Talk:European Cooperative Society

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[edit] How can this article be expanded?

Can you help to expand this article yourself by writing content for some of the sections, or recruit an expert to help with any of the sections? Thanks! Djmackenzie (talk) 18:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC) -- revised at 16:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling: 'cooperative' or 'co-operative'; US or British English?

In the EU Regulation and Directive on the SCE, the name of the legal form which is the subject of this article is written 'European Cooperative Society'. But whereas 'cooperative' is the American spelling [1], British English writes 'co-operative' (Oxford English Dictionary, not publicly available online; although Cambridge Dictionaries Online is unsure). In addition, the European Commission itself seems unsure; it uses British/hyphenated spelling consistently here. Potential English-speaking users of the SCE legal form are not only British - so this isn't just a British concern, although in Europe, spoken and written English is, as far as I know and as far as 'co-operative' is concerned, the same as British English (except perhaps in the European institutions). The International Co-operative Alliance and Cooperatives Europe seem to prefer the hyphenated spelling on their web sites.

Wikipedia's Manual of Style lists 'Consistency within articles' and 'Strong national ties to a topic' as factors to consider when deciding which spelling conventions to use, and specifically says that articles about European Union institutions should use British English. Similarly, according to the Manual of Style (spelling), the EU uses 'standard' British English. Concerning hyphens, the Manual of Style suggests that "A clear tendency is emerging to join both elements in all varieties of English (subsection)... The hyphen is usually used when the letters brought into contact are the same (nonlinear, subabdominal, but non-negotiable, sub-basement) or are vowels (intra-atomic, pre-existing, semi-intensive, co-opt)..."

The European Commission's English style guide for translators (October 2007 revision) cited in European English says (p. 14; para. 1.51) that "If [prefixes] are of Latin or Greek origin, however, they tend to drop the hyphen as they become established", and (p. 15; para. 1.54) that "Hyphens are often used to avoid juxtaposing two consonants or two vowels ... However, the hyphen is often omitted in frequently used words", in both paragraphs citing 'cooperation' as an example of an un-hyphenated (or should that be unhyphenated!) word.

We have a problem! Although there is ambiguity, I suggest that this article on the SCE should use what seems to be the conventional British and European/international spelling (co-operative) except in the title 'European Cooperative Society' itself. In other words, the spelling 'Cooperative' in the SCE's English title must be reproduced as it is spelled in the laws establishing it, but when mentioning co-operatives generally (and for other purposes), the article should use spelling which is relevant to Europeans - and that is British English. Do you agree?

Djmackenzie (talk) 21:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC) -- revised at 16:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)