Croats and Serbs in those countries). Template:Bosniak diaspora provides us with yet more inconsistencies:

• Form 1
  • Bosniaks in North Macedonia
  • Bosniaks in Kosovo
  • Bosniaks in Turkey
• Form 2:
  • Bosniaks of Croatia
  • Bosniaks of Montenegro
  • Bosniaks of Serbia
  • Bosniaks of Slovenia
• Form 4:
  • Bosnian Australians (Bosnian rather than Bosniak)

It seems to me that for the Americas and Oceania, the local consensus is Form 4 Fooian Barlanders, while for Asia and Europe outside of former Yugoslavia, the consensus is Form 1 Fooians in Barland. For articles and categories within the boundaries of former Yugoslavia, I would propose not to change anything for the time being. NLeeuw (talk) 15:45, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

PS: I would also propose not to change anything about article titles that evidently represent the WP:COMMONNAME, such as Form 4 pages like Burgenland Croats. So in practice, I would propose to Rename Croats of Switzerland to Croats in Switzerland; Croats of Sweden to Croats in Sweden (edit: it's already Croats in Sweden); Swedish Serbs to Serbs in Sweden, etc. On a linguistic note, Hrvati u Švicarskoj probably better translates to Croats in Switzerland than to Croats of Switzerland anyway. As far as I know Slavic grammar and as far as Google Translate and DeepL suggest, "in" is more correct than "of" to begin with. But whatever we decide, let's take it step by step to form a consensus. Good day, NLeeuw (talk) 16:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I haven’t looked into these, but an RM or further discussion on talk for the group seems reasonable. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 20:33, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@Myceteae Thanks! Where would I host a further discussion on talk for the group? NLeeuw (talk) 20:40, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I realize that was rather vague. My default approach would be to start an RM on the most popular page, which is Swedish Serbs (see Pageviews) and list all three. If you think more focused pre-RM discussion were needed, I would look for an appropriate WikiProject, perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups. I don't think further pre-RM discussion is required, only if you think it would be helpful. Note Croats in Sweden was moved from Croats of Sweden in 2017 with the reason given as "standardize". No reason this can't be revisited. I see no discussion on any of the three talk pages about prior moves. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:59, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@Myceteae Thanks! I've placed it there now: Talk:Swedish Serbs#Requested move 21 July 2025. @Blueboar and @Masem, you are invited to participate as well. As I've stated above, I'm going to do this step by step, and do not intend to change anything about article titles for topics inside the boundaries for former Yugoslavia for now; only to seek WP:TITLECON for the rest of Europe wherever this can easily be demonstrated. Good day, and once again thank you all for your helpful feedback! NLeeuw (talk) 23:24, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

MOS:GEOCOMMA in article titles

For clarification purposes, I'd like to add an example to MOS:GEOCOMMA involving titles of articles on local elections, in which the geographical element often contains more than one level of subordinate divisions. The proposed addition is the third example below, in bold.

In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g. city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by terminal punctuation or a closing parenthesis. The last element is treated as parenthetical.

Also include commas when the geographical element is used as a disambiguator:

Include a second comma when the construction with a comma modifies a noun or compound noun:

It has been claimed that the guideline is valid for full sentences, but not article titles, and that "a comma between an single adjective/attributive and a noun is awkward and very unusual". If there were exceptions, they would have to be documented in MoS (wouldn't they?), but no such exceptions exist.

While article titles rarely consist of a full sentence, I can't think of a reason why the same rules on spelling, grammar and (if present) punctuation shouldn't be valid for article titles.

Inclusion of unused acronyms

Editors are invited to comment at Talk:The Mission to Seafarers § Inclusion of unused acronyms on the appropriateness of including unused acronyms in an article, when those acronyms are not for the article's subject. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:13, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

The ewe/you/yew distinction in Welsh English

As Welsh English maintains the Late Middle English diphthong /iu̯/ as a falling diphthong (/iu̯~ɪʊ̯/), keeping you /juː/, yew /jɪʊ̯/, and ewe/U /ɪʊ̯/ heterophones, shall we write an euphemism, an European, an university, etc. in the Wikipedic articles of Wales or Welsh entities? 西城東路 (talk) 07:25, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Do Welsh newspapers and publishers do that? I'd rather assume they don't. Gawaon (talk) 07:27, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Why not advise them to do so? 西城東路 (talk) 07:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

No. DrKay (talk) 07:59, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

"Written Welsh English is indistinguishable from other varieties", so no. —Kusma (talk) 08:33, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Iao Valley#Requested move 24 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Iao Valley#Requested move 24 July 2025 that may be of interest. Station1 (talk) 16:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Use of business form in first sentence in article about business

There's currently a discussion at Talk:Google#First line "Google LLC" or "Google" about whether or not to include "LLC" in the name of the company in the first sentence. It seems that it's quite common to include the business form (or is it the legal name?) in the first sentence, e.g. Penguin Random House says "Penguin Random House Limited", Y Combinator says "Y Combinator, LLC (YC)". But why? Is there a policy or guideline regarding the inclusion of the business entity form of a company or business in the first sentence? (Not the article title, that's covered by WP:NCCORP.) — Chrisahn (talk) 08:18, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

This recent news article says Google, not Google LLC. The article is named per WP:COMMONNAME and the opening sentence follows this.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

That comment was not helpful. This is about general policy, not about Google. And if you believe opening sentences have to use the same name as the page title, you're quite mistaken. — Chrisahn (talk) 09:03, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

It simply makes sense for an article to mention any alternative names (including the legal name) in the first few sentences of the article… both to inform the reader and so users searching for one of those alternative names know they have arrived at the correct article. Blueboar (talk) 11:24, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

It's reasonable and widespread to give the full name in the first sentence (in bold), so including such legal entity identifiers. Gawaon (talk) 11:19, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Ptrnext had the answer: MOS:FIRSTCORP. Quote: "Regardless of the page title, the lead sentence of an article on a company or other organization should normally begin with its full legal name." That settles it. Thanks! — Chrisahn (talk) 03:43, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Italics within italics

The second hatnote at Breaking Bad (Better Call Saul) says:

Not to be confused with Better Call Saul (Breaking Bad), the 2009 episode of Breaking Bad.

As a result the title "Breaking Bad" is not italicized. Is that appropriate? 50.78.178.33 (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that is the intended behaviour. All news organisations use this method. FaviFake (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Consensus reading of MOS:COMMONALITY?

After a bit of discussion at UBE template talk (and discussions listed in the table there), I feel there's some pretty divergent readings of MOS:COMMONALITY, so I feel it might be helpful to see what consensus (if any) looks like atp.

First, the scope or domain of MOS:COMMONALITY is either the class of English varieties or dialects (call it E), or is the class of terms and phrases of any particular English variety or dialect (call them V_x for dialect x). And the test of MOS:COMMONALITY is either boolean, or is if-else formed.

So we have four readings of MOS:COMMONALITY from what I gather:

1. boolean over E: where dialect x either meets or does not meet MOS:COMMONALITY, and so is fit or not fit for use on Wikipedia, as judged per its V_x.
2. if-else over E: null.
3. boolean over V_x: where a term or phrase in V_x either meets or does not meet MOS:COMMONALITY, and so is fit or not fit for use on Wikipedia, as judged by how universal it is in E.
4. if-else over V_x: where a term or phrase in V_x either is or is not universal in E, and if not, either is to be avoided (in favour of its more universal equivalent, if available and meaning or context allow) or else is to be glossed (otherwise).

I feel MOS:COMMONALITY is pretty straightforwardly meant to be read as 4 above, but have now come across a good number of editors seemingly reading MOS:COMMONALITY as 1 or 3 instead (so I might be way off!). These are all substantively distinct readings (with different consequences each), I feel. Might be helpful to see editor preferences/thoughts re these readings :)

Ps some editors also seem to include informal or non-written terms or phrases in V_x when testing MOS:COMMONALITY over E or over V_x, but this seems like a straightforward mistake (rather than a distinct reading of MOS:COMMONALITY), as these are already outside the scope of all of MOS by dint of Wikipedia's being a written encyclopaedia. But if not, we'd have even more than 1–4 readings of MOS:COMMONALITY!

Pps - Ohconfucius and Beland, I feel like you might both be using reading no 3? And Jonesey95 sounds like a no 1 reader to me. Apologies if I misclassified!

- Asdfjrjjj (talk) 05:42, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I do not understand all of your mathematical jargon. MOS:COMMONALITY is pretty self-explanatory. It doesn't say anything about whether a given variety of English may be used, only what to do in cases where words have different meanings or do not appear in different dialects. MOS:TIES has a non- comprehensive list of dialects which must be used for at least some articles, and requires use of any given dialect's formal register. -- Beland (talk) 06:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm afraid that, like Beland, I'm not really sure what you're getting at here aside: my Ph.D. is in mathematical logic, but on the other hand I haven't worked in the field for a while and it's also late and I'm tired, so apologies if I ought to get it, but it seems to me that you're overthinking this. Basically it's just saying strive to use words that readers from most Englishes will recognize and not be jarred by (so for example generally use while in preference to whilst even if the article is in British English; use alternative in preference to alternate when they mean the same thing, even if the article is in American English). This doesn't need to be the subject of a law-school dissertation; just keep all readers in mind and use common sense. --Trovatore (talk) 07:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Aww geeez my bad, the above is just word salad tbh (long day, lots caffeine I fear). But Trovatore and Beland pretty much cleared by doubts, thank you :)

For future readers - I think I was trying to see whether (by consensus) it ever follows from MOS:COMMONALITY that this or that dialect is unfit for use in Wikipedia, or that this or that dialect's regionalisms are likewise unfit (rather than just to be avoided if uncommon/jarring, or else glossed if avoiding is not possible). These claims seemed to come up quite a bit in vars TfD and related discussions regarding vars {{Use X English}} templates, is why. Case seems settled in negative though!

- Asdfjrjjj (talk) 08:23, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I mean, stuff like that does come up. I think we've had several iterations of discussions over lakh and crore, which I think mean one hundred thousand and ten million respectively, though I could have that backwards. It's a difficult problem, because understandably Indian editors can be a bit offended at the idea that they should be banned, but on the other hand most non-Indian readers really don't know what they mean, whereas I'm pretty sure Indian readers do understand one hundred thousand and ten million. --Trovatore (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

MOS:CRORE -- Beland (talk) 08:34, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

For sure, and that's like healthy debate, and the intended/straightforward reading of MOS:COMMONALITY imo! Just goes a bit awry or gets a bit muddled (imo) when some editors go from (for eg) "Whoa, Indian English has lots of these jarring/uncommon regionalisms" to "Indian English fails MOS:COMMONALITY so is unfit for Wiki so let's delete {{Use Indian English}}". I wasn't really seeing how MOS:COMMONALITY could be blanket failed at all [outside of context in article prose]!, and the claim seemed to go unchallenged quite a bit in vars TfDs. Prolly the latter made me doubt my initial reading, won't happen again :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 08:59, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Nope, I don't understand a bit of what is laid out above. I do find it enjoyable that mathematical language unintelligible by even pretty smart readers is being used to open a discussion on the talk page for MOS:JARGON. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

On "USA"

MOS:NOTUSA says "Do not use U.S.A. or USA except in a quotation, as part of a proper name (Team USA), or in certain technical and formal uses (e.g., the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, FIFA, and IOC country codes)." My impression is that "USA" is very common in addresses (for example, "1 Harbor Drive, San Diego, California, USA", or "a pasture in Middle-of-Nowhere, USA" or "a hill in southern Nevada, USA") where the writer includes the country—more common than "US" or "U.S."; therefore, the policy should be altered to allow or even encourage "USA" in these contexts.

When used as an adjective (for example, in "I am a US citizen."), I agree that "USA" is quite rare, and have no objection to implementing a rule against it in that context.

When used as a noun that is not part of an address (for example, "I visited the USA."), I encounter both "US" and "USA" often enough that I believe that both should be allowed. — LucasBrown 08:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Might be due to established usage in Chicago MOS, or AP Style, or Strunk & White, or one of the those? Those are all American, so I feel this'd for sure be covered there, and then MOS followed whatever they recommended. (Or else this might've been WikiProject United States project guidance that then was adopted by MOS.) So practice seems pretty entrenched in and out of Wiki (regardless of informal/postal use of "USA")! - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 09:20, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

There used to be a rationale listed for clashing with the abbreviation for US Army (vs USN for the navy and USAF for the air force).  Stepho  talk  12:18, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

How frequently do articles contain international mailing addresses or casual remarks like "I visited the USA"? That latter doesn't even sound to me like something someone would say except in an affected way. The closest I think an article would come to it would be "In 1905, X visited the United States", in which the name would be spelled out and both US and USA would be inappropriately informal. Largoplazo (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia serves a global audience, including people in foreign countries who are less likely to know, for example, that Vermont is a state in the USA; therefore, when an article specifies an American location, it is usually encouraged to include an indication to that effect when the location's American-ness has not already been established. For example, Shiprock, New Mexico begins "Shiprock (Navajo: Naatʼáanii Nééz) is an unincorporated community on the Navajo reservation in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States.", and its short description is "Town in New Mexico, USA" (and I was not even the one who made that edit). Also, infoboxes for buildings and the like often contain street addresses; the one at White House goes so far as to contain "U.S.". — LucasBrown 12:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

There's no need to have it read "USA" and I don't see any reason to change that. The short description should be revised. Largoplazo (talk) 14:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I am intrigued to find such a lively debate about the ‘A’, when nowadays it’s the ‘U’ that seems so incongruous? MapReader (talk) 15:24, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Let's just change it to TCFKAUSA (The country formerly known as ...). Gawaon (talk) 19:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with User:LucasBrown's point. I ingest an enormous amount of English-language written content every week from a vast variety of sources around the world and have done so for over 30 years. I'm not seeing any trend towards USA. U.S. has always been the preferred usage in formal written English, especially American English. The Simple English Wikipedia was created to serve those who lack sufficient training in formal written English. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style loosened its long-standing objection to "US" in the 2014 edition. I haven't looked since, but the trend is definite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)

I have been looking into the history of British education in the 20th century for over two years because I keep noticing British English partisans trying to insert their bad ideas into the WP Manual of Style, and they point to American style guides like CMOS which have been picking up those bad ideas. I have come across numerous published secondary sources documenting the history of primary and secondary education in the United States, especially the teaching of English language arts. (For example, see this article about English Education in the United States.) ELA teaching as practiced in the United States is a conservative and occasionally cruel enterprise. Its conservatism explains why American English grammar evolves relatively slowly compared to other English dialects. It is true that ELA doesn't really work for half the American population, the ones who are illiterate or barely literate. But it works well enough for the other half, in the sense of producing some of the finest writers on Earth.

After searching multiple times on the public Internet and in two of the largest research university library systems in the United States over the last two years, I have not yet found any corresponding works for England, in the sense of an objective history of how schoolchildren in England are taught how to read and write and how that has evolved during the 20th century. I see polemics, I see reports, I see primary sources, when I'm looking for a high-level published secondary source that dispassionately connects the dots and gives me a forest instead of the trees. The fact that no one apparently has any interest in writing that secondary source speaks volumes about the quality of British English today. It is something to be ashamed of. It is not an example to be emulated. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:39, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting statements. I can summarise your points as a) systems different to mine can be labelled as "bad ideas", b) looking for non-US sources in US libraries found nothing and c) no sources means too embarrassed which means it must be bad.

If you want sources for learning the English language in England then please look at the end of Language education in the United Kingdom and perhaps Language education by region. There are also numerous articles and categories starting with "Language education in" that you can type into the search box that will lead you to many articles with appropriate references at the bottom.  Stepho  talk  01:17, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

• U.S. seems the most adequate form, while U.S.A. or USA is just extending the obvious. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:44, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Not my impression. Here in Canada, people usually either say "the States" or "the U.S." But we don't get anywhere leaving it with impressions. Ngrams is pretty unreliable, but this gives us a hint. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 20:42, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Use Cameroonian English

Template:Use Cameroonian English has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pineapple Storage (talk) 20:23, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Hyphen discussion

See here. It would be helpful if more people participate in that discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 03:28, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Bilingual quotes?

@UndercoverClassicist An issue came up at Wikipedia:Peer review/Julio and Marisol/archive2 where I provided both the English and Spanish versions of a quote:

"I love you, but not enough to die for you / Te quiero mucho pero no tanto como para morir por tí"

from a comic strip published simultaneously in both languages. MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE doesn't seem to apply since it's not something that appeared in Spanish and I'm providing a translation for our readers' benefit. Both the English and Spanish versions are from the original text and neither is secondary to the other. Any suggestions on how to handle this? RoySmith (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

To put it on the record, my (not particularly strong) suggestion was to lead with the English, as we know our readers can understand that, and do something like saying "I love you, but not enough to die for you" (in Spanish, "Te quiero mucho pero no tanto como para morir por tí"). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:43, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

It should probably be OK to move the foreign-language version into an explanatory note, or to drop it altogether. Gawaon (talk) 20:51, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Same. Just use the English quote alone. Similarly, just use the Spanish quote in Spanish WP. This is what we do for preferring English language references in English WP.  Stepho  talk  04:12, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

FOREIGNQUOTE says foreign lang original must be provided if quote was translated by the Wikipedia editor, else may be provided. But this one was translated by the source itself, so may or may not include imo (but agree it'd look better in a footnote). - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Disclose contradictory readings of COMMONALITY

In a recent TfD, the following readings of MOS:COMMONALITY were both deemed acceptable readings by quite a few editors:

(1) It follows from COMMONALITY that some English dialects are not suitable for Wikipedia.

main thrust: COMMONALITY advises that uncommon terms or phrases be avoided, and nothing else.^[1]

(2) It does not follow from COMMONALITY that some English dialects are not suitable for Wikipedia.

main thrust: COMMONALITY advises on the use of uncommon terms or phrases (avoid or gloss [note the or here]), and nothing else.^[2]

Notably:

• (1) and (2) seem to and do contradict each other.
• (1) seems to contradict MOS:ENGVAR: "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others."
• (1) seems to contradict at least some other related policies or guidelines (eg WP:TITLEVAR).
• (1) seems to contradict at least some TfD consensuses (eg this EngvarB one).
• Possibly, (2) seems to contradict at least some other related policies or guidelines.^[3]
• (2) seems to contradict at least some TfD consensuses (eg this UCamE one).

I personally (and strongly) believe COMMONALITY should not be ambiguous between (1) and (2), and that rather one or the other should be excluded as an acceptable reading (eg with explicit text to that effect in COMMONALITY). I feel the current ambiguity (and/or its non-disclosure in COMMONALITY and related policies or guidelines) might be doing more harm than good.^[4]

As I really doubt we might reach consensus on one of (1) or (2) here,^[5] I'll be adding explicit language to disclose the current lack of consensus on (1) or (2). I'll add this text to either COMMONALITY only (Proposal 1) or to COMMONALITY and all related policies or guidelines (eg ENGVAR, TITLEVAR, etc; Proposal 2). Unless someone objects? Or has a preference for Proposal 1 or Proposal 2?

– Asdfjrjjj (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2025 (UTC) Asdfjrjjj (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Again, as with the other large blocks of text posted by the above editor, I don't really understand the logical reasoning here. I don't think MOS:COMMONALITY is confusing. It says to write in a way that would make sense to any educated reader of English, and not to use dialectical constructions that would be seen as ungrammatical or uninterpretable by most readers of English. An example that I gave in a discussion about Euro English and Ugandan English was the sentence, apparently acceptable in the Ugandan dialect, "They told me to come and you give me the package." MOS:COMMONALITY says not to use phrasing like that in English Wikipedia articles, except when glossing or explaining them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Jonesey95: Ohh geeez, I'll try to rephrase but honestly might need another editor to put this into better terms if this doesn't work :/

• You and others claim: (A) "There are some national varieties of English which are unsuitable for Wikipedia."
• I and others claim: (not A) "There are no national varieties of English which are unsuitable for Wikipedia."

These stances cannot both be true at the same time, and so they are contradictory stances. Claim (A) is often made with reference to COMMONALITY in particular (by saying something like "this dialect fails COMMONALITY" or just "this dialect is unsuitable per COMMONALITY"). And claim (not A) is often upheld even with reference to COMMONALITY. So, the contradictory stances seem to be due to distinct readings of COMMONALITY, in which case these readings themselves are contradicting one another, if that makes sense? (Or Pppery seemed to recognise the distinction so they might be able to help here, if possible? But in case this was a good explanation, would you oppose Proposal 1 or Proposal 2, or have a preference? :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 23:07, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Putting words in my mouth without providing links is not a great practice, especially on a MOS talk page, where arguments should be more precise than in other places on Wikipedia. I do not think that either (1) or (2) follow logically from MOS:COMMONALITY, although I find the double negative in (2) a bit cloudy. Please link to where I have claimed that "There are some national varieties of English which are unsuitable for Wikipedia." I may have said that a given article about an English dialect provided no guidance about differences, or supplied only differences that would be viewed as ungrammatical or misspelled by most educated English speakers, but I do not think that (A) or either of the propositions at the top logically follows from such a statement. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Jonesey95: I'm really sorry if I misread, but both Pppery and I took your 29 Jul nomination ("These recently created templates recommend the use of a dialect of English that is not suitable for Wikipedia, per MOS:COMMONALITY.") in the linked TfD to be based on COMMONALITY.^[6] If that was not the intention then, again, I'm really sorry!

For the record though, at least one of (1) or (2) must be an acceptable reading of COMMONALITY, just logically I think.^[7]

Also for the record, I'm not seeking consensus on (1) nor (2) here! And I'm not saying stance (A) or (not A) is good/bad/whatever! It's just the lack of consensus on (1) or (2) (or (A) or (not A)) that I feel oughtta be disclosed per Proposal 1 or Proposal 2.

Finally, for the avoidance of any doubt, here are the comments I could find in support of stance (A). At least some of these seem to explicitly or implicitly (and partially or fully) be based on COMMONALITY imo.^[8]

• 29 Jul 2025: "These recently created templates recommend the use of a dialect of English that is not suitable for Wikipedia, per MOS:COMMONALITY." [links preserved] (in this TfD)
• 13 Aug 2025: "I continue to object to the creation of both templates whose talk pages direct to this page, per MOS:COMMONALITY." [link preserved] (in this UCarE talk)
• 3 Aug 2025: "I disagree with the change to remove mention of unusable dialects; it is needed to avoid creation of useless templates like the recent {{Use Cameroonian English}}." [link preserved] (in this UBE talk)
• 20 Nov 2024: "Indian English#Spelling says that British spelling is used, and any Indian-specific vocabulary would not be usable because MOS:COMMONALITY says not to use regionalisms: Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences." [links, colour preserved] (in this EngvarB talk)
• 23 Nov 2024: "Neither Indian English#Spelling nor Pakistani English makes any substantiated claims that the spelling of those variants of English are different from British English, and we would not use dialect-specific vocabulary here at Wikipedia, per MOS." [links preserved] (in this EngvarB talk)
• 22 Nov 2024: "The rest of the article explains the differences in pronunciation (not relevant since Wikipedia is a written medium) and regionalisms (also not relevant because MOS:COMMONALITY says not to use regionalisms: Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences)." [link, colour preserved] (in this TfD)
• 22 Nov 2024: "Ugandan English explains that this dialect makes use of phrasing that would not be acceptable here on Wikipedia per MOS:COMMONALITY, and uses misspelled standard English words. We would never accept those misspellings here, so these templates should probably go away." [links preserved] (in this TfD)
• 26 Nov 2024: "How is Ugandan English different from British or American English in a way that is applicable here on Wikipedia? We can't accept misspelled words or non-standard phrasing that would not be understandable by the majority of English speakers, so this template is not usable as a guide for writing articles." (in this TfD)
• 5 Dec 2024: "The Ugandan English article provides examples of English usage that would be considered incorrect here at Wikipedia." (in this TfD)
• 29 Jul 2025: "Most usage of this variant on WP will be subsumed per WP:COMMONALITY." [link preserved] (in this TfD)
• 29 Jul 2025: "the relevant phrases are inappropriate for use in articles in any case" (in this TfD)
• 13 Aug 2025: "Propose deletion of this template which encourages the use of terms which are not suitable for use on Wikipedia in line with MOS:COMMONALITY." [link preserved] (in this TfD)
• 13 Aug 2025: "It is not practical to expect every known English dialect to be used when editing a corresponding article. Nor would it be helpful since articles should be written in commonly used English." (in this TfD)
• 8 Aug 2025: "Without disparagement on my part of the numerous varieties of English that exist in the world, I don't see it as practical to designate an article to be written in one of the few varieties that, together make up the bulk of English used internationally, and that typically are even the varieties used formally in places with their own variety. Should an article restrict itself to Cameroonian English or Philippine English or Roatan Island English, it would effectively place a sharp limit on who can contribute to it or copyedit it, excluding anyone who has no idea what that variety entails." (in this TfD)
• 14 Aug 2025: "This template is an attempt to establish a new 'variety' of English in the MOS through an inappropriate route (i.e., it is bypassing a MOS discussion). First gain recognition at MOS for this as an ENGVAR variant that may be used." (in this TfD)

- Asdfjrjjj (talk) 02:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC) Asdfjrjjj (talk) 02:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for that exhaustive work. I think my view continues to be summarized by one of my statements above: "Ugandan English explains that this dialect makes use of phrasing that would not be acceptable here on Wikipedia per MOS:COMMONALITY, and uses misspelled standard English words." I see that as distinct from "(1) It follows from COMMONALITY that some English dialects are not suitable for Wikipedia." Phrasing and spelling differences that are far enough from standard English to be seen as errors by most native English speakers should not be used on the English Wikipedia. That's not really part of MOS:COMMONALITY; it's more like MOS:COMMONSENSE. If an article about a dialect provides only examples of differences between that dialect and American or British English that are likely to be seen as errors, then that is a dialect for which a Use X English template should not be created, since we would be giving guidance to editors that is contrary to MOS. I think I need to step away from these Use X English conversations, since they tend to be a mud pit where everyone wrestles and nobody ends up making any progress. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Additional comment which seems to be in support of stance (A):

• 15 Aug 2025: "please stop creating language templates without consensus. ... We have to discuss each in turn because some have much less merit than others." [shortened] (in this TfD)

Notably, this editor recommends establishing consensus before creating new {{Use X English}} templates. The 14 Aug comment from the same TfD^[9] seems to agree, further adding that consensus ought to be established here, in MOS talk. I feel other editors might share this view, so this stance oughtta be recorded here imo. - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 07:11, 16 August 2025 (UTC) Asdfjrjjj (talk) 07:11, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

One thing I find confusing here is that "dialect" largely refers to the spoken language, while Wikipedia is a written work. So any "dialect" that's chiefly spoken, but hardly ever written, is automatically unsuited for Wikipedia, simply due to its character as a written work. Can we agree on that? Gawaon (talk) 07:23, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's true that "dialect" largely refers to the spoken language... In my experience, most varieties of standard English can be found in written form somewhere (or at least, analysis/description of the written variety can be found in the literature). It might be less easy to find formal written texts in English-based creoles, which are often more vernacular to a particular place, but this is irrelevant here as creoles and pidgins shouldn't be used on the English Wikipedia as they aren't necessarily mutually intelligible with any variety of standard English (they're their own languages). Pineapple Storage (talk) 07:41, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Right. But per ENGVAR, it seems clear enough that any variety of written English that is used as the standard written form in any English-speaking country is eligible for Wikipedia, and I can't remember anyone having said anything else. So I'm frankly not convinced that the disagreement sketched by Asdfjrjjj does actually exist. Actual conflicts are rather about the question of when a standard written form used in some place is sufficiently distinct from other standard forms to get its own name. To give a made-up example, one can doubt that the English written in California differs sufficiently from that in Oregon to treat Californian English and Oregonian English as different varieties. So in practice we don't do that, instead just using the label "American English" for both. But there is no conflict about the meaning of COMMONALITY or ENGVAR (nor is the use of "Oregonian English" forbidden), it's simply a question of when a variety of written English is sufficiently distinct to get its own name and template. Gawaon (talk) 08:11, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Did you read this TfD? Because the argument being made by the nominator was exactly that the standard variety of English in Cameroon, where English is an official language and the national variety (ie. dialect, per my comment below) is Cameroon English, should not be used on Wikipedia. Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:16, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I hadn't read it before. I have skimmed it now, but would rather interpret Jonesey95's argument as meaning that Cameroonian English is a variety that's spoken or maybe used in informal writing – not but a clearly distinct written form used in Cameroonian newspapers or other formal sources. Did I miss something? Gawaon (talk) 08:32, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, and maybe that was was the nominator originally thought, but during that discussion we established that Cameroon English does have its own spelling rules/patterns/standards when written down (including in formalised written sources)—I just couldn't list all of them with beyond-reasonable-doubt confidence because the only exhaustive source is a dictionary that isn't available online. Pineapple Storage (talk) Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:39, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, that was your conclusion, but did everybody else in that TfD agree with you? I have some doubts. A single dictionary is also not particularly convincing proof, especially since it might focus on the spoken and informal language rather than, or in addition to, the formal written register, and it probably won't reveal how many of these forms are distinct from those used in neighbouring countries. Gawaon (talk) 08:48, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I interpreted this comment as conceding that CamE was a distinct variety but just arguing that there shouldn't be a template for it, and this comment pretty much underlined the fact that the delete !voters hadn't given any evidence that CamE is identical to any other variety.

I agree that one dictionary shouldn't be the only source in consideration; I did provide other (reliable, formally published) sources that discussed examples, but these were seen as not exhaustive enough. Anyway, even if the dictionary only documents spoken usage, the spellings that are used in it (because a dictionary has to be written down) will shed some light on the spellings in use in written CamE. But this isn't a discussion about CamE specifically, so I'd rather not get back into that debate now! :) Pineapple Storage (talk) 09:09, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

The question "does MOS:COMMONALITY ban some English dialects?" is a bit vague, and as I mentioned can be answered "clearly yes" and "clearly no" depending on the definition of "dialect".

If we sharpen the question and ask "do recent TfD results indicate that the standard English of some English-speaking countries is unacceptable because of MOS:COMMONALITY?", I would object to writing "there was no consensus about that" into this MOS page because I think those discussions were about non-standard varieties and what to tag articles for the convenience of editors than about the acceptability of standard national varieties. Having a list of TfD discussions on this topic is useful for future discussions on this family of templates; perhaps there is a better place to document that than the MOS, like an internal category or navigation template?

There's an underlying question about whether the standard English of a given English-speaking country is indistinguishable from say, British English, either before or after MOS:COMMONALITY is applied. As the above discussion highlights, this is an empirical question to which the answer is "maybe it is, maybe it isn't, more research is needed to show that this is in fact true for at least one country in the world". Whether or not given country or collection of countries (like the Caribbean and South Asia) even have a distinct local standard variety in the first place is also an empirical question that has been answered for some but not all.

Then there's the philosophical question of whether to call the resulting words "Cameroonian English" or "British English" if writing in formal standard Cameroonian English preferring commonalities with British English produces the same words as writing in formal standard British English preferring commonalities with Cameroonian English. As a practical resolution to avoid offending nationalist sensibilities and align intuitively with MOS:TIES, we may simply allow people to tag articles with either of those labels to and program our spell checkers to use the same dictionary for both tags. Or we may agree on a single neutral tag that better describes the desired style of writing. What I think would not be helpful is to let a debate over tags become a whiff of "some editors are trying to ban the standard English of certain countries" into the MOS when that's definitely going to offend some people and is kind of an oversimplification or arguably not really what's happening. -- Beland (talk) 09:27, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree. Gawaon (talk) 10:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I think part of the difficulty with relying on TfD discussions (exclusively) to identify ENGVAR consensus is that there are two different questions:

1. Is X variety of English suitable for use on Wikipedia?
2. Does there need to be a {{Use X English}} template?

TfD discussions are meant to be answering question 2; some respondents try to do this without addressing question 1 (eg. by saying "X variety is basically the same as Y variety, which we already have a template for so we don't need this one"), while others do it by addressing question 1 (eg. "this template shouldn't exist because X variety shouldn't be used on Wikipedia"). Really, to properly get a sense of consensus about question 1, there needs to be a discussion independent of question 2, so that we're all addressing the same question; this is why I'm glad this discussion has been started.

Also, just a minor point about terminology: it feels unfair to label people who object to the deprecation of certain varieties as being "offended"—this word carries connotations (nowadays especially). I'm sure some people would take offence, especially if their native variety is specifically excluded (for instance, if they have to learn an unfamiliar set of spelling rules to avoid their contributions being "corrected" as misspellings) but this is far from the only argument against deprecating certain varieties.^[10] Personally, I've spent hours and hours researching the issue and arguing the case for inclusion of CamE even though I don't speak (or write) CamE and have no connection whatsoever to Cameroon; I'm not offended by the idea of CamE not being allowed on Wikipedia. Rather, I have strong opinions on the issue because (1) as a linguist and a Wikipedian, I care about both Wikipedia and the English language; (2) I believe Wikipedia's use of English should represent its global focus and reach; and (3) I know that the way Wikipedia works (and progresses) is through community discussion, so I want to contribute to this process. If we approach these discussions with the assumption that the only reason why anyone would object to certain (standard, written) World Englishes being deprecated is because they take offence (ie. feel personally insulted), we run the risk of overlooking the other arguments against deprecation (eg. countering systemic bias), which don't deal with personal emotions etc. but with broad, project-wide principles of Wikipedia, and with the practicalities of managing a reference work whose authors are from all over the world. Pineapple Storage (talk) 10:21, 15 August 2025 (UTC) Pineapple Storage (talk) 10:21, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there's actually any serious effort to ban standard formal Cameroonian English from Wikipedia, nor to change MOS:TIES in such a way that it says articles about Cameroon should be allowed to violate the local standard English spelling and grammar rules (e.g. by using American spelling sometimes under MOS:RETAIN). That would be egregious and I can't imagine that ever getting consensus support, and I think implying that there is such an effort would needlessly upset some people. What did happen was a debate over whether to tag Standard Cameroonian English as Standard British English because there is no practical difference for Wikipedia purposes.

I have never believed that the only reason someone would object to say, tagging Standard Cameroonian English as Standard British English is because they are personally offended. "Actually there are practical differences between these dialects" is certainly one of those reasons, and that fact violates the assumptions of the above scenario. I'm just pointing out that national identity is a sensitive topic and that some people can be offended by even something as simple as how we name things, so even if there are no practical reasons to do something, we might benefit from doing it anyway for the sake of editor harmony. -- Beland (talk) 11:10, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

That would be egregious and I can't imagine that ever getting consensus support It's very refreshing to hear this, thank you. Unfortunately, as I see it at least 4 of the ~7 participants in the CamE TfD were arguing that CamE shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. I got this impression from some of the statements made in that discussion:

• "the use of a dialect of English that is not suitable for Wikipedia" (here)
• "Being inclusive might be nice but [...] There is no practical way that certain articles can be written using terms that contradict EN or US usage. Also, there would be no practical benefit from such a system." (here)
• "how can I venture into an article expressly written in Cameroonian English?" (here)
• "if none of this is codified, we can't really enforce a 'Cameroonian English'." (here)
• "I don't think you could get consensus that these are anything but typos to be fixed [...] regardless of their use in some countries." (here)

For the reasons I discussed above, I think the context of TfD pretty much took all the nuance out of the conversation re ENGVAR, which is why the wider conversation should happen somewhere else (ie. here, in an MOS discussion). I also agree with you absolutely that editor harmony is an important consideration when it comes to sensitive topics like this. Pineapple Storage (talk) 11:56, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think editors there were considering much beyond automated spell checking, where having a dictionary is necessary and most of the concern was about not encouraging editors to use an informal dialect.

As for spellings like "truely", are these mandatory in Cameroonian Standard English, or are Standard British English spellings also accepted? If they are mandatory, it seems we'd have to accept them per MOS:TIES. Getting a complete list of any such exceptions would be helpful for automation purposes. -- Beland (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the unique spellings are mandatory, as BrE spellings are also widely used in CamE; I think "truely", "occured",^[11] etc. are just valid alternative spellings. I ordered the CamE dictionary when the TfD was closed and I'll update Cameroonian English once it's arrived. Pineapple Storage (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2025 (UTC) Pineapple Storage (talk) 13:07, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

In that case, using the same spellings as the UK does isn't forcing Cameroonians to write about their own country using spellings that are invalid Standard Cameroonian English, so I don't see the problem in using the international spellings. MOS:COMMONALITY says the most common spelling in the national variety should be used, so it's possible that technically the unusual local spelling should be preferred. Is that easy to determine?

It might actually be worth changing this to say that where two variants are equally acceptable but only one is present in other national standard Englishes, the international one would be preferred. This could prevent confusion over editors trying to fix typos that aren't typos, and also lessen the distraction for readers to which the local variants look like errors. -- Beland (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Is that easy to determine? Probably not, unfortunately, beyond getting access to a corpus, as most studies don't address minor spelling differences explicitly. Preferring more international spelling variants is sensible; thankfully this is already covered by MOS:COMMONALITY, but I agree that the MOS:TIES application could be emphasised—for instance by explicitly saying something to the effect of "just because X Standard English variety has multiple acceptable patterns, most of which are shared with another variety, this doesn't mean X variety shouldn't be used or that MOS:TIES shouldn't apply to that variety". Pineapple Storage (talk) 15:58, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't see where the existing verbiage in MOS:COMMONALITY says to prefer international spellings over local ones? It says that about word choice explicitly. Are you implicitly extending that to spelling as well? I read the "most commonly used current variant" as explicitly saying not to prefer the most international spelling if it's not the most common local one. -- Beland (talk) 17:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred

I read the most commonly used as meaning the one that's most common generally, ie. shared by multiple varieties, rather than most common to that particular variant. If this interpretation of it is wrong, and there is consensus for the latter reading, then I think that wording needs specifying. Otherwise, if a consensus hasn't yet been established about that specific point, then maybe that's a discussion to be had? Pineapple Storage (talk) 17:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Beland: I might get us that list of TfD and ENGVAR discussions soon-ish, as I also could've really used such a list when I first waded into this part of MOS :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 23:47, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thank you for starting the conversation @Asdfjrjjj, I think it's definitely one that needs to be had at some point.

Unsurprisingly I have quite a few thoughts on this issue! Since the CamE TfD (this one) I've been doing some research about World Englishes and have been gathering sources at User:Pineapple Storage/Bibliography/World Englishes (still very much an incomplete work in progress; I also can't claim to have read all the sources there, it's basically a reading list) so I feel like I'm saturated in WP:ENGVAR thoughts at the moment, and I will likely add comments to this discussion about multiple different aspects of the issue as they occur to me—apologies in advance for this.

One thing that springs to mind following @Gawaon's comment above is that ENGVAR maybe shouldn't even refer to varieties at all, but should instead refer to dialects. Variety (linguistics) says:

[Varieties] may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.

I would argue, the fact that ENGVAR only mentions varieties rather than dialects is probably a result of the prejudice/misconception described in the lead of Variety (linguistics):

The use of the word variety to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term language, which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term dialect, which is often associated with non-standard language forms thought of as less prestigious or "proper" than the standard.

This perception (of "dialect" meaning a non-standard variety) is clearly a misconception; it's linguistically inaccurate, and can be easily dispelled by reading the first two sentences of the article Dialect.

When we discuss ENGVAR, what we're actually discussing is dialect, because register and style are already dictated by WP:ENCSTYLE; this is an encyclop(a)edia, so the style is encyclop(a)edic and the register is formal (but not excessively/performatively formal, because it needs to be accessible to a very wide audience).

I think ENGVAR should be altered to replace variety with dialect (and maybe to add an explicit mention that the formal register of any dialect should be used in articles, to clear up any ambiguity). What do people think about this? Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I think that "variety" should stay for just that reason: if a dialect, or variety, is chiefly spoken, but not written, that it's not eligible for Wikipedia – not out of prejudice, but since Wikipedia is itself a written work. "Variety" seems better suited to get that across. Gawaon (talk) 08:16, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Or, in words cited above: any standard variety of English is suitable for Wikipedia, but not any dialect, register, or style. Gawaon (talk) 08:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I think it's worth pointing out here that the word "dialect" can be used in at least three different ways. As our article Dialect points out, sometimes it exclusively means non-standard varieties. In that sense, there are no dialects which are suitable for Wikipedia. Perhaps what Gawaon is getting at is that non-standard varieties (which are more commonly spoken than written) are unsuitable for a written encyclopedia - and yes, I think that it generally agreed upon. I should also say that simply because a dialect is commonly written doesn't make it suitable for Wikipedia. People in Yorkshire may commonly use Northern colloquialisms when writing letters, emails, text messages, business signage, or when transcribing spoken language. But we're not interested in just any writing, we're interested in writing in what they consider their standard written dialect, which would be Standard British English - the sort that appears in newspapers and generally intelligible formal documents not written in legalese or other technical dialect.

I tend to use "dialect" in the primary sense defined by the article Dialect, which includes both standard and non-standard varieties. In this sense, Standard American English is the dialect I happen to speak, it is the one spoken on national news broadcasts and written in national newspapers, and it is the (only) appropriate dialect for writing articles with strong ties to the United States. In this sense, some dialects are appropriate for Wikipedia.

Asdfjrjjj seems to be using "dialect" to mean "national variety". In this sense, all dialects are appropriate for Wikipedia, because as ENVAR says: "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others."

Using the second sense, I'd say each English-speaking country can have multiple native dialects, and only the standard one is suitable for Wikipedia. -- Beland (talk) 08:22, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree, and when I talk about "written variety" etc, I mean the formal version of the variety as written in eg. newspapers, books, and other formalised publications, rather than informal contexts like personal communications (or advertising, blogs, etc) as these are more likely to reflect vernacular (informal spoken) usage, per Written language#Relationship with spoken and signed language. Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:29, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Still though, I think ENGVAR in its current state leaves an ambiguity in the minds of some editors, who might then feel it necessary to proscribe certain dialects as being "too informal" when actually the standard written register of that dialect is perfectly acceptable. Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:32, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with changing "variety" to "dialect". The whole reason linguists use "variety" is to avoid controversies in the definition of dialect. That includes the question of whether "dialect" has a connotation of informality, and also more commonly the question of whether two or more varieties are different dialects or different languages. I do agree ENVAR could be improved with some clarification; I'll come up with some verbiage. -- Beland (talk) 08:36, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

If "variety" is still going to be used, then ENGVAR should make it very clear that any country's standard written variety can be used (unless of course consensus turns out to be that only some standard written varieties are acceptable, which I would find disappointingly predictable). Pineapple Storage (talk) 08:45, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

There should probably also be a discussion about how we're defining "standard"... Does a "standard written variety" need to have been formally codified in order to be allowed on en-wp, or is attestation/description in other (non-dictionary) reliable sources sufficient? If a consensus can be reached on this, then ENGVAR should probably make it clear. And how are we defining "codified"? Does a single published dictionary count? If so, does the dictionary being unavailable online (as discussed in the CamE TfD) make the variety ineligible for use? And if a single dictionary doesn't count, how many dictionaries must exist? This would all ideally be made clear—if not in WP:ENGVAR, then somewhere else. Pineapple Storage (talk) 09:22, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

MOS:TIES requires that the English of a specific nation (which I think means "country" in this context) be used for any article with strong ties to an "English-speaking nation". Our article English-speaking world defines that as "the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language". So I would infer we care about matching the expectations of English speakers in Cameroon, for example, but not France.

I think the requirement here is to produce articles that are 100% compatible with the article-local standard English, and intelligible to everyone else (with glosses if necessary) even if there are spellings and other quirks that are not allowed in the reader's local standard English. It is not a goal to produce articles that demonstrate unique aspects of the article-local standard English. The question of whether unique constructions exist in standard contexts and would plausibly be used on Wikipedia is relevant to tagging and spell-checking, but if the answer is "no" I think it is not right to say that a given country's standard dialect is "not allowed" on Wikipedia. It just means that articles happen to be 100% compatible with the standard English of multiple countries.

It's worth pointing out that MOS:COMMONALITY doesn't "ban" all localisms and by implication the national standard dialects they come from. It just requires that those that can't be avoided should be glossed for intelligibility. For example, even though for articles about Nigeria we prefer constructions that it has in common with British English, sometimes it is impossible not to use localisms that refer to elements of local culture, like danfo (which is a specific type of shared taxi and has no equivalent phrase in British English with the same precise meaning). I think we would also prefer local Nigerian expressions such as senior wife to refer to the primary polygynous spouse, whereas in American English we would say "first wife" which does come up for example in Mormon families.

Reading Codification (linguistics) carefully, it appears that process is a process of establishing social consensus for a set of spelling and grammar and vocabulary preferences, which by definition has already happened in standard varieties. It sounds like by "formal codification" you mean someone has written down these social rules.

Thinking about how we resolve questions of Standard American English in US articles, we often simply rely on native speakers of that variety to know what is and isn't correct grammar and spelling. That would imply we could rely on local editors to know the correct forms for a standard English that does not have a dictionary or written rules of grammar. I think that's fine; by definition there will be lots of documents in a standard written variety they can point to for attestations if there's a dispute. No version of English has a single official authority that sets the rules, so while dictionaries and books from grammarians can be very helpful in settling these disputes, they don't always agree with each other or the actual current social consensus. It's up to editors to decide if disputed practices are OK, like ending a sentence with a preposition, or how to deal with something that only one editor or maybe less than 1% of American English speakers consider an error is worth changing, presumably depending on the available alternatives. Even in the US and the UK we have turned to attestations to argue some disputes, like whether it is OK to refer to a ship as "she".

We might think not having written dictionaries and grammar rules for a national standard English would make it difficult to write articles about that country in cases where there aren't a lot of local English speakers active on Wikipedia, but in practice targeting Standard British English seems to result in compatible outcomes. (That's the advice I've gotten for grammar-checking Indian English.)

I'm not sure we need to put specific guidance about this in the MOS. I think editors know what it means to say, "use standard formal Cameroonian English", and how to research what the rules are for that variety, disputed and undisputed. -- Beland (talk) 10:47, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Again, it's very refreshing to hear this take. Pineapple Storage (talk) 12:06, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Interestingly, WP:ENCSTYLE and WP:TONE are in Wikipedia:Writing better articles, which is an essay, not a guideline. But the main Manual of Style page points there, and it is certainly explaining a real consensus. -- Beland (talk) 08:32, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Pineapple Storage: Oh wait I'd missed User:Pineapple Storage/Bibliography/World Englishes, looking pretty good! I'd also written WP:CARIB/E for Caribbean English (more as a descriptivist overview than a bibliography). Maybe we might sort of consolidate these similar to how the big/well-known Englishes are consolidated in the various Comparison of forms of English articles (though these prolly oughtta stay in project namespace to focus exclusively on description of only formal, written English, or to focus exclusively on bibliography). Might add sources from Caribbean English to your page soon-ish if you don't mind :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Asdfjrjjj For sure, this sounds like a good plan! The World Englishes bibliography I've been putting together is very much a work in progress, but I plan to keep going basically until I've got sources about all the places (and their national varieties—or not, in cases where English is an official language but sources say a distinct variety hasn't yet emerged, such as in Sudan, South Sudan, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, among others) currently covered by Template:Ties/sandbox.

Absolutely, feel free to add any sources (and new sections etc. as needed) to User:Pineapple Storage/Bibliography/World Englishes, and also feel free to incorporate any sources I add there into WP:CARIB/E if you find them useful!! There are a bunch of sources about Caribbean varieties that I've bookmarked but haven't yet done full citations for, so I'll hopefully add those soon. Pineapple Storage (talk) 10:49, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand how the EngvarB closure could be read as saying anything about which dialects are or are not appropriate for Wikipedia. It's mostly a decision that "EngvarB" is not a good name for a template, and the choice of whether to always tag language as specific country varieties or to use tags that posit a country-spanning variety of some sort was left open. -- Beland (talk) 08:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

A dialect is not defined as a set of words/phrasing that are different or unique when compared to whatever default is implicitly implied in that definition. If a word or formulation is common to that dialect as well as to the implied default, then it is a part of that dialect as it is the implied default. CMD (talk) 11:17, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Well put. This is why "avoid the unique features of this dialect" is not the same as "this dialect is banned". -- Beland (talk) 11:37, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes. The original question didn't give examples, but I am happy to. We would avoid terms such as "lakh" or "krore" because they wouldn't be readily understood by most Wikipedia users. This doesn't mean we are banning Indian English, we are just going for common (COMMONALITY) features. cagliost (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Based on the discussion so far, here's my proposed clarification:

• Change "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others." to "All national varieties of Standard English are equally acceptable on English Wikipedia, which uses a formal, encyclopedic register or tone."
• Change "conventions of a particular variety of English" to "conventions of a particular variety of Standard English"
• Change "within a national variety of English" to "within a national standard variety of English"
• Change "(formal, not colloquial) English" to "standard (formal, not colloquial) English" for consistent terminology.

-- Beland (talk) 11:36, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I'd support these changes. For MOS:TIES, maybe adding links might be helpful, eg. "standard (formal, not colloquial) English"? Or maybe "standard (formal, not colloquial or vernacular) English"?

Also, after the list of example articles and varieties, currently TIES says:

For topics with strong ties to the Commonwealth of Nations, or multiple Commonwealth countries or other former British territories, use British spelling.

The way this is currently worded, it's pretty much a direct contradiction of the principle of TIES. What about something more like:

For topics with strong ties to one or multiple Commonwealth countries or other former British territories, if there are no relevant national Standard English varieties, use British English spelling.

(Note the altered link targets.) Any thoughts on this idea? Pineapple Storage (talk) 12:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I have no objection to the first suggestion of adding links.

The second suggestion doesn't make sense to me, as there are standard English varieties in most if not all of those places.

Can you gave an example or two of where it would contradict MOS:TIES? I think the language about the Commonwealth of Nations ended up this way because {{Use Commonwealth English}} was deleted and replaced with {{Use British English}} in articles where there weren't clearly ties to a specific country. It had previously said that Commonwealth and British orthography were nearly indistinguishable for encyclopedic writing. -- Beland (talk) 14:16, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

From my reading of the current wording of TIES, it basically says "If a country is in the Commonwealth or used to be a British territory, use British spelling" but doesn't make any exceptions for Commonwealth nations or former British territories that have their own national variety of Standard English. So if we were to follow only that sentence (and not the rest of MOS:TIES), articles with ties to every country and territory listed at List of countries that have gained independence from the United Kingdom would have to be written in British English, regardless of whether a local national Standard English exists. This clashes with the first sentence of TIES, which says "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation." The change I'm suggesting is basically to alter the sentence so that it allows local varieties to be used for ex–British-territories that have their own national variety. For example, currently, articles about Malaysia use British English, but with the new wording they would use Malaysian Standard English, in line with the first sentence of TIES. Pineapple Storage (talk) 14:56, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Also, just from the list of Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations there are four that don't have English as an official, national or recognised language (Cyprus, Gabon, Mozambique and Togo) let alone any non–English-speaking countries or territories at List of countries that have gained independence from the United Kingdom.^[12] Pineapple Storage (talk) 15:01, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it's not clear from the wording, but if an article is only about one country, this clause isn't supposed to apply. It's only when an article has ties to multiple countries or the actual Commonwealth of Nations organization. For example, Australia–Malaysia relations or Canada–United Kingdom relations.

Both to clean up which countries we're referring to and to cover multi-country cases which don't all use UK-derived spelling, would it be better to say something like:

• For articles with strong ties to the Commonwealth of Nations organization, use British spelling.
• For articles with strong ties to multiple English-speaking countries, either:
  • Pick one of the related national standard varieties. (For example, Australia–United States relations uses Australian English.)
  • Use a variety common to at least some if not the majority of countries. (For example, Five Eyes uses British spelling.)

-- Beland (talk) 15:26, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay that's where the ambiguity was. These suggestions seem sensible! What about cases like Gabon and Togo, which are Commonwealth countries without national varieties whose articles don't currently have a variety template? Should this apply to them, or should they be governed by MOS:RETAIN? Also, the wording you propose would remove any mention of former British territories. Should these be mentioned explicitly as being treated the same way as Commonwealth nations? Or should they just be assumed to fall under the main MOS:TIES clause? Pineapple Storage (talk) 15:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I added "former British territories" because not all of the English-speaking countries that have standard written dialects close to British English are still members of the Commonwealth of Nations, like Ireland and Zimbabwe. But that's also a bit odd because the United States is also a former British colony that does not use British spelling. I think we were just looking to say "it's OK to just say we're using British spelling for topics with ties to multiple countries that have almost identical spelling to the UK" and not bother trying to make an exception for Canada when it's in a group of British-spelling countries. So maybe the intended group is more like "English-speaking countries that don't use American spelling".

Yes, MOS:TIES clearly already applies to articles about individual English-speaking countries regardless of their Commonwealth or former British colonial status. The above clarifying language only applies when we're talking about more than one of country, and if the article is about two former British colonies that still have British spelling in common, then British spelling is a valid choice, as is either national standard variety.

According to English-speaking world, Gabon and Togo are not English-speaking countries, so I think they should be governed by MOS:RETAIN. They are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, but an article has to have strong ties to the organization, not one of its member countries, for the Commonwealth clause to apply.

I do also intend "country" to include UK dependencies that are not part of the UK, like Bermuda and Pitcairn. -- Beland (talk) 17:21, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay, all sounds good to me.

I'm glad you mentioned UK territories actually, as most do have their own varieties named and described in the literature.

This accidentally turned into a pretty extensive research exercise so apologies for the hefty paragraph and the ~9hr delayed response! I've collapsed it to save space and boredom for non–language-nerds.

Still though, it proves that there are a lot of potentially eligible British Overseas Territories varieties, as well as varieties from other dependent territories. By nature of most of these territories being remote and/or island nations, the speaker communities are always going to be very small compared with other varieties, and I sense that the idea of the varieties listed above being "allowed" on Wikipedia would really raise the hackles of some of the participants in this discussion and the recent TfDs.

So, what should we do about these varieties? Is there really any harm in "allowing" them, as some would argue? Or can they just remain as lesser-used options among the many varieties available? Pineapple Storage (talk) 01:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It is already allowed, and in fact required by MOS:TIES, to write articles on these jurisdictions in a way that is compatible with the standard varieties in all these countries. Whether or not the need for formality and clarity for an international audience means any of the unique localisms actually get used in articles, is an empirical question. Presumably that would depend on someone who actually knows something about the local English varieties attempting to use them. -- Beland (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I totally agree! Glad I'm not the only one. Pineapple Storage (talk) 03:47, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better if there were one template to cover a large number of countries with derived spelling patterns and a small number of unique elements that editors would expect to need in articles. It could say something like "This article has been identified as having strong ties to [country name]. It should use the standard formal written English of this country, which [is similar to British English, is similar to American English, is a mix of American and British conventions] in spelling and grammar. Follow MOS:COMMONALITY when using local expressions." That helps editors know what spellings to use even if they aren't familiar with the requested dialect. -- Beland (talk) 03:52, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

This definitely sounds like a good idea. I guess editnotices would be the best option for this? Pineapple Storage (talk) 04:09, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Template:Ties is available for this, and I'm looking to expand my template-writing experience at the moment so I'd be happy to start the ball rolling on this. Pineapple Storage (talk) 04:13, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

This would go very far in harmonising all the {{Use X English}} templates we have, would be veeery much in favour of this. Buuut at least some editors would like at least some varieties excluded, so would be nice to get their thoughts/go-ahead first. To editors Quondum and Dgp4004: this is another very relevant proposal to your stances re these templates in the UABE TfD! - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 07:22, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It is, in any case, much more practical than having more than a 100 different "Use ... English" templates! Gawaon (talk) 07:58, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, I remain opposed to pretty much all of these suggestions which arise from a misreading of MOS:TIES.

Starting with the British Overseas Territories, we're now talking subnational. These are not nations. And it opens the door to even more silly subnational templates like 'Use Antiguan English' and 'Use Barbudan English', because I bet somebody can dig out a word that's used on one island and not the other. So no, I absolutely do not accept that there is any policy on Wikipedia which mandates the creation (or backdoor creation via another template) of a 'Use Falklands English' template.

Further, this idea of creating a new mega template including dictionaries of local vocabularies is just going to be a vehicle for even more of these pedantic and poorly sourced claims. So I remain opposed. Dgp4004 (talk) 09:57, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Is your objection to the use of local words, or to the bureaucracy of template tracking? -- Beland (talk) 10:03, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I never mentioned 'the bureaucracy of template tracking'. I'll stick with my own words; they don't need paraphrasing. Dgp4004 (talk) 10:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like I'm not understanding what you mean, then. What is it then about these templates that you find objectionable? -- Beland (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

They do not improve Wikipedia, they are like spam. It seems that editors create them, and then only when challenged do they try to find out exactly what X English means, and suddenly we have 'I've ordered a dictionary' and 'this newspaper uses -ze so it must be a local variety of English'. They are not created from need. None of this arises from an organic discussion, dispute or confusion on the relevant pages. Their purpose appears to be to promote or even create a local formal English that cannot be adequately sourced. These words that are used to justify the language template's existence are not even words that often appear in an encyclopedia, let alone on those few pages that will use the language template. I have sometimes cited the example of bread roll in British English. There are a great many words like cob, bap, barm, bun etc. which are only used in particular regions. That does not create a justification or a need for a 'Use Lancastrian English' template. Dgp4004 (talk) 11:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It seems everyone is agreed we don't find non-standard dialects acceptable, including regional ones. It seems necessary to tag articles with something so spell checkers know which dictionary to apply.

What would be your preferred rule to determine if a separate template is needed? That an article actually use a local word or spelling? Wouldn't that potentially mean a lot of re-tagging of all a country's articles if we later discover it's actually necessary to distinguish it from British English for practical purposes? Is it better if all these templates are merged into one and the country is only indicated by a parameter? -- Beland (talk) 11:28, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I would also be interested in the answer to this. I write in Belizean English, and will continue doing so until ENGVAR guidance changes. I've been tagging everything {{UBE}} b/c it was the closest I could find to "not AmE" (and {{EngvarB}} confused me tbh). Sure, I can continue tagging everything I write as {{UBE}}, but that's not actually accurate, and imposes more of a burden on me whenever I need to flag "Hey guys, this is actually correctly written in Belizean English, despite what the tag says!" And ofc precludes the use of bots/scripts to correct Belizean English usage (by preventing tracking categories). And discourages Belizean editors from contributing to Wikipedia (they might be forgiven for thinking they must write in BrE/AmE/one of the English dialects with a {{Use X English}} template). - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 11:41, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Just for curiosity: how does (written) Belizean English actually differ from British English? Gawaon (talk) 12:26, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Gawaon: imo? by being wayyy more tolerant of Americanisms and American-style spelling, plus some distinctive terms/senses, a few unique spellings (caye not cay, etc; cf WP:BZE/E)! My -ise spellings are actually wayyy old school in Belizean English: Oxford-style spelling is the historical, formal norm afaik. - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 12:56, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't want to go down yet another handbrake turn onto another topic as this is interminable. If you would like to discuss whether Use Belizean English should continue to be a thing, a specific TfD would be the best place to go into the depths of that. Whatever you're writing in, all I can tell you is that it is indistinguishable from British English.

As to what would be my preferred solution, I would personally prefer guidance which asks editors to use the established templates and to seek consensus for each additional template they wish to create. Rather than the present, 'I'm doing this regardless of need and I'm going to tag as many pages as possible and then maybe later I'll think about what Use X English actually means.'

Once a need has been established for one of these templates by consensus, I have no problem whatever with that being used. But this is the only way to stop the proliferation of these poorly sourced, unnecessary and meaningless templates which spread like wildfire. That doesn't touch on any other policies about language. It only concerns the proliferation of language templates. Dgp4004 (talk) 12:41, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Dgp4004: Eh I was just using Belizean English as an example, just read X English in its stead! Your preferred solution unfortunately keeps us from using tracking categories, discourages some potential editors from contributing to Wikipedia, and imposes a burden on some editors. Beland's unified {{Use X English}}, on the other hand, fully addresses your goal ("to stop the proliferation of these poorly sourced, unnecessary and meaningless templates which spread like wildfire"), without any of the drawbacks of your preferred solution. If that goal is the only reason you have for opposing Beland's solution and preferring that any new {{Use X English}} templates go through a pre-approval-by-consensus process, then I'm really sorry but I don't think your stance makes much sense to me.^[14] - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 13:21, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I completely understand why you would oppose seeking consensus on the creation of some of these templates because they can't stand up to scrutiny, just as Use Cameroonian English didn't. Hence why we're here seeking to move the goalposts. Dgp4004 (talk) 16:00, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Certainly it could be a waste of a lot of effort to create a template and apply it to a bunch of articles without some assurance it won't be deleted because it's widely opposed. There isn't a "Draft template" namespace; I don't have a problem with people being bold and temporarily creating templates that aren't used in articles for the purpose of prototyping or discussing them, especially if they aren't simply variations on the theme of templates that have been deleted.

Personally, I also mildly dislike the idea of a large number of templates, one for each of the 88 English-speaking countries, because that creates a lot of overhead maintaining their documentation, doing updates if formatting changes, etc. The idea of creating one mega template addresses the objection on the grounds of template proliferation.

If the idea is to get consensus before using such a template, great, this conversation is part of that process.

You objected earlier: "a new mega template including dictionaries of local vocabularies is just going to be a vehicle for even more of these pedantic and poorly sourced claims."

Yes, though it's a very interesting topic for linguists and readers of articles on the dialects of English, it is much more efficient when thinking about templates to entirely avoid the question of whether or not standard formal English in a given country is different from British English at all. (Not to mention the distraction of non-standard national varieties, which is most of what our articles cover.) This implies we want to avoid templates that make claims like "this article is written in Cameroonian English". I see Template:Ties/sandbox is doing that, which is not what I was proposing and not what I would favor. I also don't like that it allows specifying a given English variety using anywhere from one to four different codes. A, the codes are less intelligible to editors than country names, and B, having more than one per choice creates a headache for people like me who write bots. It's better to have only one, intuitive way to specify a given variety, and spit out an error for invalid choices.

I have drafted an alternative at Template:English ties. This is in the form of an editnotice, but at this point I mostly care about getting consensus on the wording and not making it pretty or where it will be used (we could replace the talk page notices with this, for example, or use a non-displaying version embedded in article wikitext that would be more efficient for bots).

Instead of saying "this article is written in Cameroonian English", it says "This article has strong ties to Cameroon. Per MOS:TIES it uses standard formal written English as used in this country, which for encyclopedia purposes is very similar to British English."

For countries where there is an undisputed distinct national standard variety, it will simply link to that article, like: "This article has strong ties to the United States. Per MOS:TIES it uses standard formal American English." It also handles Oxford and IUPAC spelling cases.

This template is not the place to put exhaustive lists of spelling differences for specific dialects. I think that joyfully pedantic work is best directed at Wiktionary, where the results can be used by everyday readers, linguistics researchers, editors trying to follow MOS:COMMONALITY, and authors of automated spell-checkers like me. (I already use Wiktionary as my list of valid words, and it also tags common misspellings which is very helpful for correction purposes.)

You also referred to a "misreading of MOS:TIES". I agree that policy doesn't require the creation of any templates; that's a different practical question. If there's something else you're getting at, it might be good to make that explicit and clarify the MOS if needed.

Or in general, if people feel we should be treating small English-speaking countries and their dialects differently than large ones, maybe we should have a discussion about that. My proposed template can only be used for articles that have strong ties to a country (or to note Oxford or IUPAC spelling subvariants). That means people can't go around tagging random no-ties articles like Electron and say they have to use Cameroonian English. (I'm wondering if worry that someone might do that is one of the reasons some people are resistant to creating templates for more national dialects?) Should there be an explicit list or usage cutoff for dialects that can be used for no-ties articles? In practice articles without ties to a specific country almost always use American, British, or Oxford, and because these are highly used that makes things easy for readers to understand, minimizes distracting or confusing localisms (or the need to commonalize them) and gives editors an easy target. Or we could say no-ties articles should use a dialect with at least 20 million speakers, which is 0.25% of the world population. (That would mean American, Indian, Nigerian, Pakistani, Indonesian, Phillipine, British, Canadian, and Australian, according to List of countries by English-speaking population.) -- Beland (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback on Template:Ties/sandbox; I've updated it so that only one (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3) code can be entered per country/territory, so hopefully that would make it easier for bots etc.? I also removed the mentions of specific varieties; I'll go through and add comparative explanation for the various lesser-known varieties (based on the sources I've been able to find that provide that kind of description), but that will take a while obviously. Pineapple Storage (talk) 22:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

@Beland I just re-read your comment and realised you specifically said the codes were a problem! Apologies for that.

You said above that you mostly care about getting consensus on the wording for Template:English ties, so I feel like it's worth mentioning this: currently the template is worded in a way that assumes that any variety (other than IUPAC, Oxford, AmE, CanE and PhlE) is functionally the same as BrE... Is that what you meant by entirely avoid the question of whether or not standard formal English in a given country is different from British English at all, in your comment above? If so, does this not run the risk of attracting EngvarB-type objections? Many varieties, especially Caribbean and Australasian Englishes, incorporate enough AmE spelling patterns etc. to differ noticeably from standard BrE, even in formal/encyclop(a)edic writing. Pineapple Storage (talk) 23:31, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Sort of. That list is not complete; I only bothered putting in a few countries for demonstration purposes. If we decide we want to use the template, I will add all the other English-speaking countries that shouldn't get the "which for encyclopedia purposes is very similar to British English" message. That's only the default so I didn't have to repeat that text over and over again. I could change the template to not have a default and reject any string that's not explicitly listed as a country name or other valid choice? -- Beland (talk) 01:14, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Beland: re {{English ties}}, looks excellent! I personally would avoid explicit MOS mention, and rather just summarise the relevant MOS guidance and link to it.^[15] Could we have this edit notice track all the Category:Use X English tracking categories though? I feel this might be needed for bots/scripts, and to fully supplant all current {{English variant templates}} (maintenance and edit notice ones).^[16] And on a side note, the IUPAC switch prolly oughtta not even be indexed to BrE/AmE, as IUPAC's independent of English variety as far as I can tell?

re the proposal to restrict ENGVAR (the 20 mil cutoff for non-TIES articles), I think that's a great compromise, as I do feel this might be a fear amongst stance (A) editors (but I've misread their stance/reasoning before, it seems, so dunno).

Should maybe any of these proposals be RfCs? I dunno how we establish consensus on them, and I don't really see a lot of stance (A) editors participating here so I fear this might be an echo chamber with only stance (not A) editors :(..? Asdfjrjjj (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I must apologise to you Beland, and to Asdfjrjjj and others, as my tone has been belligerent. I am far calmer now, and against all the odds, Beland's template Template:English ties has won me over!

It elegantly marries the freedom to use any national variety of English with the commonalities they share with British English, and allows for flexibility for those varieties that don't. And it will be far easier to discuss and agree edits to one template than trying to keep track of many and putting them each through TfD. Great work!

However, just to muddle things completely and swap sides... whilst I'm certainly not against your proposal to restrict neutral articles to the major English varieties, it might be a little unfair! I wonder if it mightn't be better to expand the scope to also replace - or at least have the potential to replace - all the Use X English templates, even the large ones. Dgp4004 (talk) 22:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

And something else that just occurred to me while reading the template's examples: I know it sounds silly, but 'English ties' could be perhaps provocative. It could be misread as ties to England. 'English ties|Scotland' or 'Northern Ireland' or 'Falklands'. And it also sets an example that it can be broken down into tiny sub-national areas, each varying from another. Perhaps it would be better to restrict it to nation states. English ties|United Kingdom, Ghana etc. Dgp4004 (talk) 22:57, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

The name "English ties" was chosen hastily just to get something drafted. Any suggestions for a better name that avoids confusion with the country of England? {{strong ties}} is available. We could also clobber {{ties}} with whatever final design is preferred. I don't have strong feelings, other than that it should be intuitive and hopefully short.

I threw in Scotland as an example because {{Use Scottish English}} and {{Scottish English}} exist and are used on hundreds of articles. A 2023 TfD found no consensus to merge {{Scottish English}} to {{British English}}, on the grounds that words like "church" and "barrister" should not be used over the Scottish alternatives when talking about Scottish entities. Though it is not listed at English-speaking nation, Scotland is considered one of the four "nations" of the United Kingdom, and so arguably is one. This implies we actually do need to say to use standard formal Scottish English, with deference to commonality with British English. I will update my draft.

I think "Falklands" needs to be a valid choice because even though it is under British sovereignty, it is not part of the United Kingdom, so using {{English ties|United Kingdom}} would produce factually incorrect text. It's possible that the standard written English of the Falklands, Bermuda, and England are all the same for encyclopedic purposes, but given how geographically separate they are and how Bermuda is influenced by Jamaica and the United States and the Falklands is influenced by Argentina and Spanish, I wouldn't be surprised if one day we discover we need to treat them differently. Since part of the point of this template is to avoid having to re-tag, I think we are better future-proofed by allowing the names of dependent territories. ISO 3166 can be somewhat helpful figuring out what entities exist and which are internal territories vs. external. I think I know enough about some places to say flat out to use the sovereign power's national variety, like "strong ties to the United States Virgin Islands, use American English". But if we discover later that there actually is a difference that requires different spellings or more gentle wording, that's easy to change in the central template without re-tagging hundreds or thousands of articles. -- Beland (talk) 02:01, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, if we want this to replace all the "Use X English" templates, then presumably a name that has "ties" might be too narrow? -- Beland (talk) 03:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Or actually, we could use {{ties}} for choices based on strong national ties, and {{English variety}} or something else for choices based on MOS:RETAIN. One could be a redirect to the other so they could share overlapping code and mappings and whatnot. -- Beland (talk) 03:45, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, Ties and English Variety might be a good idea. Just for the record though, I must disagree with your assertion that the overseas territories are apart from the UK. You're absolutely right that they're not in it, as such. But they are annexed to the Crown of the United Kingdom. That 'of the United Kingdom' part is often overlooked. Dgp4004 (talk) 18:14, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, the "as such" part actually matters. We don't want to put text in our template that directly contradicts our articles: United Kingdom says the UK is only England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It explicitly says that the Crown Dependencies are not part of the UK. British Overseas Territories explicitly says they are not part of the UK. That's why I say they are under British sovereignty but not part of the UK. -- Beland (talk) 03:56, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I would second this proposal, seems an elegant and reasonable solution to me, and allows for ENGVAR restriction for non-TIES articles (if that comes about :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 18:56, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I also think this sounds like a good option. Template:Retain is available, so could either be the main version of the non-TIES template, or a redirect for simplicity. Pineapple Storage (talk) 13:03, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Also interesting about the Scottish English template still being a thing. Use Scottish English already redirects to Use British English. Just one of the many Hydra's heads I suppose! Dgp4004 (talk) 18:17, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

To editor Ohconfucius: hi I know you mentioned preferring to not be pinged re ENGVAR/{{Use X English}} discussions in the CamE TfD, but Beland's proposals above (the {{English ties}} template, the ENGVAR restriction) seem super relevant and possibly an acceptable way to address everyone's concerns?^[17] - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 23:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

But I see that this mega template has already been created, not even in draft space, so there's little point in taking part in this discussion. It's like hydra's head. You object to one template, a dozen more spring up. Dgp4004 (talk) 10:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Template proliferation was always going to be the result of the engvarB close, this discussion isn't the cause. CMD (talk) 10:39, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It's perfectly possible to replace EngvarB with a single template that just has a better name. -- Beland (talk) 10:49, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It’s British English. Where a variety has sufficient differences from British English to merit its own template, like Australian English, use that where appropriate. Where it doesn’t, then those places are effectively using British English, maybe with a bit of added local vocab. MapReader (talk) 12:35, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

It was and perhaps is possible, but the tfd decided against that. CMD (talk) 13:16, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

If you're talking about the EngvarB TfD, I closed that discussion, and that wasn't the outcome. I specifically wrote that "editors will need to decide if they want to revive or create templates" for spelling styles that span countries, and gave a few examples of different approaches to doing that. -- Beland (talk) 20:57, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

The outcome was that the template was deprecated, not set for renaming. Many of its instances have been replaced by other templates, and existing instances will continue to be replaced as time goes on. That can't be unwound even if a new template is created, so whatever the intention proliferation was baked into the outcome. CMD (talk) 02:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Certainly many articles were more appropriately tagged with country-specific templates since they did not have ties with multiple countries. But those templates already existed, so I'm not sure I would consider that proliferation. If {{English ties}} replaces those country-specific templates, we may in fact see the reduction in the overall number of language variety templates. -- Beland (talk) 03:02, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

That's not certain at all, unless there's an analysis of engvar b template replacement I've missed. CMD (talk) 03:13, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Kusma, MPF, EEng, MapReader, Jc3s5h, Oknazevad, NebY, Trovatore, Ham II, Vestrian24Bio, HouseBlaster, Tony1, Amakuru, The C of E, and Keith D: I feel Beland's proposal here (for a unified {{Use X English}} template) might be of interest to anyone who participated in the previous EngvarB discussions here on MOS talk and TfD? (But apologies if anyone did not wish to be pinged.) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 11:29, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

"Use X English" is fine for me. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 11:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping @Pineapple Storage. For myself, I oppose your suggested changes the the MOS above. It won't surprise you that I believe the MOS needs tightening up rather than loosening. I think that putting in terms like 'Standard English' is just going to lead down a rabbit hole of whether a variety is indeed 'Standard English'. There will no doubt be some editors of the belief that a single obscure study or dictionary about some national variety is sufficient to make it 'Standard English'. In my view, these changes just creates more wriggle room to crowbar in dozens and dozens of obscure 'Use X English' templates. Dgp4004 (talk) 15:52, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

If the following are true:

• All articles are legible and intelligible to readers who can read English
• All {{Use X English}} templates are about varieties that have their own Wikipedia article, which either currently contains or could in the future contain comprehensive documentation and guidance on the spelling and grammar rules of that variety

then what exactly is the problem with dozens and dozens of obscure 'Use X English' templates?

Aside from the fact that obscure is relative (and the suitability of an English variety shouldn't be decided by someone who's never heard of it), there are dozens and dozens of countries and territories that do have a Standard English variety. And there are dozens and dozens (likely hundreds and hundreds) of linguists around the world producing documentation of (and other literature about) these varieties. As with everything on Wikipedia, what matters is whether the reliable sources exist, and as long as they do, there's no real reason (other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT) why a certain variety shouldn't be used. Also, we're not working on paper, so there are no practical limits that stop us from making as many templates as there are (attested) Standard English varieties. Pineapple Storage (talk) 16:10, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

@Dgp4004 I would also direct you to @Beland's comment above, if you haven't already read it. Pineapple Storage (talk) 16:13, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

What Standard English looks like for any given country is pretty easy to figure out these days, given that by definition it's used in newspapers and government documents. There should be plenty of samples of that online for all but the smallest of countries. A variety is not considered standard because an academic paper is published about it, it's because of its status and use in society. Having a dictionary published for a dialect does not make that dialect standard. Consulting a dictionary is a good way to know if a word is colloquial or regional or standard. We also have Wiktionary which already knows this about most words, and which can be updated as we learn about new country-specific English words.

I'm not sure why adding "standard" would create new disputes over actual usage. Editors should already be complaining about and removing non-standard, informal, or colloquial language and avoidable regionalisms.

MOS:TIES apparently already requires us to write compatibly with 88 different national standard dialects. This language doesn't change that, it just makes explicit what should already be obvious, that there are not dozens of dialects beyond that to choose from. Whether or not we need to have 88 or 90 different templates to indicate the dialect choice of all articles is a different question, and I'm skeptical the template tail should be wagging the "how should I spell words" dog.

-- Beland (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Beland's suggested changes read good to me. I also think that they adequately match what is already the meaning of ENGVAR – they are a clarification rather than an effective change of the guideline. Gawaon (talk) 17:38, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

These seem very sensible to me :), agree with Gawaon above re how they're not changing MOS meaning. Buuuut I and Beland read ENGVAR the same way I think, so would be nice to hear from editors who hold the opposing view first before making any changes, I feel?^[18] - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 19:02, 15 August 2025 (UTC) Asdfjrjjj (talk) 19:02, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

@CROIX, Johnuniq, Retro, PharyngealImplosive7, Quondum, Rich Farmbrough, Cagliost, Arnav Bhate, Fylindfotberserk, Amakuru, Charcoal feather, PBS, SUM1, and LlywelynII: just in case anyone had any thoughts on Beland's proposals here? or the broader/vaguer Proposal 1 or Proposal 2 in general? And sorry if anyone did not wish to be pinged for this, or if I missed anyone! - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Not sure how I got included but thanks.

Nothing much to add. This all seems to fall under WP:BLUE to me, going back to the original post. The reading that all forms of English are acceptable down to a single person's idiolect and (e.g.) William Faulkner's article should be written from the POV of a mentally disabled southerner, ee cummings's article should have no punctuation or capitalization, and China should be written in Chinglish with Chinese grammatical rules... it's just patent nonsense.

One thing: The Ugandan example above seems to point to occasions when a standard national form of English might accept constructions not grammatically included in most others. If this is really a large issue people can't be rational about at this late date, it might be necessary to also strengthen the wording that we should default to phrasing acceptable across multiple dialects. We really should, honestly, but some Brits would probably get their dander up about being told to just use "while" on all occasions and it's not like we want to discourage anyone's work on the project. — LlywelynII 03:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

How would people feel about adding a sentence to the "When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English" item so it reads:

When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred, except when:

• The less common spelling has a specific usage in a specialized context, e.g., connexion in Methodist connexionalism
• Two spellings are accepted in a national variety and they are equally common or usage frequency is difficult to determine, the spelling which is more broadly used internationally is preferred

-- Beland (talk) 17:54, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Pineapple Storage points out above that "most commonly used" may have been intended to mean "most commonly used across all standard English varieties" rather than "most commonly used in the national standard English variety. If that's so, we could take care of this with a much smaller change, like saying "most commonly used current variant (internationally)" or "(across all national varieties of Standard English)". -- Beland (talk) 17:57, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Just a quick note… remember that we are discussing written varieties of English, and not spoken varieties. Formal written English (ie what one would use in writing an encyclopedia article) has a lot less variation than colloquial spoken English. Blueboar (talk) 18:13, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

My impression so that we here we come into overly specialized territory where it's just not practical to have a rule. In practice, such issues rarely arise, and if they do, the statistics needed to apply the rule likely won't exist, or their reliability won't be clear. Not every theoretically possible detail needs to be covered in the MOS (avoid CREEP). Gawaon (talk) 21:25, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not sure what the latest proposal is, the discussion seems to have become fragmented... But if there is a consensus forming around the proposed {{English ties}} template, then I think that sounds a good proposal. My main points of concern in the past have been that we should not remove opportunities to specify that articles have ties to their own locations, e.g. by deleting "Use Ugandan English" and forcing articles from that country to be written in "British English", while also retaining the principle of EngvarB, which gives editors unfamiliar with local dialects guidance as to the broad category that it falls under. As long as we allow all the ties that might be necessary, including those for Cameroon and Tanzania etc, even where a formal specification of that country's English can't be found, then {{English ties}} looks great. A nice corollary if this is that it looks like it avoids the need to be too prescriptive about terminology from on high, and allows decisions to be made at article level on whether to use local terms or default to commonality. Thus the danfo and senior wife examples mentioned above could be accepted in an article, while other obscure local terms might be avoided, with local consensus and normal editing determining this. Does this sound like the proposed plan? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 08:06, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  Exactly! -- Beland (talk) 15:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  Yes! sorry I think I'm meant to summarise this discussion, will figure out how to/guidance and do shortly :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 20:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Should brief guidance on False titles be added to MOS?

Several times of the past year I've been involved in minor discussions over the use of False titles in articles. Nothing earth-shaking, usually civil discussions ... sometimes in Peer Reviews or FA reviews. The MOS is silent on false titles, so each discussion has to research and present the same points, over and over. I'm wondering if adding a sentence to the MOS may help future editors quickly resolve these situation? Something like:

Editors may use false titles or not, so long as each article is internally consistent.

Here are a handful of links where false titles were discussed (there are many more, this is simply a few I'm aware of):

• Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive96#False_titles?
• User:Popcornfud/The_problem_with_false_titles
• Talk:James_Cook#"The"_before_occupations_-_avoid_false_titles?
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22False+title%22&prefix=Wikipedia+talk%3AManual+of+Style&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1&searchToken=5tk9bdcimdp6xfvhazh6452lc [MOS Talk page archive search shows several mentions in the past]

I am aware of the essay WP:MOSCREEP, but since the false title issue appears to arise regularly, and the discussions always seem end the same way, maybe the MOS should steer editors to a resolution? It might save a lot of hours of wasted Talk page discussion. Noleander (talk) 15:36, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree adding a brief statement would be a good thing. If we were willing to indulge our CREEPiness a bit, I'd add that AmEng leans towards accepting them and BrEng leans towards rejecting them. RoySmith (talk) 16:14, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Carlstak (talk) 16:27, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I've seen people say this AmEng/BrEng thing a lot, and for all I know it's true, but I don't think I've ever seen a reliable source for it. Is there one? Popcornfud (talk) 16:30, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I was just going on what people had said in the various talk threads. If there's no consensus to add that, then I'm fine with Noleander's original terse statement. RoySmith (talk) 16:50, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

The False title article has a pretty good survey of how false titles are used (or not used) in several countries, and why. My impressions are: there are no solid rules; the usage is evolving over time; experts disagree; and even in UK where false titles are rare, they are gradually creeping in.

If the WP MOS were to add some words about false titles, it may be prudent to steer clear of any advice, other than (1) both approaches are acceptable (use false titles; or not) ; and (2) be consistent within an article. Noleander (talk) 17:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

In response to Popcornfud: for what it's worth, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage entry for "the" cited in our article "False title", says:

The type Prime Minister Major. This construction, with omission of the before an occupational title followed by a person’s name, is embedded in AmE but less so in BrE. It is especially common in journalistic work.

Carlstak (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I wrote the false title essay but haven't looked at the actual Wikipedia article about it for years. Would probably have been a sensible place to check. Popcornfud (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

The current version of Fowler's (4th ed., 2015) has been updated (emphasis added):

This construction, in place of the more traditional the Prime Minister, i.e. with omission of the before an occupational title and the addition of a person’s surname, sometimes also with the first name, is embedded in AmE and becoming more so in BrE. It is especially common in journalistic work.

Example sentences include this 2012 article from British tech news site The Register where the phrase something Prime Minister Cameron said appears. Note that the examples include true titles (Prime Minister Cameron) and false titles (economist Sylvia Ann Hewlitt). --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 18:30, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm somewhat torn but lean against thinking this should be added. The fact that it apparently comes up regularly does give me some pause. I oppose requiring internal consistency within an article. False titles don't stand out to my American eyes and ears and switching between using false titles and including the article is natural whereas requiring internal consistency is overkill and may produce more awkward prose. Guidance and examples in Fowler's and several examples in the linked discussion Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive96#False_titles? show that the practice of using false titles is increasingly common in BrE and that the practice of switching between styles combining false titles and use of 'the' within a published piece is also common. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 18:45, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

"Switching between styles within a published piece" sounds like a recipe for chaos on WP, which, admittedly, we already have in many articles. Those do tend to be crappy. I know what I would do if I were the Dictator of Wikipedia;-): make it policy that consistent styles, within individual articles and determined by local consensus, are the standard. No doubt some wildfires would break out on the respective talk pages, but at least there would be a lodestar for navigation. Carlstak (talk) 20:41, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't actually characterize using a false title in one phrase and then using 'the' elsewhere in the same piece as switching styles. It's natural and commonplace. I should not have called it switching between styles. Perhaps this is my American bias but phrase like the American director John Smith met with studio head Jane Doe reads fine to me and it would be bizarre to dictate that 'the' be added or removed. If there are actual problematic examples those could be copy edited per editorial discretion or local consensus for a particular article. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 20:59, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Even where it is a little awkward to combine within a single sentence, using both practices in different parts of the same article is not problematic. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:03, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

That's your opinion. I'm American and I don't really care one way or the other. I've been writing in British English and Oxford spelling English, as well as in American English, for quite a few years on WP, and I feel most comfortable when the article has an established style. Then I'm less likely to step on someone's toes or offend their sensibilities without digging into archives to see what consensus might have been established, if one ever was. Speaking in my imaginary capacity as Dictator of Wikipedia, just relax, nothing's going to happen here anyway.;-) Carlstak (talk) 21:27, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't really have a strong feeling one way or another on whether false titles are great or horrible or whatever. I'm just tired of having false titles brought up, and the subsequent confusion about what WP's policy is. I'd appreciate it if the MOS helped those discussions get resolved quicker. It would be helpful if the MOS captured the current WP overall consensus, even if that turns out to be: The MOS does not specify that false titles should be preferred or avoided; and does not require that false titles (or absence thereof) be applied uniformly thru an article. The MOS already has several "no opinion" statements, does it not? Noleander (talk) 21:29, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if the MOS helped those discussions get resolved quicker That's really what this is about. Once you've had an argument enough times that it's clear how it's going to end, just write that down and move on to something else. RoySmith (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I looked in the MOS page to see where such guidance would go, and it appears that it would be in a sub-page, namely WP:MOSBIO. The specific section that covers titles of people related to occupation is WP:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Positions,_offices,_and_occupational_titles, so maybe that is the best place to put any guidance. That MOS sub-page has its own talk page, I'll post a note that pointing here, to get further input. Noleander (talk) 00:27, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely convinced. I have no strong objection to cataloguing current practice along the lines of The MOS does not specify that false titles should be preferred or avoided; and does not require that false titles (or absence thereof) be applied uniformly thru an article but I'm also not sure it's all that helpful. The evidence posted shows that the question comes up periodically but the discussions don't seem contentious. This amounts to a non-instruction. Thus the CREEP concerns are minimized but so is the utility. If a handful of editors will find it helpful to be able to point to this to move discussions along and the guidance does not amount to a change in practice, then perhaps it's fine. I'm not sure where this should go, if we decide to add this at all, but the MOSBIO section seems reasonable. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 07:16, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

What about this example?

International reactions

The President of France, Emmanuel Macaron, sent his condolences.

US President Donald Trump said his thoughts and prayers were with the families.

The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, called the event a "tragedy".

I, for one, find this flip-flopping very jarring. 174.138.218.72 (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't have much of a problem with this. It does read like a somewhat clumsy attempt to add variety by not repeating the same phrasing over and over again. Could it benefit from some wordsmithing? Sure. But it's not incorrect and I doubt I would have noticed it if I came across this in the wild. To the extent there is a problem here, a focus on uniform use or non-use of false titles it too narrow. This could be cleaned up per editorial discretion or, if the phrasing is controversial, local consensus at the article in question. I still object to requiring consistency throughout an entire article (and this looks to be where consensus is heading). If what is jarring to some editors here is the juxtaposition in successive sentences, differing usage in different sections or the article doesn't present the same problem. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:17, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that I wouldn't notice differing usage in different sections.. I think the term is parallelism (grammar) of multiple sentences: "She likes reading. He likes to play baseball." is grammatical but has a similar style problem. 174.138.218.72 (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The ENGVAR dimension should certainly be mentioned. I'm old enough to think that most FTs are just plain wrong in BrE, and certainly very jarring, but I leave them alone in AmE articles, although I don't think eg The New Yorker would normally allow them. I'm not sure the brief proposed text is going to help anyone, frankly, but adding it's largely an ENGVAR issue might; most Americans don't seem aware of this. Johnbod (talk) 01:12, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The evidence presented so far shows it is something of a historical ENGVAR issue, with increasing usage in BrE but possibly still less common than in AmE. If ENGVAR is mentioned, it shouldn't be over-stated. If there are other sources showing a substantial present-day difference, those should be presented. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 07:21, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

That "possibly still less common than in AmE" is a distortion of "the evidence presented so far", but we need more evidence, such as UK style guides. I'm strongly against ANY change to MOS that ignores ENGVAR issues. Johnbod (talk) 02:26, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

That "possibly still less common than in AmE" is a distortion of "the evidence presented so far" How so? And how would you propose handling the ENGVAR question in our MOS. So far we have one style guide (Fowler's, 2015) saying the false titles practice is becoming more [embedded] in BrE, another (Cambridge, 2014) saying it is resisted outside of American usage, and several examples of the usage in a variety of sources, including books published by Cambridge University Press. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:35, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I am leaning against, largely per WP:CREEP but also because telling editors that things must be consistent is a recipe for setting gnomes going, looking for articles that include a false title and then insisting that all other people mentioned in those articles must also have false titles for consistency. I don't think that would be a good idea. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Here’s how The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2014, p. 536) treats the topic: “Journalistic omission of the. In everyday news reporting journalists often delete the when providing readers either a thumbnail identity of the person just mentioned in the report:

Peter Carey, (the) author of Oscar and Lucinda and ex-advertising man has a gift for graphic description.

As an appositional structure, this is grammatically straightforward. But the practice is sometimes applied before mentioning the person’s name:

Novelist and ex-advertising man Peter Carey has a gift for…

This gives the person a “pseudo-title” (Meyer 2002), a style which is well established in American news reporting but resisted in other quarters of the English-speaking world. It is strongly associated with journalese (see further under journalism).” Ham II (talk) 08:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

• I would oppose adding anything to the MOS about false titles. Certainly they should not be prohibited in any variety of English, per modern usage and avoiding restrictions on the English language based on rules which make little logical sense and have the air of something someone made up in days gone by (split infinitives are another example). But equally, the insertion of the is almost always just as good as omitting it, so if individual editors prefer not to use false titles or local consensus is against them, then that's fine too. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 08:37, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  Just to clarify on this, I have no objection to adding the simple line "Editors may use false titles or not" to the MOS, but I strongly oppose the additional text suggested above, "so long as each article is internally consistent". Using or not using false titles isn't an all-or-nothing question, some constructs work well with them, and some work well using the more full version including the, which isn't a full title. We should be explicit that there's no rule about this, not say there's no rule and then throw in a rule anyway for no demonstrated value.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Moreover, the Cambridge Guide argument seems to boil down to "we don't like it" (why is it a "pseudo-title" when used before the name, but "grammatically straightforward" after it?). Plus the cited source is more than 10 years old, and usage evolves. (I observe myself as having "resisted" this style more strongly 10 or even 5 years ago than I do now.) Gawaon (talk) 08:39, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Does anyone object to adding "Editors may use false titles or not" to WP:MOSBIO? Even that minimal guidance would help future editors. Alternatively: Editors may use false titles or not, and usage is not required to be uniform thru an article? Noleander (talk) 14:14, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Other than changing "thru" to "through" (or "throughout"), I'm fine with either. RoySmith (talk) 14:18, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The wording "false title" itself seems to suggest that there's something wrong with this usage, so it would probably be better to find a more neutral wording. Gawaon (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

'. . . omission of "the" in . . .'? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

How about "Placing 'the' before occupations is optional" or "Using the word 'the' before occupations is optional" or "Using the word 'the' before occupations is optional. Both "Historian John Doe wrote ..." and "The historian John Doe wrote ..." are acceptable or "Placing 'the' before occupations is optional (both "Historian John Doe wrote ..." and "The historian John Doe wrote ..." are acceptable) Noleander (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

To me, it would be odd to restrict any guidance to occupations. For example, a Guardian article published this week says "Just-announced album already looks like it will make singer and partner Travis Kelce hysterically famous at a new level", which uses false titles to describe Kelce as a partner (not an occupation), and to describe an album a "just-announced" (not even a person, let alone a person with an occupation). Popcornfud (talk) 15:01, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

"Just-announced album already looks ..." is headlinese, not a false title. It's not used in American English prose. It would need to be "Just-announced album [name] already looks ...]". 174.138.218.72 (talk) 15:51, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Here I agree with the IP: outside headlines, doing it for anything other than description + person's name is very unusual in formal English. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:36, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

You're right, I misread the example I quoted, d'oh. However, my point about "partner" stands - are we going to say false titles are OK only for occupations? Popcornfud (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I would say that "Taylor Swift and partner Travis Kelce" is (usually) outside the style permitted in formal English, except in journalism: we would expect her partner. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:18, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Reads good to me. It also applies in combination with nationalities ([the] Canadian historian Jane Doe), but maybe that goes without saying. Gawaon (talk) 16:20, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I can't defend this with any strict appeal to a grammar rule, but to my (American) ear, there's a subtle difference between:

• historian John Doe
• the historian John Doe

In the first example, the primary focus is the person (John Doe), and "historian" is just an adjective describing what he does. In the second. the primary focus is on the role (the historian) and "John Doe" is an adjective explaining which historian we're talking about. RoySmith (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I have the same feeling of the difference, but there would sometimes be cause for e.g. "the physician John Doe is a national hero; the cattle-rustler John Doe is a public menace" -- either to distingish between two people of the same name or, slightly poetically, between different aspects of the same person. That's an argument against "be consistent within the article", in my view, which is otherwise a good maxim. I remember in the discussion at FAC we found several examples of "good" publications which flipped back and forth in the same article/chapter/page. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:50, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I had the same feeling about 'false titles' suggesting the practice is improper. On the other hand, using the term to introduce the topic presents the opportunity to link to the Wiki article and clarify that the practice may apply to descriptors other than professions. I agree that if there's a better term, we should consider using that. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:04, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Is this limited to "In introducing a subject"? Does it mean if one writes, "Author X" one can't say "The editor Y" later? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:33, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The most recent proposal (immediately above, in green) is simply: "Editors may use false titles or not." (added to WP:MOSBIO), so there should be no need to include words specifying context. Even that minimal guidance will be helpful to future editors, since it will prevent wasted discussion if any editors insist on avoiding false titles entirely, which does happen with some regularity. Noleander (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I'd support that, even being fairly openly in the "anti" camp for encyclopedia purposes. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:43, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

In an attempt to capture the current consensus, I'm seeing:

• We should add a few words to WP:MOSBIO that give guidance on false titles
• The guidance is limited to constructs of the following form: [The] occupation person-name... e.g. [The] historian Jane Doe ...   [Edited based on discussion below] "[The] <nationality> <descriptior> <person-name> ..." such as "historian Jane Doe wrote ...", "the biologist John Doe established ...", "the Canadian academic Jean Doe concluded ...", "French philosopher Sartre published ...",
• Use of the word "the" (in that construct) is optional (WP has no preference)
• Use of the word "the" (in that construct) may vary throughout an article (no need to be consistent)
• The guidance should include a link to false title to give readers more insight; but the term "false title" should be de-emphasized lest readers think "false" suggests that the word "the" is encouraged.
• Not yet determined: should the guidance include examples; such as: Both "Historian Jane Doe wrote ..." and "The historian Jane Doe wrote ..." are acceptable.  [Edit: moved examples up to second bullet, above]

Does anyone object to any of the above? Noleander (talk) 18:19, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

What about the [the] Canadian historian case? In my experience, "false titles" very often include nationalities, so we should surely cover this.

As for examples: of course, let's include one or two! Gawaon (talk) 20:19, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Gawaon: I updated the bullet points above to include nationality. I also moved the examples into the second bullet, presenting them as part of the proposed guidance. Noleander (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I worry that occupation is to narrow and would prefer to say descriptor (or something along these lines). My sense is that this is (most?) common with professions and that other descriptors may be more informal, but that's not universal. Gawaon's suggestion to mention the common usage with nationalities makes sense. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Myceteae: I updated the bullet points above, and changed "occupation" to "descriptor". Noleander (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I like the updates made in response to both me and Gawaon. One nitpick that you can take or leave: I would not capitalize the first letter, unless it's a proper noun, to better show that these are not 'true titles' which often are capitalized. So: historian Jane Doe or the historian Jane Doe. This doesn't need to be explained in the MOS but this minor change in formatting the examples will make it more clear. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 00:08, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I incorporated your suggestion about caps. Noleander (talk) 00:25, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Gawaon's suggestion is with [nationality + occupation], which is right, but "Romeo and Juliet was written by Englishman William Shakespeare" reads pretty oddly to me. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:23, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I was making two separate statements, apologies if that was unclear. First, that 'false titles' can be used with descriptors that are not professions, such as electronics showroom Best Buy or convicted felon so-and-so. Barring other issues like POV and overall informality, the statement about 'false titles' in the MOS should not only apply to professions. My second statement was agreement with Gawaon that we should the practice mention and include an example with a nationality, such as English playwright William Shakespeare or Canadian historian Jane Doe. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 00:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

'false titles' can be used with descriptors that are not professions Yep. I tried to make the same point above, but with a crappier example. Popcornfud (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't think we should limit the note to any particular type of false title. A link to the article false title, which establishes that term as the common name and defines its scope, with a note that all forms of false title are acceptable, would seem acceptable for this.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:56, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• Definitely CREEP. I don’t think the MOS should mention the issue of false titles at all. Blueboar (talk) 11:56, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  The "false title" question (are they permitted or not?) comes up quite regularly. Editors waste time repeating the same discussions over and over, year after year. The MOS offers no guidance. The only guidance editors have is the WP article on false titles; and a non-binding essay (which says false titles are bad). The main purpose of the MOS is to capture the consensus that is reached over and over on multiple Talk pages ... even if the consensus ends up being "False titles may be used or not". A couple of sentences in the MOS would quickly wrap-up future discussions, so editors can get back to building an encyclopedia. Noleander (talk) 12:58, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• I've encountered enough disputes about this to support some mention in the MOS. I don't mind false titles, and I don't think it overly biases the reader to call them that. Of the alt names, "pseudo-title" is maybe a bit more neutral. I agree with the many above that think we shouldn't demand internal consistency. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:09, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for suggesting "pseudo-title" as a neutral name ... any MOS guidance should definitely avoid the word "false". The first sentence of the False title article lists some alternative names: "A false, coined, fake, bogus or pseudo-title, also called a Time-style adjective and an anarthrous nominal premodifier, is a kind of preposed appositive phrase..." Of the names listed, "pseudo-title" is the best: neutral, concise and understandable. Noleander (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Er... assuming "false title" is the most common term, shouldn't we use that in the MoS, if we're going to write anything? Popcornfud (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Good question. User:Gawaon was the first to bring this matter up in this Talk page, above, where they wrote "The wording "false title" itself seems to suggest that there's something wrong with this usage, so it would probably be better to find a more neutral wording." Then User: Firefangledfeathers suggested "pseudo-title", immediately above.

  I suppose it is a balance: "False title" is perhaps more common (is it? we'd need to research that); but it might lead readers to think it is discouraged. "Pseudo-title" seems like a good balance between the concerns. But I don't have a strong feeling one way or another. Noleander (talk) 17:45, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Google n-gram statistics show "false title" is used a lot more than "pseudo title" ... but that may be inaccurate since it probably includes counts of False titles of nobility. Noleander (talk) 17:48, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Too many false positives to be useful here, I think. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Agree. When I googled false titles yesterday, there were a couple hits for the topic we're discussing here at the top of the first page of results, but more results for false titles of nobility and false or misleading job titles or qualifications, as well as real estate fraud (as in property titles) and references to fake or misleading headlines or titles of works. This all makes me doubt whether false title is the primary topic for false title and the few sources we've reviewed here don't clearly show it is the common name, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion… --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:30, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  "Pseudo-titles" sounds decent. Alternatively it could be a more descriptive wording, with "false titles" added in parentheses. Gawaon (talk) 19:24, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  I support the use of pseudo-titles if this goes in the MOS. It's already a redirect and bolded alternative name in the lead and avoids the negative connotation of 'false'. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:36, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  As per Popcornfud above, we should be using the common name for this. If psuedo-title is really more common than false title then we should be moving the Wikipedia article about it. Calling it one thing in the article title and something else in the MOS seems unnecessarily confusing.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:22, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Using a synonym that better suits the tone and purpose of a given page is sound editorial practice and redirects facilitate this. Both terms are listed and defined as synonymous in the lead of false title; this should clear up any confusion. That said, an RM or exploratory discussion at Talk:False title may be in order. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 23:17, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• I think this is an useful addition to the MOS, and I support Noleander's revised wording given above. This issue is not-evident one way or the other and it comes up sufficiently often that some clear guidance is useful. Gawaon (talk) 14:25, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
• "Of the names listed, "pseudo-title" is the best" and "neutral, concise and understandable". Agreed. Carlstak (talk) 14:55, 18 August 2025 (UTC)
• Based on the discussion above (not saying there is a consensus yet), a possible addition "A" to the MOS is:

Candidate A - Editors may choose to use pseudo-titles or not; and the choice need not be consistent within an article. Acceptable: historian Jane Doe wrote; the biologist John Doe established; the Canadian academic Jean Doe concluded; and French philosopher Sartre published (examples omitting "the" are pseudo-titles).

It could use either "pseudo-titles" or "false titles". This could be placed within section WP:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Positions,_offices,_and_occupational_titles. Noleander (talk) 17:20, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

As already noted, this phenomenon is not limited only to biographical articles. Any entity can potentially have a false (or pseudo) title added before it, so this needs to go in the general MOS, and we need to include some examples that aren't people on our explainer. Other than that, your wording is decent enough, once the naming issue sis revolved. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree it's not restricted to biography articles. I'm not sure where the best placement would be. Perhaps a new subsection under Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Grammar and usage. Wherever it lands, a link from WP:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Positions,_offices,_and_occupational_titles to this guidance would be appropriate. we need to include some examples that aren't people I agree, although my sense is that such usage tends to be even more informal, so we'd need to find or construct a suitable example. An example I mentioned previously is electronics showroom Best Buy. I would probably not use just-announced album (another example that's been raised) in an encyclopedia article. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 23:30, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

@Amakuru @Myceteae: - I'm trying to understand the non-human usage. Are there any Talk page discussions in WP that involve a non-human instance of false titles? Or, if none exist in WP, are there some reliable grammar/journalist sources that discuss false titles in relation to non-human entities? (I'm not saying including non-humans is wrong; I'm just trying to learn more by seeing concrete examples). Noleander (talk) 00:16, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

My Best Buy example is from this NYT blog post (2012). IIRC, someone share this link here or in one of the other linked discussions. Garner's Modern English Usage (5 ed., 2022; accessible here with Wikipedia Library login) gives the example sentence: They played eventual champion Arkansas in the opening round last year sourced to the Asheville Citizen-Times. And this from The Chronicle of Higher Education‍'s language and usage blog contains several examples such as ride-hailing firm Uber and tire-manufacturer Pirelli. Note that all three sources use the term 'false title' (and recommend against the practice). --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 04:51, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I think that's purely journalese and unfit for encyclopedic usage. (For the time being at least, who knows how things will stand in 10 or 20 years.) Gawaon (talk) 07:05, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree these tend to be less formal and should therefore be avoided but I’m not convinced every instance is problematic. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 14:06, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for supplying the link to Garner's Modern English Usage ... it is very informative. I suppose it would make sense to include one or two non-human examples in the guidance. Especially if the guidance is "may be used, or not" then there is no controversy. I have no opinion on if the MOS should discourage false-titles for non-human entities ... but including that advice would probably prolong this discussion, and perhaps lead to a "no consensus" outcome, hence nothing gets added to the MOS. Noleander (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree—Permitting one usage and forbidding another gets further into CREEP territory and is less likely to. I see a coupe options:

1. Give one suitable non-human example without commentary.
2. Note that non-human examples can be seen as especially informal and, in such cases, should be avoided on those grounds. Follow with a suitable example.
3. Remain silent on non-human usage.

(1) Is the most parsimonious/least CREEPy way to explicitly address this. It may be interpreted such that this usage is always permissible, but other general standards of encyclopedia writing could be invoked to challenge problematic usage in articles. (2) Is perhaps the "Goldie Locks" version with a little more guidance but not a new or contradictory rule. Of course it may invite controversy about what is informal and in what ways usage needs to mirror our example(s). (3) Contradicts my initial position on this but if this is not a live controversy, perhaps more instruction is not needed here. It may inspire controversy and different interpretations of the omission.

--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:09, 19 August 2025 (UTC)