Talk:Humour/Spelling

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[edit] U.S. English

Should this page be in US English to match the rest of WikiPedia?--BozMo|talk 13:21, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The language policy is a bit more complicated than that... my understanding is pages started in one spelling are maintained in that form... there are some more details on the help/about pages. Krupo 02:39, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)
But think of all the stoarage space Wikipedia could save by getting rid of these useless and distracting 'u's.--Frank J. Fleming 02:08, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Useless? Speak for yourself! The u's have a good place in words, it's just the American bastardisation of pronunciation and writing that's caused them to be dropped. OK yes I'll concede Wikipedia originated in America so US English is accepted by me, but more people use British English :)
"... to match the rest of Wikipedia?" There is a huge number of articles written in BrE! See [1].
There is no preference for U.S. English. Dumbledore 02:42, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Considering that most native English-speakers are American (see the graph to the right), this page (and all Wikipedia pages) should be in American english unless the word used is more common in England/AU/NZ/Canada/etc. --tomf688 (talk) 23:31, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

percent of native born english speakers
And most people who speak English as a second language (far more than the native speakers) learn British English. Which makes British English more common. Let's try to avoid this insular attitude. The Wikipedia policy works perfectly well. -- Necrothesp 10:02, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I find that really hard to believe. One: I know that Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Central American, and South American students of English study American pronunciations and spellings. The Soviet Union taught American English as well, I don't know if the Russian Federation still does, but USSR did. Who're learning British spellings? Europeans, Africans, but there's no way that they outweigh East Asians and South Americans. Two: "far more than the native speakers"? No. Wrong. Dead wrong. For no living language are there more non-native speakers than native speakers. With the possible exception of revival languages such as Basque, Cornish, Welsh, et cetera. R'son-W 19:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Um...India? Twin Bird 21:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
And where's the pie chart broken down by countries? --Paul 07:09, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

What a pointless issue. It should be British English only to piss these American imperialists off. They want monopoly on their u's, EH!? WELL SO LET'S GIVE IT TO 'EM! *throws an U!* Take that, "universal" use of English! Most is not all!--OleMurder 09:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It wasn't American imperialists who took a perfectly good article named Humor and renamed it Humour for no good reason but their horror at spellings different from those they're used to. --Angr/comhrá 10:28, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Folks, Wiki policy is that the first spelling is the one that determines the spelling of the page, unless the topic is about a group which clearly prefers one variant of English. The "humor" page was started in 2001. In 2002, someone redirected it to "humour". This is a violation of Wiki policy, which states that, in cases where a subject matter is not about a particular nationality or community with a preferred dialectic of English, the first spelling used for an article is the one that should be maintained in future additions of that article. I put some effort into redressing this mistake and then someone instantly reverted my changes. Why? WikiFair1 10:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Wait, I think maybe the only problem was that I did a technical booboo in the way I made my changes. I retract my question (until learning more about why the Move command is the right one to use here). WikiFair1 10:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spelling#National_varieties_of_English "Articles that focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally conform to the spelling of that country". Humour is an integral part to British society. In the US, however, humour in the true sense of the word (ie. un-canned) is unheard of. Surely then under this policy 'humour' should be kept as 'humour'? Hazzjm 23:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
USA-hating is in vogue these days (esp. among people who learn about the world from the TV -- note: American humor is excellent, like that of many countries), but, to go against the grain, let me point out that all countries have humor. The "humor" article was changed to "humour" against Wiki policies. It's needs to be changed back. Period. WikiFair1 06:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
It was a joke. Point proven? Hazzjm 18:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The fact that someone had moved it over from humor would have been a good argument back in 2002. There's really not any point in it four years later, though. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there most certainly is a point. Violations don't become less violative with time. Violations should not be allowed to stand. WikiFair1 16:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not founded on rule and law; in point of fact Wikipedia policy is there to be outright ignored if necessary. The policy against "fixing" people's spelling, like all Wikipedia policies, is not by any standard a moral imperative -- merely a matter of pragmatics. Not only would moving this page back to Humor be a large amount of work (to fix the links and the redirects and so forth), but it also, and more importantly, would not in any way improve the quality of this encyclopedia. More succinctly: This is Wikipedia. "It's the rules" isn't good enough.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 05:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC) (See also: meta:Instruction creep)
You have three arguments (one implicit) against moving the page. 1) It is necessary to ignore Wikipedia policy on this suggested move (therefore the policy is "to be ignored"). You have provided no evidence that it is necessary. You have tried to argue that it might be beneficial (see #2 and #3), but beneficial is not the same as necessary. Moreover, your arguments don't hold. 2) Moving the page would be a large amount of work. This is a good argument only if no one is available to do the work. I will happily do all the work. Finally, you contend 3) ''would not in any way improve the quality of this encyclopedia". This is incorrect. Many people, like myself, believe very strongly in a particular spelling system. This may only be 10% of all Wikipedia contributors, maybe even far less. Still, these people will be much less motivated to contribute if they begin working on an article knowing that someone might just arbitrarily change the spelling at a later point. A significant number of people will eventually get fed up and leave. This harms Wikipedia. (For the record, I don't believe in "American spelling," I believe in "mild spelling reform." The Latin/Shakespeare spelling of -or words makes far more sense than most of the American and British spelling reform suggestions from the late 18th/early 19th centuries.) WikiFair1 08:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I have two arguments; the supposedly implicit argument I clarify below (or try to).
  1. The full version of the clause elided to "if necessary" was intended to be "if necessary to build a better encyclopedia." I cede that I could have been clearer, but I am curious as to how you actually completed it. WP:IAR is not merely a plea to necessity; if it were, I'm not sure that there would be any reason to have it at all, much less to elevate it so. Being beneficial is sufficient. (Further, I argue below that, circumstances being what they are, moving this article to Humor would actually be maleficial.)
  2. My point is that if there are editors willing to do that amount of work, there are better things they could do with their time than bounce articles from one spelling to another. As the very article you cite above says: "There are many more productive and enjoyable ways to participate."
  3. Exactly how many contributors of Wikipedia are you yourself arguing for pulling the rug out from under? Especially with a major article like Humour. Keep in mind that the vast majority of current Wikipedia users almost certainly joined well after this article was moved. (I suppose I could make an ethical argument that two wrongs don't make a right; while I do find that compelling in and of itself, and should probably have started with it, it isn't quite the argument that I was trying to make.)
Objectively speaking, few (if any) page moves for the sake of a dialectical spelling are worthwhile; the only saving grace of a spelling change which is an immediate revert is that it discourages future such changes. Your proposed move solves no problems and saves no time.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 05:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
You've ignored one of my main arguments, which is that Wikipedia will be improved if editors know that policy is, in general, adhered to. "The first spelling used (in a non-stub article)" policy should be enforced. But I'm starting to suspect this is a losing battle. Looking around at "aging," "center," etc., it seems clear there's been a concerted effort to wipe out American spellings. Personally, I -- and others I know -- will be less motivated to contribute if we know that somewhere down the line our spellings will be changed from those we believe in. (Note, since I suspect this matters: Many Noah Webster fans did not vote for George Bush. Promise!!) WikiFair1 07:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Policy is, in general, adhered to. Just not always. However, if you have problems with people changing what you've written, then I'm inclined to agree that you won't find participating in Wikipedia enjoyable.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 08:20, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I, and others, would not have problems with people "changing what we've written." The whole point of Wikis is that they are collaborative. The problem would be rather this: specific, often unmotivated changes that violate policy, which then couldn't be undone, because other Wikipedians don't care about this carefully thought-through policy to support a revert (or are anti-US or whatever it actually is). One contributes to Wikipedia under the assumption that things that are stated as policies are generally adhered to. When it comes to changes from U.S. spellings, I see a lot of evidence that policies are not adhered to. WikiFair1 08:52, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Heh, normally the fear is that UK and other non-US spelling variants will get wiped out by US editors "correcting spelling mistakes", but I've never heard of a "concerted effort" to eliminate American spellings on Wikipedia before ;-) By the way, you "believe in" certain spellings? As in, like a religion or ideology? Surely the choice of which loopy English spelling system we use is fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things? — Matt Crypto 08:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
You "haven't heard of it" -- look around! Yes, I believe in English spelling reform. (American spelling is by no means perfect, though!) Nothing is important in "the grand scheme of things." Doesn't mean lots of things, large and small, can't be important. I think native speakers have an obligation to improve English, since it's become a global language. Radical reform will never work. We need "very mild" reform, which means take the best of the two dominant forms, American and British. This means, by my reckoning, we end up with (where there are differences) about 70% American spelling, and about 80% British punctuation. But Wiki policy isn't that we reform English. It's that the original ueber-stub spelling is the one that counts. That policy was violated. That should be corrected. :) WikiFair1 08:52, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I just must say, considering the number of speakers is probably split between using the u and not, this article, which is rather neutral as far as nationality is concerned, should not use the u. Saying that the first author is correct is really pointless, as humor makes about 3infinity times more sense than humour. Honestly, the u doesn't make sense. Also, I notice that the spelling is not standardized. Scepia 21:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't sound neutral to me as a non-American English speaker - it sounds like you're just putting your spelling! And how does humor make more sense? Pronounciation-wise, that would make it something like 'humm-ore' - 'hyewmur' would be (for me) a phonetic spelling, and make at least some sense; and 'humour' to me shows there is a strong first 'u' sound and a soft 'u' at the end rather then an 'o' sound. And an article using a different spelling in the article compared to the title definately makes little sense! --iamajpeg 21:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I was going to argue for "humor" as I do for "aluminum, but on consideration I don't think Americans use that word so much. I think we just go with "funny", "comic", "humorous", etc. The main argument for "humor" is that apparently it was what it was called first.--T. Anthony 14:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request to move humour to humor

I'd like to hear some input here as to whether or not this page should be moved to humor. I feel English articles here must be made for the majority, not the minority. In this case, the majority of native english speakers (see pie chart) are Americans, so most articles should be in American english.

Exceptions to this concept, however, should be made for certain articles about events or geography; one such article would be London, an English city. But general concepts, history, and just about everything else should be written using American spelling. --tomf688 (talk) 23:50, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Not again. This comes up time and time and time and time again and everytime the answer will be the same. No, for all the usual reasons... yawn. Jooler 09:16, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia only written for and by native English speakers? I think not. -- Necrothesp 10:04, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
No, this is not the policy. Before suggesting things like this 1) read the policies; and 2) try and understand the reasons behind the policy. Moreover, it's long been established and is now universally agreed upon by most authorities that the majority of native English speakers with a half-decent sense of humour are, in fact, British English speakers, so you're out of luck with your numerical majority argument ;-) — Matt Crypto 11:55, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • BTW this pie chart doesn't look right to me. supposedly the data for this page comes from http://www.alt-usage-english.org/Distribution_English_speakers.shtml.
  • Using the data on that page to try to correlate it against the percentages - We have UK - 15.9% = 56,830,000 - therefore 1% = 56,830,000/15.9 = ~3,574,213.836, therefore 70.7% should equal 70.7*~3,574,213.836 = ~252696918.239, which is not close to the figure of 224,900,000 given for mother tongue speakers it is closer to the figure for lingua franca speakers. Furthermore, the figure of 56,830,000 for the UK doesn't include bilingual speakers of Welsh and Scots Gaelic and others which according to these figures counts for another 1,590,000. If this is taken into account we have a figure of 57,420,000 for the UK. Jooler 12:24, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
New version of the chart is online Dumbledore 12:12, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh no, not again! To cut the debate short, please go to Wikipedia:Standardize spellings where an identical proposal has just been knocked on the head for the umpteenth time... -- Arwel 16:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Eh gotta shake things up around here :) I'm not trying to offend anyone, but things need to be standardiZed (:P) in my world. Guess I can live with a mixture... --tomf688 (talk) 00:08, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

I'm with Matt. I think that we need a totally separate heading for 'American Humor' to explain to the rest of us why Americans can collapse into helpless laughter just because the 'canned laughter' track has been turned to maximum volume. Unfortunately this is spreading to the UK now. Some UK-made 'funny' sitcoms are adopting the US method, and rely almost entirely on canned laughter rather than content.


[edit] Another argument in favor of humor

I agree with the suggestion that the article should be moved back to humor. Not because American English is more widespread (I don't know or care whether it is or not), or because American English should be exclusively used on Wikipedia (it shouldn't, IMO), but simply because the article began life as humor. If you check the histories of humor and humour, you find that humor began on 27 October 2001, while humour began four months later, on 25 February 2002, as a redirect to humor. On 7 August 2002, Daniel C. Boyer moved the content to humour and made humor a redirect. WP:MOS suggests following the usage of the first major editor of an article in cases where the article is not on a topic specific to a particular country or region. Therefore the article should be in its original location, humor, and humour should redirect to it. --Angr/comhrá 09:28, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Going massively into POV here, considering Americans aren't funny....
err, what was I saying. It should stay where it is. Commonwealth English has as many if not more users than American English. The article also mentions (slightly) more comedic traits of Commonwealth English speaking countries. Kiand 15:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Har-har, most amusing. The number of users of the two types of English is highly controversial as it can be counted in many different ways. It's also irrelevant. The types of humor discussed in the article are not, in fact, characteristic of one region more than another. If there is anything here that's specifically British, it should be moved to British humour (which obviously should keep that spelling). --Angr/comhrá 15:42, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your argument makes sense, however, the article has been stable with humour for a long time. Therefore, the spelling should not be changed. There are many articles like this that started out using a different spelling. And usually the change is British -> American... Nobbie 09:34, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
The only sensible solution is to have two articles, American humour and British humor (which obviously should keep those spellings). kwami 09:19, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)


Everyone on planet Earth, except from a few pitiful exceptions, knows that there is no such thing as American humour, or for that matter, 'humor'.

I hereby declare that the proper spelling is 'humour'. Let's face it, aside from electing Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, the US does not have anywhere near the humour of the BE English speaking world.

oh shut up all you brits and yanks! Have you ever heard of international english? It encompases both american and british spellings so let's just say it's written in international english and we could all shut up

Yo are absoltely right. Let’s ct ot all the “*”s. We don’t need them. They were becoming a bit biqitos. When they’ve gone, can we start on another letter, say, “k”? Avalon 07:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 'Nother one.

How come color page is in US English, while this one is in Commonwealth English? I don't mind since it's Canada, but shouldn't Wikipedia be a bit more standardized? -- WB 20:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

There's lots of this sort of thing, and I don't see that it matters too much. Even if it were successful, any attempt to standardise the whole Wikipedia to the UK spelling style (or whichever) would anger such a lot of people that it would damage the community — and hence the encyclopedia — much more than the little we would gain from uniformity in return. If anyone really cared that much, a little bit of software could easily translate spellings on the fly and get 99% of it right. — Matt Crypto 21:53, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Something like Matt Crypto's solution could easily be built into the Wikipedia, with user preferences saved on the server. matturn 05:48, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

No one noticed that toilet humour was moved to toilet humor on January 6. BAD. Jooler 13:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

BAD indeed, but worry not! Wikipedia works like this. Whenever an existing article is redirected from the British spelling to the American spelling, official Wikipedia policy is immediately invoked, and the redirect is reverted. But whenever an existing article is redirected from the American spelling to the British spelling, the redirect is allowed to stand. This is presumably because Americans are fat and stupid, have no culture (and certainly have no sense of humor, aside the ones who do, who therefore can't really be Americans), etc., etc. Don't worry, the sun will never set on the British Empire! Cheerio, WikiFair1 09:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
You could not be more utterley and completely wrong. Articles are changed to American spelling all the time. It is a constant battle to stop pernicious tide of spellings being changed by people who think that a non-AmE spelling is a spelling mistake and/or that Wikipedia only accepts American spellings, or that is should only accept American spellings. I leave it up to you to decide whether ignorance of the world outside the USA has anything to do with this. See and m:Guerilla UK spelling campaign m:Gorilla US spelling campaign. Jooler 09:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I see no evidence you are correct. I do see from your user page, however, that you have a rather agressively pro-British view on language. I leave it up to you to decide whether that reflects a benighted view of language evolution. In all seriousness: Americans, like citizens of all geographically and politically "large" nations, certainly tend to live in a bubble. Still, from what I've seen, article titles have far more often been changed from American to Commonwealth spellings, without reversion, than the reverse.WikiFair1 10:06, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Once again humour has to be explained. Jooler 10:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Once again, humor has to be explained. (Proper usage of the comma, on the hand, can simply be demonstrated.) WikiFair1 10:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Where is it demonstrated? lol FearÉIREANN\(caint) 22:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Humour

Okay, let's put it this way: English comes from obviously..the english/british. Therefore, should we not spell it the way it was made originally? I don't see why we have to spell everything "americanised" because it was never an "american language" to begin with.

      Don't care personnally about the language question, but from a logic standpoint,
      to answer your question: Ahhh... no. That argument would be a waste of tyme. (the way
      it was originally.)

Furthermore, ironically, the UN, first proposed by American President Woodrow Wilson, actually uses international english..which in fact, is British english (much to the dismay of one of the above users!). If anyone has read UN documents (unfortunately, I have sat through my fair share of readings), it should be fairly obvious that spelling goes as follows: Programme Favour Manoeuvre (it's a french word, spell it right!)

Okay so let's rationalise this too then. The word "flour": We don't change it to "flor," yet we change "colour" to "color"? It truly makes no sense to me.

And "centre" vs. "center"? Okay, its "central" time..not "centeral," as that is not a word. So let's stick with centre.

Flour sounds like flower. Color does not rhyme with flower, so it doesn't need the u. Center isn't pronounced cent-ray. If we kept all our original spellings, our spelling would be as bad as all those 16th century letters where extra letters come and go at random. 220.110.204.129 01:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
More succintly: "color" comes from the Latin color, coloris. The u was, in fact, added, as it was in "humour". "Center" comes from centrum, as it happens, although I point out in weak defense that Latin did occasionally do things like neuter, neutra, neutrum. On the other hand, pairs such as "analyze" vs. "analyse" are somewhat more legitimate on both sides: ανάλυση (noun) vs. ανάλυζειν (verb -- and is that still the right place for the tonos?). Note the zeta in the latter. (And in fact American English notes spelling changes in Britain, including this: -ize used to be the case on your side of the pond, too.)
Mind, I don't subscribe to the theory that etymology dictates, well, anything: I have no problem with you showing the colour of your honour, and no opinion on the "proper" place for this article. Just don't claim that we're dropping that u or changing s to z -- it's patently untrue. --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 10:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
... and on rereading: while I'd like to claim that "More succinctly" was intended as humor... --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 10:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't care if it is humor or humour. This is the English version of Wikipedia, not the American or British version.--75.19.84.181 02:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Humour is a very strange and uncommon way of spelling humor. I almost never see anyone spelling it as humour and I'm not American.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

What part of the planet are you on? Humor is American English and not used except in a handful of countries. Humour is International English and is used by most of the planet. Actually, other than on the internet or in US publications, I never ever see humor, color, and center is regarded as a misspelling! In terms of worldwide usage, your sentence, to be accurate, should read Humor is a very strange and uncommon way of spelling humour. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 22:14, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
You just think that because you live in Ireland. American English is the de facto international standard used in the rest of the world.
See for example this link: http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=humor&word2=humour [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]]
Obviously since most pages are from America the stats don't count. There are a lot of British English speakers out there. For example, almost everyone in India.

[edit] Name should be Humor

Pardon the mess... I followed the instructions (about "complicated" moves), at least I thought so..., but it didn't work as I expected it would. Could someone remove "(funny)" from the name, so that the title conforms to policy (first non-stub spelling is the one that is used). Thanks. --KellyMin 21:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

To Matt Crypto: Please assume good faith. Kelly Min likely meant "incorrect" in the sense of not conforming to policy. The article on humor started as Humor. It was incorrect for someone to change the spelling to humour. (i.e., to "UK-ize" Wikipedia.) S/he was simply trying to correct that violation of policy. I've changed the spelling back to the changes she made.. Please don't revert without explaining why an exception to policy should be made in this case. --Cultural Freedom talk 21:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
A requested moves was made to return it to the American spelling, it failed. Theres your exception. --Kiand 21:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
As Aponar Kestrel said above, "the fact that someone had moved it over from humor would have been a good argument back in 2002. There's really not any point in it four years later, though." — Matt Crypto 22:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Correct. Wikipedia policy on language usage has evolved and at this stage it is a non-starter to move a page back to where it was four years ago in implementation of a policy that did not exist four years ago. It has been voted on, and the decision taken, clearly. It would make no sense to move a page from the form of spelling used worldwide to the form used in the US, simply to keep a minority of English speakers worldwide happy, by putting it back to where it was four years ago, when the original move predated the adoption of the rules and has been ratified in a vote. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 22:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Could we not make it both Humor and Humour?

what if the title of the article was "Humour/Humor" or "Humor or Humour" and both sperate spellings entered into the wiki search would lead one to that article? comprimise? the english language has multiple spellings for many words and there will never be a correct or rightious choice between the two. so could we adapt to this reality? please someone give their thoughts on this idea. --67.167.2.64 16:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What if people like you, just lived with it, the same way Non-USians have to live with Color and thousands of other pages. Jooler 16:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

The humor article was originally created 02:57, 27 October 2001 spelled humor, in 2002 someone moved it to humour. For this reason, and other reasons discussed by others above, I think the article should be spelled humor.

This, and your begging for votes on the main page, was a terrible idea.
-- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 10:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. I think the issue needs a vote. 195.18.216.204 12:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, since you British imperialists insist on trying to delete my text, link to wikirules and call me a troll, let's see what the Manual of Style says WP:MOS.

* Articles should use the same dialect throughout.
* If an article's subject has a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, it should use that dialect.
* Where varieties of English differ over a certain word or phrase, try to find an alternative that     is common to both.
* If no such words can be agreed upon, and there is no strong tie to a specific dialect, the dialect   of the first significant contributor (not a stub) should be used.

If no such words can be agreed upon, and there is no strong tie to a specific dialect, the dialect of the first significant contributor (not a stub) should be used.

The article was started with the American English spelling, and it was not a stub. You are breaking your own rules here with your British imperialsm.

I'm not even American, I'm just trying to do what's right. I really wonder where you guys are getting that silly idea from that British English is more common than American English. Kids these days mainly learn english from video games, the internet and movies. Most of that is in American English and not British English. 195.18.216.204 08:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Jooler: Please stop erasing comments from the talk page. That is not cool. Better to explain what you think is wrong. Thanks, Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-10 08:21 (UTC)
Dear 195.18.216.204: While I agree with your reasoning, a more productive way of approaching this problem is to address a more general Wikipedia problem: when and under what conditions "voting" / consensus-taking is permissible, trying to set up a vote in the way you have below is probably not going to succeed. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-10 08:27 (UTC)
In other words, the way things are set up now, anyone can call for a "vote" under nearly any circumstances, and override the wise policies/guidelines you cite above. That's clearly nutty. So I think we should address this problem via a serious, respectful debate about the more general Wikipedia spelling policy first, then come back here, depending on the outcome of the more general policy/guideline debate. Just my two cents. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-10 08:39 (UTC)
I agree, I removed my poll below. This is turning into a discussion with no votes anyway :) 195.18.216.204 08:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, there are lots of people who would vote on this if it came up again. The fact that attempts to return "Humour" to "Humor" even need to be voted on is evidence of chaos in Wikipedia's guidelines and policies on spelling. We should address this on the relevant policy discussion page. Why don't you set up an account, contact me (via email or on my Talk page), and we can try to help develop a spelling policy that stops these silly wars, and that is fair to as many people as possible. There are plenty of people out there who are motivated primarily by a desire to extirpate every single trace of American culture, but there are also many reasonable Commonwealthers who can be convinced that a fair Wikipedia spelling policy is ultimately a Good. Part of that fair policy, seems to me, should be that people can't suddenly change the spelling of an article, and then demand (by doing technical stuff that makes moving the page back impossible without a vote) a vote to change the spelling back. But perhaps others -- Commonwealthers or not -- will convince us that some other approach is better. Who knows? One thing is clear though: the current set of policies and guidelines isn't working, and is a recipe for disaster. Currently, the people using Wikipedia to further their orthographic imperialist agenda (which they justify by falsely portraying Wikipedia as US-centric, which it might have been a few years ago, but isn't now) have a way to eliminate all traces of American spelling. That means there's a problem. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-10 09:07 (UTC)

I think it would make sense to use the spelling that gives the most google hits, this is a good measure for what is the most common spelling. Also, in my opinion, since humour is easily confused with humours, it would be better to keep it at humor to make it less ambiguous. 195.18.216.204 09:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Google stats are unfair becos the pages are mostly american and don't take into account the people in other countries who speak British english who are unable to setup a web page.

[edit] My argument for humor

Humor is more internationally recognized, not only in the US, Canada, and foreign learners to English, but also in other languages. Look:

ar:دعابة Don't know how to transliterate
bn:হাস্যরস Again, don't know how to transliterate
bs:Humor No u.
cv:Кулăш Roughly 'Kulǎsh'
cs:Humor No u.
da:Humor No u.
de:Humor No u.
el:Χιούμορ Roughy 'Chioýmor' or 'Khioímor' depending on how you transliterate
es:Humor No u.
eo:Humuro Looks like you win this one, mind you it's a Conlang
fr:Humour The source of Commonwealth u.
gl:Humor No u.
hy:Հումոր Don't know how to transliterate.
hr:Humor No u.
it:Umorismo 'Humorism' no u.
he:הומור Don't know how to transliterate
ka:იუმორი Don't know how to transliterate
hu:Humor No u.
nl:Humor No u.
ja:ユーモア No u.
no:Humor No u.
pl:Humor No u.
pt:Humor No u.
ro:Umor No u.
ru:Юмор 'Yumor' no u.
ru:Чувство юмора 'Chuvstvo Yumora' no u.
sq:Humori No u.
simple:Humour Probably this article dumbified.
sr:Хумор 'Khumor' no u.
fi:Huumori No u.
sv:Humor No u.
tt:Yumor No u.
tr:Mizah Different word.
zh:幽默 Don't know how to transliterate
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cameron Nedland (talk • contribs)

Some famous Frenchman (can't remember who, but I think it was Alexandre Dumas) is supposed to have remarked upon picking up a book written in English that "English is just French, but pronounced extremly badly." Like many words in English (e.g centre, metre, theatre etc) the word comes into the English language via French and you seemed to have left out fr:Humour Jooler 23:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to rename this entry to humor (withdrawn)

The original name of this entry was humor, Wikipedia policy favors original entry names and American standard English, and consensus on the talk pages indicates that humor is the preferred spelling. --Jcbutler 21:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Strong oppose. "Wikipedia policy prefers American standard English"? Please. It's also clear there is no consensus to move. — Matt Crypto 21:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think this is about the 5th time I've voted oppose here. Will all you Americans who keep bringing this up please find something better to do with your time. Like reading Talk:Humour/Spelling perhaps. Jooler 23:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Humour preferable. - Kittybrewster 23:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per a squillion and one previous discussions on this matter. Matthew 23:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - c'mon, guys, this is a good faith request. "America is trying to take over the world" arguments are only going to inflame opinions and convince Americans that, in fact, there is an anti-American agenda (and with comments like this above, and userboxes like "this user hates American English" from some opposers, I might just tend to agree). The fact is, it was originally placed at humor, and thus it should go - I would say the same in reverse. Patstuarttalk|edits 00:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Google has 262,000,000 hits for humor and only 101,000,000 hits for humour. As an Englishman its goes against the grain, but the majority has it. MortimerCat 00:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - when it comes to British English versus American English, both are correct in Wikipedia, and we use whichever was used in the article first. Google hits don't come in to it. Warofdreams talk 03:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    "we use whichever was used in the article first" - in principle, sure, but in practice that policy is sometimes ignored. --Yath 04:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    This actually explains my support. You see, it was originally at humor, and someone moved it a while back. Patstuarttalk|edits 04:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    Looks like you voted for the original spelling at Honour. Any particular reason for doing the opposite here? --Yath 01:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Vehement oppose: both spellings are correct, and any American can understand that "humour"="humor". No need to move. Biruitorul 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support For three reasons. 1.) Warofdreams is 100% correct in that in these circumstances between British/American, the original article title should just be left as is. Looking at the article's history it is quite clear that the original article was Humor and its moving to Humour was done under "interesting" circumstances (to assume the best of faith here). Therefore, the appropriate situation would be to restore the original title. The "Original name solution" only works if we adhere to the original name in the first place. 2.) Reason number two (though far less important then the first) is the fact that the American Spelling is more common then the British (MortimerCat alludes to this). When all things are equal, the "Use Common Names" guidelines should be paramount. 3.) Reason three (of even less importance but still a point), humor is the one spelling that is not is shared by anything on the Humour (disambiguation) page. 205.157.110.11 04:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
As a side suggestion. If this gets as bad as the Airplane Wars, maybe we should start thinking of a compromise name? 205.157.110.11 04:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
ROFL, Fixed-wing aircraft? That's just precious. But that's nothing compared to Talk:Gasoline/archive2 (which also continues onto the next archive). Patstuarttalk|edits 06:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
In that instnance- the page started out at aeroplane first, was merged into aircraft and then demerged out to fixed wing aircraft. 08:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the only valid argument is the "original version" argument - which spelling is more common is irrelevant, as is the disambiguation argument raised by 205.157.110.11 since if this page is moved humour would be a redirect to humor. So, what about the fact that the first version of this page used the US spelling? Well, the reason behind the "stick with the original spelling" guideline is for stability of naming and to avoid pointless renames. Notwithstanding that the move from humor to humour in 2002 probably shouldn't have happened (at least according to current policy,) this article is well-established at the current name, and so IMO should stay where it is on stability grounds. It would like to make it clear that I am not advocating moving pages and then saying "well it's there now, so keep it there", in general in such a move should be undone, but in this case the move was so long ago (4 1/2 years) that humour is the established page name. Or we could go for the aeroplane solution and move to stuff that makes people laugh. -- AJR | Talk 15:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Suggestion: Jcbutler, you might consider amending your reasoning. "Wikipedia policy favors American standard English" is false. "Wikipedia policy favors original entry names" is correct, but that will be disregarded unless you can convince people it's also a good policy. --Yath 04:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I decided not to amend my original statement because that was the proposal and now it's out there, for better or worse. But you are certainly correct, and what I was trying (perhaps poorly) to argue is that this is standard usage on Wikipedia, e.g. behavior not behaviour, etc. Everyone will just have to humor me (or not) and make a decision based on the merits of the case, not my particular language. Thanks, Jcbutler 06:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I would still advise you to amend the statement, because it's wrong. It's not too late, I guarantee to you of that, as long as you're only changing the wording. Patstuarttalk|edits 06:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, just flank the objectionable part with <s> </s> to strike it out. -- SigPig |SEND - OVER 08:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, well it looks like someone has gone ahead and made the change. In the meantime, let's consider the major arguments for and against renaming the entry!

Arguments for changing the name to humor:

  1. Humor was the original name and should be restored.
  2. Humor is more commonly used as demonstrated by the number of google hits.
  3. Humor is consistent with other entries, e.g. behavior not behaviour, color not colour.

Arguments for keeping humour:

  1. The entry is currently spelled "humour" and it's best to stay the course.
  2. It would be too much effort to change the spelling thus it is best to stay the course.
  3. The British are cool and so is their spelling.
  4. Jcbutler mispoke about wikipedia policy and this negates the argument.
  5. It will be fun to continue to defend this spelling in perpetuity.

Have I left anything out? --Jcbutler 15:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Frankly by saying things like "The British are cool and so is their spelling." - you're not really winning anybody onboard are you. But your Google argument doesn't stand up anyway - according to Google more people think "the world is flat" - 1,370,000 hits, than not ("the world is not flat" - 89,800; "the world is round" 232,000, "the world is spherical" 671) - Google counts pages by links - do 'humor site:co.uk' - the 7th link down is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6252595.stm - check the page - the word "humor" does not appear on the page at all. The page appears under "humor" - because someone else linked to it and used the word "humor" as can be seen from the cache [2]. Google is sytemically biased. It doesn't see the deep web (that's 99% of the Internet) - and in fact the Internet itself is biased towards the US usage. According to the stats on [3] 30% of users of the Internet in 2002 were from North America. That's 5% of the population of the planet accounting for 30% of its use. Global usage is about 10% of the population of the World. India has a population of 1.1 billion and of them around 50 million use the Internet [4]. That's less than 5% of the population of India and about 8% of the users of the Internet worldwide. Of course Google turns up "humor" more often, but it's irrelevant. Oh as for your argument about consistency - what about armour, honour, neighbourhood and labour. You might want to look at the project Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized Labour Jooler 17:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oh, Good Jesus

This argument will never ever ever be settled. People will always oppose any attempt to use American Spelling because of the fear that American culture will force out the culture of the native country through the media and this is just people naturally being patriotic to which ever country they're from with some exceptions. Personally a tiny part of my soul dies when I see American spelling and has led me to correcting books and what not in class. Maybe the easiest way to sort this would be to look at that page which lists examples of which international organisations use which spelling. I think British English outweighed American by 2:1 or something like that, but I can't be too sure.

Whichever user tried to justify killing the 'u' by using foreign languages badly needs a new argument. Should we spell cockroach cucaracha or guitar guitarra because they are closer to the original language? Of course not, so that argument falls flat on it's face. I had another point but at 3:40am I can't remember it. Big Moira 03:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A modest proposal, for humour

Shall we now copy and paste this discussion as an example of humour? What we have here are some British folk taking delight in annoying the hell out of Americans. Most of these American take this discussion quite seriously and so base their arguments in the Wikipedia rules unwitting to the joke played on them. They grow increasingly frustrated by the British using such counter-arguments for Commonwealth spelling as the assertion that the British are cool. I propose we classify this discussion in the article under exmaples of the British contributions to humour, right underneath Benny Hill. EECavazos 03:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Haha, that's almost WP:BJAODN material.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 09:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
The 'Brits are cool' thing was a spurious argument suggested by an opponent of the 'humour' spelling. Jooler 00:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)