Category talk:United States
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The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.
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As I work to replace the deprecated {{nav}} with {{topic cat}}, I have come to this category which causes problems. In and of itself it isn't a problem, but the per language subcategories aren't all in agreement with it. The codes eo, hu, ja, nl, and pt use United States of America, but el, zh, zh-cn, and zh-tw use the plain United States. It will be some work to convert it either way. I have a preference for the shorter United States, but since {{topic cat}} is inflexible concerning parents, uniformity is essential one way or the other. Leaving a note on the Beer Parlor, since this should affect other categories that use the country name. — Carolina wren discussió 22:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
- The term "United states" as a calque is ambiguous, since there are other countries whose official names begin (in their languages) with "United States of...". the full name is thus preferred for clarity, even if it is a bit longer. --EncycloPetey 01:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- Who is talking about a calque? Category names are in English and this is the English Wiktionary. Provide some actual examples of United States by itself being used in English to refer to the United States of Mexico or any other country besides the United States of America, and then I might see some merit in such hyperclarification. At least those who object to using American as the related demonym can point to actual usage of it as something other than pertaining to the United States. As a point of comparison, neither Wikipedia nor Commons has a problem with using a plain Category:United States. — Carolina wren discussió 23:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, the longer form seems to be the one that has virtually chance of causing some kind of difficulty whereas one could imagine difficulty with the short form, especially over a long time horizon. But I suppose we could opt for the short form on the grounds that eventually there will be enough technical resources available to make whatever renamings might be required less troublesome than they seem to be now. DCDuring TALK 00:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- If it were a straightforward category rename, bots should be able to handle if needed. However it could easily be argued that the long form would be the likelier to be a problem over the long term. Imagine that Wiktionary were now three centuries old and we'd had to rename Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain to Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland instead of just having Category:United Kingdom. Let us also not forget Category:United Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, Category:United Kingdom of Sweden-Norway, Category:United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, Category:United Kingdom of the Netherlands or Category:United Kingdom of Libya. With all these other United Kingdoms if one is going to argue that United States is too vague, then by that same standard Category:United Kingdom is in need of a rename. — Carolina wren discussió 00:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- Less ambiguous is good, no need to revise decisions is good; shorter is good: 1 and 2 conflict with 3. The ambiguity is very low now and the likelihood that will change much seems low. The likelihood that there would be a need to revise the categories is thus low. If that revision could be accomplished at reasonable cost than the shorter label seems fine.
- I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that we have tolerated the sloppy use of UK. DCDuring TALK 01:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- If it were a straightforward category rename, bots should be able to handle if needed. However it could easily be argued that the long form would be the likelier to be a problem over the long term. Imagine that Wiktionary were now three centuries old and we'd had to rename Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain to Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Category:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland instead of just having Category:United Kingdom. Let us also not forget Category:United Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, Category:United Kingdom of Sweden-Norway, Category:United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, Category:United Kingdom of the Netherlands or Category:United Kingdom of Libya. With all these other United Kingdoms if one is going to argue that United States is too vague, then by that same standard Category:United Kingdom is in need of a rename. — Carolina wren discussió 00:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, the longer form seems to be the one that has virtually chance of causing some kind of difficulty whereas one could imagine difficulty with the short form, especially over a long time horizon. But I suppose we could opt for the short form on the grounds that eventually there will be enough technical resources available to make whatever renamings might be required less troublesome than they seem to be now. DCDuring TALK 00:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- Who is talking about a calque? Category names are in English and this is the English Wiktionary. Provide some actual examples of United States by itself being used in English to refer to the United States of Mexico or any other country besides the United States of America, and then I might see some merit in such hyperclarification. At least those who object to using American as the related demonym can point to actual usage of it as something other than pertaining to the United States. As a point of comparison, neither Wikipedia nor Commons has a problem with using a plain Category:United States. — Carolina wren discussió 23:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Archived because the original problem (non-uniform category names) appears to be resolved now. The name discussion should go elsewhere. -- Liliana • 20:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits.
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
I believe that the punctuated U.S. is the more formal usage, and has the advantage of not being mistaken for an all-caps instance of the word, "us". I therefore propose to move all categories containing "US" (e.g. Category:US State Capitals, Category:fr:US States, and Category:Southern US English) to titles containing "U.S.". By my count, this covers about 50 categories in total. If approved, I will be glad to do all of the renaming and recategorization. bd2412 T 21:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
- I actually think we'd be better off renaming them to categories containing the unabbreviated "United States". --WikiTiki89 21:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
- I would absolutely agree with that, as it eliminates all possible ambiguity. For states, we would have to change it to "States of the United States" to avoid the alliteration of "United States States". bd2412 T 22:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
- We wouldn't have to, but I agree it would make it less awkward. Anyway, I see no problem with "States of the United States". --WikiTiki89 22:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
- I would absolutely agree with that, as it eliminates all possible ambiguity. For states, we would have to change it to "States of the United States" to avoid the alliteration of "United States States". bd2412 T 22:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
- I disagree. At least part of the time, people have to type these category names by hand, and even a couple of extra characters every time can be a nuisance (I'm surprised you aren't going all the way and suggesting "the United States of America").
- I fail to see how the "US" in category names could ever be mistaken for a pronoun- do you really think people are going to look at Category:US States and mistake it for a colloquial version of "we states"?
- It looks very much to me like a solution in search of a problem, with no real benefit, unless you can call forcing people to do more typing a benefit. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
- Our category names, being part of the visible public product, should at least look formal and professional. bd2412 T 04:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
- Support renaming to "United States". Note that we do currently have Category:Languages of the United States of America (rather than Category:Languages of the United States); I don't know if it should be renamed for consistency. - -sche (discuss) 18:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
- For an English-speaking audience, "of America" is indeed probably superfluous. bd2412 T 21:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Is there any further comment/opinion on this? bd2412 T 00:32, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
- For an English-speaking audience, "of America" is indeed probably superfluous. bd2412 T 21:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Attributive US and noun United States. So US state capitals (caps sic) and Languages of the United States. —Michael Z. 2014-03-16 04:11 z
- Is that just an opinion on whether United States should be spelled out, or is it also addressed to the question of whether we should use a punctuated U.S.? bd2412 T 18:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
- Attributive US and noun United States. So US state capitals (caps sic) and Languages of the United States. —Michael Z. 2014-03-16 04:11 z
- I see no reason to abbreviate. --WikiTiki89 21:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)