User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language

Welcome to WikiProject English Language. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of the English language and the organisation of information and articles on this topic. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please add yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.

Goals

WikiProject English Language will focus on ensuring that Wikipedia has:

• Proper encyclopedic coverage of the English language, and all notable subtopics thereof. This will include all of the following more detailed line-items.
• Neutral, descriptive linguistics approach to all of these topics
  • Removal of prescriptive/proscriptive point-of-view pushing "correct"/"incorrect" language, and original research in Wikipedia's voice, removed – and watchlisted against
  • Use of a descriptive, "teach the controversy" style regarding all real-world controversies and debates about the language and its features
• Complete articles for all major aspects of the language (split and developed from more general articles as needed):
  • Grammar, morphology, phonology, and other linguistic matters; spelling, punctuation, spacing, and other stylistic matters; major styles and registers of the language
• Developmental and modern social history of the language
• Major styles, registers, and sociolects of English (we already have dialects, etc., as well as non-English-specific genres and literary forms, and some sociolects, but virtually nothing on styles other than News style, or on registers. We have only a skeletal article at Writing style, though at least it is distinct from the fiction-related meaning at Style (literature).
• Reader-helpful navigation between relevant articles.
• A Featured Article at English language
• A Good Article or better at dialect/variety articles, starting with American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, and Irish English; then English as a world language (presently just redirects to List of lingua francas#English, and there's a similar section at International English); then Indian English, New Zealand English, South African English, English language in Europe, etc. Prioritize based on number of native speakers of English as first language.
• A Good Article or better at other key topics, including but not limited to: Modern English, Early Modern English, Middle English Old English; English as a second or foreign language, Teaching English as a second language, Phonological history of English, Great Vowel Shift, Oxford English Dictionary,
• A solid Outline of English page (see WP:WikiProject Outlines, Category:Outlines, Portal:Contents/Outlines)
• Establishment of a WP:Featured topic on English

Scope

• The history and linguistics of the English language, broadly construed, from Anglo-Saxon to post-modernist developments
• English-language usage, grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, compounding, contraction, abbreviation, loanword borrowing, typography, handwriting, and other "style" topics
• All dialects, registers, sociolects, and derivatives of English, including pidgins, creoles, jargon, slang, cants and argots, and terms of art, as well as constructed languages that are primarily English-based.
• All articles on English words and phrases as such.
• English acquisition and pedagogy.
• Notable works about the English language.
• Authors of notable works about English Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster), and who have contributed significantly to the English lexicon (William Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis).

Tangentially of interest (not project-tagged by WP:ENGLANG unless the content is dominated by English-language material)

• General linguistics articles; where enough material about the linguistic feature or process in questions exists or can be generate for English, split such off of the general article.
• General writing, style, and typography articles, especially when dominated by English-language-related material, at least until such time as spun off (e.g. Indentation (typesetting))
• Creole languages with a partial English base
• West Germanic languages ancestral or otherwise related to English (e.g. Anglic, Jutlandic, Saxon; Scots, Frisian).
• Geographical locations, ethnicities, and other general topics that closely involved English demographically.
• Westernization of non-Western names in English
• Mathematical and other scientific conventions that affect technical and academic writing

Off-topic

• Conlangs that have some English words or features but are not primarily English-based.
• Concepts that (in English) are related to an idiomatic phrase, but the article about which is focused on the concept not the wording (e.g. Boiling frog)
• Proper names that happen to be of England.

Editing advice

How to source with style guides

When sourcing for articles, we have to be forthcoming about which editions we're using, and only cite the current ones except for clearly delineated historical purposes. The misuse of old style guides to advance PoV-laden and often nationalistic agendas has been far too common, both in and out of mainspace. Most of the major style guides aside from Chicago have been updated in the last 1–3 years, but some of their previous editions were more than a decade earlier; ones that old are not likely to be reliable for current style matters.

When citing Web style guides, they actually need to be reliable ones; user-generated content doesn't count (including wikis, forums, AllExperts.com, Yahoo! Answers, etc.). Self-published punditry doesn't either, though the language blogs of reputable experts can sometimes be used with caution for certain things if directly attributed as primary sources. House style publications are a mix of primary and tertiary but are still sometimes useful. Individual universities' and colleges' summaries of writing tips for students are tertiary at best, being rehash of the major style guides (they have about the same weight as introductory textbooks, which is low, per WP:Identifying reliable sources).

We also need to distinguish between journalistic, academic, and general-purpose style guides, along one axis, and between those intended for broad public use vs. internal house style along another, and sometimes also along a third axis of nationality (or other cultural sphere) of the intended market. Our failure to do this programmatically has a lot to do with why our articles on English are so inconsistent, with so few at WP:Good article or WP:Featured article level.

Be aware of the sharp distinction between university guides for student academic writing, and in-house guides for the institutions' own communications departments; the latter are public relations style guides, and are uniformly based on journalistic and marketing manuals, not formal, academic ones. There's also a big difference between the publication manuals of major publishers of academic journals, and a particular journal's style guide (when it really is in-house; many of them are just copies of their publishers'). Lastly, there's a similar distinction between government-produced manuals for the public like the Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers by the Australian Government Publishing Service, and internal guidelines like the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual.

If you are sourcing something in part for the Wikipedia:Manual of Style please remember that the primary purpose of the sourcing is to improve Wikipedia's articles. Beware performing one-sided, cherry-picked sourcing to make a point, and don't engage in MoS-related dispute in article talk pages, where that will be off-topic (save it for WT:MOS or one of the MoS subpages' talk pages).

Finally, always keep in mind the WP:Neutral point of view and WP:What Wikipedia is not#HOWTO policies. Our articles cannot provide advice, declare a particular usage or style to be "correct" or "wrong", or otherwise be prescriptive or proscriptive, only linguistically descriptive. Any other approach is forbidden original research. This includes attempting to engage in novel analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of sources to arrive at our own editorial conclusions, such as that a particular style "is" colloquial, "should be" considered obsolete, or is "standard". There is no such thing as a single standard of English usage, and sources that use the term "standard" mean completely different things by it, including any of the following and more: "common in journalism or academic writing"; "common in everyday speech"; "following the prescribed methodology of a particular ToEFL programme"; "how the Queen speaks"; "how US Midwestern newscasters sound"; etc. Wikipedia cannot give undue weight to any of these approaches to the subjective notion of "standard" English.

• [More to be determined]

Open tasks

• Propose at WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals
• List at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Language and literature#Linguistics
• At Talk:Teaching English as a second language#Requested merge: February 2016 it has been suggested that Teaching English as a second language and Teaching English as a foreign language should be merged, at a new name: Teaching English as a second or foreign language.

Participants

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.

1. SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  (Interested in encyclopedically improving English grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style articles from a linguistic description perspective, using reliable sources. Also interested in the history of the language, and its dialects.) 06:28, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
2. - Dank (push to talk). In theory, I'm interested in everything about our shared language. I'll help if I can. 14:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
3. - Pete (talk) My interest is in the interplay between the various national and regional dialects, particularly through cultural objects such as popular music and movies. Invented words for new technologies are always fascinating. Why is it "cell phone" in one place and "mobile phone" in another, and why did the Germans steal the best name: "handy"? --Pete (talk) 20:57, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
4. Rich Farmbrough interested in etymology, folk etymology, toponomy, Middle English and Old English dialects. Also survivals, obscure words, jargons, cants and idiolects. 16:50, 15 February 2016 (UTC).
   
5. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) Mainly for general cleanup matters but also as a vandal fighter - these kinds of articles are high targets for vandalism! 22:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Articles

Featured content

Entirely in-scope

• List of English words containing Q not followed by U

Partially in-scope

• Black American Sign Language – to the extent that it actually encodes English and is not an independent language
• Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties – book; mostly a literature and civil liberties topic
• Imagism ? – Should we include things like poetry movements if they're mostly English-specific?
• Samuel Johnson – lexicographer bio (mostly a British literature biography subject)
• Sentence spacing – general linguistics; only partially about English (which is not arranged as a subtopic, but should be)
• William Shakespeare – contributed more words to English than any other individual (mostly a British literature biography subject)

Good articles

Entirely in-scope

• English language – An obvious priority is getting this to WP:FAC soon.
• Ain't – the word
• Have a nice day – the expression
• No worries – the expression
• Orange (word)
• Ottawa dialect – a Canadian variety of English

Partially in-scope

• American Sign Language – to the extent that it actually encodes English and is not an independent language
• Black American Sign Language – to the extent that it actually encodes English and is not an independent language
• Diaphoneme – about the general linguistic concept, but may have enough English-specific material to split off a Diaphonemes in English article, and re-develop the general article to be more global
• Long and short scales – mostly a mathematics topic, but directly relevant to handling of numbers in English vs. several other languages
• International Phonetic Alphabet – general linguistics topic; has some English-specific material
• Nomenclature of monoclonal antibodies – science jargon
• Not in Front of the Children – non-fiction on (primarily US) censorship, but not entirely focused on language (e.g. covers pornography); primarily a civil liberties topic
• "On Translating Beowulf" – essay on the difficulty of translating Anglo-Saxon
• Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy – non-fiction on (primarily US) censorship, but not entirely focused on language (e.g. covers pornography); primarily a civil liberties topic
• The Tower of Babble – autobiography of one of Canada's (and Canadian English's) most influential modern editors; primarily a bio and Canadian pop-culture topic
• Truce term – general linguistic concept, but our article only covers its application to English

Former GAs

• Fuck – the word
• Speak Good English Movement – Singaporean government initiative

Nominees

• [none at present]

New articles

Please feel free to list your new English Language-related articles here (newer articles at the top, please). Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them, are at least over 1,500 characters, don't have any dispute templates on them, and cite their sources, should be suggested for the Did you know? box on the Wikipedia Main Page.

Review and assessment

Assessment

Assessment

Peer review

Peer review

Templates

• {{WikiProject English Language}} – Talk-page banner for articles within the project's scope
• [infoboxes if needed]
• Navboxes:
  • {{English language nav}} - Sidebar for navigating main English language articles
  • {{WikiProject English Language/English language master navbox}}
  • {{Description of English}}
  • {{History of English}}
  • {{English dialects by continent}}
  • {{Dictionaries of English}}
  • {{English official language clickable map}}
  • Also relevant:
    • {{Germanic languages}}
• {{Wikipedia:WikiProject English Language/Userbox}} - Userbox for project participants' user pages
• Frequently used citation templates:
  • [create a bunch for major style guides and dictionaries we use all the time]
• [barnstar]

Resources

Major style guides

For now, see Style guide.

Forthcoming style guides

New and forthcoming style guides, as of March 2016:

• The Write Style Guide for New Zealanders: A manual for business editing (Write Ltd; e-book ASIN B01BELGYLM; paper version, overpriced, available from Write.co.nz; 2 February 2016) – This short book may be the only NZ-specific style guide (mostly they use the Australian ones, from what I can tell)
• Garner's Modern English Usage (4th ed.; Bryan A. Garner; Oxford U. Pr.; ISBN 978-0190491482; 8 April 2016) – Formerly Garner's Modern American Usage, but now expanded and generalized, and revised with modern research. Also supersedes the concise edition, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style.
• MLA Handbook (8th ed.; ISBN 978-1603292627; 14 March 2016) – Derived from the MLA Style Manual of 2008, so this will not be a major update, probably mostly about online tools and citations. (This is used more than many people think; this ed. is the Amazon #1 best-seller in "Editing Writing Reference" category, and has been sold out, even against early pre-orders, since the release date, and still is as of early April.)
• The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation (Bryan A. Garner; Chicago U. Pr.; ISBN 978-0226188850; 27 May 27 2016; @BryanAGarner on Twitter says electronic version will also be out that month, as an app). This is an update to an expansion of the Chicago Manual of Style sections on these topics, also written by Garner. This is the closest thing to a new edition of CMoS we're likely to see until at least 2017, but it will cover almost everything we care about.
• New Oxford Style Manual (3rd ed.; Oxford U. Pr.; ISBN 978-0198767251; 11 May 2016) – For those who have not caught up on Oxford, this is the combined volume of the current editions of New Hart's Rules and New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and is a good way to save on the cost (if you already have the 2014 separate editions, you're all set, since they're the same text).
• Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (2016 ed.; no ISBN issued yet; comes out mid-year as always) – This is released annually.
  

New and forthcoming usage dictionaries, topical encyclopedias, and special-interest guides:

• APA College Dictionary of Psychology (2nd ed.; ISBN 978-1433821585; 18 April 2016)
• Several updated volumes in the Oxford Quick Reference series of topical, encyclopaedic dictionaries (Oxford U. Pr.; despite the cheesy series title, these are 400–900 pp.):
  • Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry (7th ed.; Richard Rennie & Jonathan Law; e-book ASIN B015P7A35O; 28 December 2015; paper ISBN 978-0198722823; 21 March 2016)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Computer Science (7th ed.; Andrew Butterfield, Gerard Ekembe Ngondi, Anne Kerr; e-book ASIN B019GXM8X8; 28 December 2015; paper ISBN 978-0199688975; 1 April 2016; 608 pp.)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Architecture (3rd ed.; James Stevens Curl & Susan Wilson;; e-book ASIN B00YAT9ORW; 26 February 2015; paper ISBN 978-0199674992; 1 April 2016; 896 pp.)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management (6th ed.; Jonathan Law; e-book ASIN B019WSGCLG; 28 December 2015; paper ISBN 978-0199684984; 18 April 2016)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (3rd ed.; Simon Blackburn; e-book ASIN B015P7A0MU; 28 January 2016; paper ISBN 978-0198735304; 1 May 2016; 540 pp.)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Marketing (4th ed.; Charles Doyle; ISBN 978-0198736424; 1 July 2016)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearian Pronunciation (1st ed.; David Crystal; ISBN 978-0199668427; 1 June 2016; 780 pp.)
  • Various others were updated 2010–2015; most have titles beginning Oxford Dictionary of ..., though Amazon lists them as A Dictionary of ..., and some are Companion to .... The most obvious ones of project interest are English Grammar; Proverbs, Literary Terms, Reference and Allusion, Journalism, Media and Communication, Synonyms and Antonyms, Linguistics, Word Origins (J. Cresswell; 2nd ed.; 2010; not to be confused with Chantrell's Word Histories below, or English Etymolology by Onlion, Friedrichsen, Burchfield, 1966, or Hoad's Concise edit of the latter in 1993), Companion to Modern Poetry, Concise Companion to English Literature, English Idioms (J. Ayto, 3rd. ed.; 2010), Quotations, Quotations by Subject, Political Quotations, Theatre and Performance, Critical Theory, Modern Slang (2010; J. Ayto & J. Simpson; updates but severely shortens earlier work by Ayto), Foreign Words and Phrases. A few from before 2010 that will age well: Modern Quotations, Literary Quotations, Humorous Quotations, Euphemisms, First Names, Nicknames, English Surnames, Allusions [different authors than Reference and Allusion), Phrase and Fable [Knowles, not Brewer], Idioms (J. Siefring; 2nd ed., 2005; updated the 1999/2001 ed. by J. Speake; not to be confused with Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English by Parkinson & Francis, or the obsolete Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms [Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English, vol. 2] by Cowie, Mackin & McCaig), Ologies and Isms: Word Beginnings and Endings, World Place-Names, Scientific Quotations, Concise Chronology of English Literature, American Political Slang, Word Histories (G. Chantrell; 2004), Slang (2003, co-author in common with Modern Slang; has 3x as many entries as MS], Reverse Dictionary, Catch Phrases, Concise Companion to irish Literature, Dates, Abbreviations [1998], New Words (1993; may be useful for neologism research). There are numerous topical ones for all the major humanities and sciences, and many more obscure ones.
• (See also the Penguin Dictionary of ... volumes (Penguin Reference series); a few date to 2010–2015, though most are obsolete.)
• The Christian Writer's Manual of Style (4th ed.; Robert Hudson; HarperCollins; ISBN 978-0310527909; e-book ASIN B01863JKGM; 12 July 2016) – "The standard style guide of the Christian publishing industry ... guidance on style questions related to religious writing" (largely follows Chicago, but has a usage dictionary that is 1/3 of the book).
• The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2nd ed.; ISBN 978-1138125667; 8 September 2016; list price US$225; 1232 pp.) – Given the price tag, probably something to get via inter-library loan.
• Acronyms, Initialisms & Abbreviations Dictionary: A Guide to Acronyms, Abbreviations, Contractions, Alphabetic Symbols, and Similar Condensed Appellations (50th ed.; Gale Research; ISBN 978-1414488776; 4 April 2016; list price US$1784) – This is the huge multi-volume one. Something to look for a in a good library. Editions as recent as the 42nd (2009) can be had for under $100, and 2001 versions for just the shipping cost, and will still be useful.

Online tools

Forthcoming:

• Google Books search tool
• Google News search tool
• Google Scholar search tool
• Google N-grams search tool
• The Wikipedia Library pages on access to language & literature journal searches
• List of major blogs and forums on English language usage (not sources, but may help to find them)

• Free online dictionaries (many should be cited as the underlying source, with |via= giving the website, per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT):
  • TheFreeDictionary.com – Farlex; has entries from The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Collins English Dictionary (UK, HarperCollins), Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary (UK, K Dictionaries Ltd / Random House), and Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words (Diagram Group), and sometimes the Farlex Trivia Dictionary. In separate tabs, also provides special dictionaries for various entries:
    • medical: Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health (Saunders/Elsevier), Partner Medical Dictionary (Farlex), Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers (Saunders), The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, Mosby's Medical Dictionary (Elsevier), Collins Dictionary of Medicine, Collins Dictionary of Biology, Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, Medical Dictionary for the Dental Professions (Farlex), Mosby's Dental Dictionary, Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary
    • legal: West's Encyclopedia of American Law (Gale Group), Nolo's definitions by Gerald & Kathleen Hill (SPS? They's properly published two legal dictionaries, but this doesn't cite one specifically and seems to draw from their website), Burton's Legal Thesaurus (McGraw-Hill), Collins Dictionary of Law
    • acronyms: from AcronymFinder.com (which may be UGC)
    • idioms: Farlex Dictionary of Idioms, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms, Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Endangered Phrases (Skyhorse Pubg.)
    • encyclopedia and topical dictionary entries, including (when available, and probably others depending on search terms): The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (Columbia U. Pr.), Computer Desktop Encyclopedia (Computer Language Company), Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, Collins Dictionary of Sociology, Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org, possibly UGC), The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979, Gale Group), Allusions – Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary (Gale), and some trivial stuff like Bedside Dream Dictionary (Skyhorse Pubg.)
  • Dictionary.com – has entries from The Random House Dictionary (US) database, as well as short ones from Collins English Dictionary (UK, HarperCollins), plus often other works, including an etymological dictionary and (when applicable) a slang one
  • OxfordDictionariesOnline.com – seems to be from the same casual-English database as the Compact Oxford English Dictionary and OUP's other smaller volumes; this is not the OED (US$200/yr), and is missing most of the academic information and the more obscure entries. It has both British and American English in separate sections (linked to each other), and it is worth looking at both entries – sometimes they differ markedly.
  • Dictionary.Cambridge.org – fairly comprehensive, but the parts-of-speech information is lower quality for words like as and like than in Oxford's, and it otherwise isn't always as good, though sometimes has more specific definitions. Has both British and American in different tabs.
  • YourDictionary.com – entries from The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Webster's New World College Dictionary (formerly Houghton Mifflin, now Wiley), YD's own privately developed database, and (at the end) Wiktionary.
  • Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary – based on their Collegiate Dictionary, with short entries, and missing 300,000 words and much entry-specific material from their unabridged edition (subscription-only). Principally American, but notes some British usage.

Related WikiProjects

• Parent projects:
  • WP:WikiProject Linguistics – coverage of linguistics topics generally on Wikipedia
  • WP:WikiProject Languages – consistent and policy-compliant coverage of languages and their families on Wikipedia
• Child projects/taskforces/workgroups (limited to English):
• Sibling projects (limited to English):
• Sibling projects (not limited to English):
  • WP:WikiProject Ancient Germanic studies (for relationship to Old English / Anglo-Saxon)
  • WP:WikiProject Globalization
  • WP:WikiProject Journalism
  • WP:WikiProject Literature (and many genre-specific sub-projects)
  • WP:WikiProject Poetry
  • WP:WikiProject Translation studies
  • WP:WikiProject Writing systems
• Wikipedia-internal projects, at least tangentially related:
  • WP:WikiProject Manual of Style
  • WP:WikiProject Glossaries
• Related former proposals:
  • WP:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject English (project died and was tagged historical; later deleted)
  • WP:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikiproject English (bogus project for editwarring against diacritics; deleted)
  • WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals/English Dialects (failed proposal)