[Wikipedia-l] anglicization

Thu Nov 21 19:30:03 UTC 2002

Magnus Manske wrote:

> Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>
>> First off, in regards to whether anglicization (or rather 
>> americinization) is dumbing down...why yes it is. As we all know, the 
>> biggest argument against using more foreign names for foreign objects 
>> is, "Oh, but its soooooo confusing". 
>
> It is, for the Americans. ;-)
> With redirects, we can catch all common spellings. The idea is that 
> when someone who doesn't know the "correct" spelling (if there is such 
> a thing) links to a topic, (s)he will use, with some likelyhood, the 
> most common spelling. On the English wikipedia, that's the most common 
> one *in English*. So, we'd want to put the article under that 
> spelling, as to avoid redirects as much as possible when reading the 
> 'pedia.

Why such antipathy to redirects?  Whether we choose English spellings or 
original spellings, the redirects should still be there.  The only 
difference is which way they're pointing.

> So the English wikipedia should use more accents in their article 
> titles because you and armed terrorists tell them to? Now that you 
> mention it, it *does* fit with your prior actions ;-) 

"Armed terrorists!" - That's raising the smell of the debate a little 
high isn't it?

>> I demand that the authoritarians recognize the value of other 
>> cultures and languages and that while a german katze is most 
>> certainly a cat, Dumkopfmeyerstrasse is never Dumbheadmeyerstreet, no 
>> matter how many americans say otherwise, unless the local inhabitants 
>> decide that the americans are right and go and change the street signs.
>>
> Let's call it Dummkopfmeyerstrasse in the German wikipedia, and call 
> it what ever is common English spelling in the English wikipedia. As 
> there's probably no know spelling of this specific street, it would 
> likely be the German one.

Yes, but many anglophiles would like to believe that there is an English 
form even when they have to make it up.

Eclecticology