Talk:English English
Latest comment: 13 years ago by Prince Kassad in topic English English
RFV discussion edit
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.
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Equinox ◑ 20:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
- This is a synonym for British English, atleast as far as I've encountered, for language at any rate (as opposed to non-language uses) 76.66.197.17 13:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
- Move to RFD. This is definitely citeable — see [1], [2], and either [3] or [4] — but I'd consider it SOP. —RuakhTALK 01:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- Seems to be sum-of-parts, meaning “English of England”, although there is a standard abbreviation, EngE.[5] It is pointedly not British English – every citation contrasts EngE with other British dialects. —Michael Z. 2010-03-22 03:28 z
- Americancorpus.org has 1 citation (CNN Crossfire) where it means “white people of English descent” in a South African context, and another (Good Housekeeping) where it means native English in contrast to French-accented English, in France. Interesting, but both are still sum-of-parts in the respective contexts. —Michael Z. 2010-03-22 04:16 z
- Move to RfD. But it seems more of a generic construction (aka snowclone?) to indicate contrast that works best when a true adjective has the same form as a noun (eg, "I don't want a blue green or a spring green. I want a green green."). I'm not sure it works as well with a noun in attributive use (eg, "I don't want a multi-function printer; I want a printer printer."). DCDuring TALK 12:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for reminding me about that. I read it this time. Maybe I'll remember the next time this comes up. DCDuring TALK 15:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Moved to RFD. —RuakhTALK 15:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
The following information passed a request for deletion.
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Was listed at RFV. As I said there, "This is definitely citeable — see [6], [7], and either [8] or [9] — but I'd consider it SOP". DCDuring also voted to RFD it, and no one seemed to object, so … —RuakhTALK 15:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think the question is whether this duplication is qualitatively different from the generic colloquial duplication for emphasis or to distinguish a typical X from a non-typical X by saying "not an X, an X X". Ie, "Not English, English English". If "English English" is used as a synonym for "British English" or is distinguished from it or from other varieties of English ("I don't speak Irish English/Scottish English, I speak English English"), then perhaps it merits inclusion. What say all? DCDuring TALK 15:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think it is commonly used to mean English as it is spoken and used in England and/or Britain, in statements where a distinction is being made with American English, Scottish English, Australian English, etc English. -- ALGRIF talk 12:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps the question is whether it is more like "house house" in ("I don't want to raise a family in a carriage house. Why can't we have a house house."), a general construction used in ordinary speech with many nouns, or more like, say, "American English", as used mostly by language students and professionals. DCDuring TALK 15:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- The problem is that it is the only way to say Standard English as spoken / used in UK (as opposed to Standard English as spoken / used in any other country.). People use this expression to mean this. If we are to be a descriptive dictionary, then this entry should stay. IMHO. -- ALGRIF talk 15:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- The term "English English" is fairly standard in linguistics. It's not the kind of reduplication that means "ordinary, canonical X" (like house house in DCDuring's example); it means "English as spoken in England" and is thus a subset of British English (which also includes Welsh English and Scottish English). It may, strictly speaking, be SOP, but no more so than American English and British English are. —Angr 16:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- So, does it need a linguistics tag? I think it does because ordinary folks are more likely to use it in the "house house" or even "tomato tomato" sense. DCDuring TALK 19:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Are you sure? I'd tried searching for "real English" to get a sense of what canonical English might be, and then I used that to try to craft searches that would specifically find uses meaning canonical English — searches like "English English" + "slang" and "English English" + "foreigners" and "English English" + "pidgin" — and even in those searches, I still found almost only cites that meant "English as spoken in England". In a few cases the speaker or writer might have meant "canonical English (i.e. that of England)", but in most cases that was clearly not the intent, and even in the cases where such an interpretation is possible, I really had the impression that the correct interpretation is "the English of England (i.e. canonical English)". However, I did find one cite that I do think was using it to mean "canonical English", not "the English of England": [10].
This is not to say that you're wrong — carefully crafted searches introduce selection bias, and interpretation of results introduces other biases, and overall I had a small sample of cites that I found in the middle of slogging through irrelevant hits — but I'd feel more comfortable if you could provide some evidence to support your view.
—RuakhTALK 18:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)- When I say "I think X", I intend to advance a hypothesis. I would have been happy to accept a challenge rather than to make someone else do the work you have done.
- My efforts to support my hypothesis have not been very successful. Even searching for "english english" with "black english" doesn't yield what I have posited. I did find some cases of differentiating Tamil/Indian/Hindi English from English English, but the writers were clearly very sophisticated and probably meant English from England. It might be US colloquial, but I wouldn't claim "english english" to be in "widespread use". Nevertheless I do have confidence in the general "not (a) Y X, (an) X X" construction of which this would be an instance. DCDuring TALK 20:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
- I see. You had written "I think it does [need a linguistics tag] because ordinary folks are […] ", which apparently you meant as "I think that, because ordinary folks are […] , that it needs a linguistics tag", but which I misunderstood as meaning "because ordinary folks are […] , I think it needs a linguistics tag."
I share your confidence in the general "not (a) Y X, (an) X X" construction, I just don't get the impression that most instances of "English English" are uses of said construction.
—RuakhTALK 23:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
- I see. You had written "I think it does [need a linguistics tag] because ordinary folks are […] ", which apparently you meant as "I think that, because ordinary folks are […] , that it needs a linguistics tag", but which I misunderstood as meaning "because ordinary folks are […] , I think it needs a linguistics tag."
- Are you sure? I'd tried searching for "real English" to get a sense of what canonical English might be, and then I used that to try to craft searches that would specifically find uses meaning canonical English — searches like "English English" + "slang" and "English English" + "foreigners" and "English English" + "pidgin" — and even in those searches, I still found almost only cites that meant "English as spoken in England". In a few cases the speaker or writer might have meant "canonical English (i.e. that of England)", but in most cases that was clearly not the intent, and even in the cases where such an interpretation is possible, I really had the impression that the correct interpretation is "the English of England (i.e. canonical English)". However, I did find one cite that I do think was using it to mean "canonical English", not "the English of England": [10].
- So, does it need a linguistics tag? I think it does because ordinary folks are more likely to use it in the "house house" or even "tomato tomato" sense. DCDuring TALK 19:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- The term "English English" is fairly standard in linguistics. It's not the kind of reduplication that means "ordinary, canonical X" (like house house in DCDuring's example); it means "English as spoken in England" and is thus a subset of British English (which also includes Welsh English and Scottish English). It may, strictly speaking, be SOP, but no more so than American English and British English are. —Angr 16:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- The problem is that it is the only way to say Standard English as spoken / used in UK (as opposed to Standard English as spoken / used in any other country.). People use this expression to mean this. If we are to be a descriptive dictionary, then this entry should stay. IMHO. -- ALGRIF talk 15:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps the question is whether it is more like "house house" in ("I don't want to raise a family in a carriage house. Why can't we have a house house."), a general construction used in ordinary speech with many nouns, or more like, say, "American English", as used mostly by language students and professionals. DCDuring TALK 15:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think it is commonly used to mean English as it is spoken and used in England and/or Britain, in statements where a distinction is being made with American English, Scottish English, Australian English, etc English. -- ALGRIF talk 12:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
kept, no clear consensus for deletion. -- Prince Kassad 23:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)