Talk:General American English/Archive 7

Requested move 2 August 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Moved. See strong arguments below in support of a page move away from the current title, even though it appears to be the undisputed common name for the subjects of accents and pronunciations of general American English. Since any of the companies mentioned can be called "General American", the term's ambiguity has been established, so using the name as the title of a disambiguation page is a definite consideration. Further, we see no general agreement below as to what title to use for this article, so as closer I am compelled to choose. My choice is based upon giving the title of this article a natural disambiguator that is also in common usage according to reliable sources, and is also based upon giving this article a more precise and recognizable name that already redirects to the current title. In accord with closing instructions, "while consensus has rejected the former title (and no request to bring it back should be made lightly), there is no consensus for the title actually chosen. And if anyone objects to the closer's choice [...], they should simply make another move request at any time, which will hopefully lead the article to its final resting place." Kudos to editors for your input, and Happy Publishing! (nac by page mover)  P. I. Ellsworth , ed.  put'r there  16:56, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

General American → General American English – (edited) The phrase General American will be meaningless to most readers until they click the link to the article and begin reading. Article titles should be natural and recognizable for the non-specialist reader, which generally includes using nouns or noun phrases. American as a noun for the language is fairly uncommon in normal usage; see Google Ngram, for instance. (Yes, I'm aware of the 2005 PBS series; it seems obvious that the title was meant to be attention-getting and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, rather than refecting normal usage.) Insofar as General American is used in academia, it's specialist jargon that should be clarified. This is consistent with other pages in Category:American English, such as Southern American English, Western American English, New England English, Inland Northern American English, Appalachian English, etc. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:11, 2 August 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Dicklyon (talk) 02:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

(Addendum) See GBooks search results for General American English. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:09, 11 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Unlike Southern American English, Western American English, New England English, Inland Northern American English, Appalachian English, etc., General American does not refer to a dialect with special vocabulary, morphology, etc., but merely to an accent (or a group of accents). Even texts written in a foreign variety of English can be, and frequently are, read using General American. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:11, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The lead sentence calls it the umbrella variety of American English. It's a form of English, whether a dialect, accent, or whatever. The suggestion that General American English refers to a specific dialect will only be picked up on by a small group of specialist readers; the risk of confusion there is small compared to the benefits of a more recognizable title for the average reader, in my opinion. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2019 (UTC) (Edit: as, several quality sources do in fact refer to General American as a ; this is one of the two meanings identified by Kövecses (2000, p. 81). —09:20, 23 August 2019 (UTC))
 * Support. In the academic papers cited, "General American" is not ambiguous because they are linguistics papers, talking about accents being Southern or General American. The proposal is more natural and recognizable. I don't agree with the comment above me that "General American English" would imply that were a specific dialect, the "General" part of the name already implies it's about something broad. – Thjarkur (talk) 00:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems I wasn't clear enough. I meant "dialect" in the first sense mentioned in article dialect that also covers standard languages, not in the sense that a dialect is something that is only used locally. What I wanted to say was that General American is only a style of pronunciation, not a variety of English that differs from other Englishes on all linguistic levels. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:25, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Then what about renaming the article General American accent? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:30, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * At least that's not misleading. General American is an accent like Received Pronunciation, the Mid-Atlantic accent or General Australian, not a complete national variety of Standard English. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Where does the idea that article names should be self-evident come from? If that was the case we wouldn't need short descriptions, and disambiguation pages and hatnotes would be considerably shorter. If there's anything remotely close it's WP:NATURALDISAMBIG, but that's for when there's ambiguity. If there was, "General American accent" would at least make more sense than the proposed name. But I don't see a hatnote in this article, nor the necessity for a move. Nardog (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Per article titling policy, recognizability and naturalness are the first two criteria to consider. Can we assume that you would support a move to General American accent? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No – "General American" is a name "that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize", and is "what the subject is actually called in English". I find "General American accent" redundant, defying the "conciseness" criterion. Nardog (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Your Ngram link hardly illustrates anything. It just means "speak/spoke English..." has been written more times than "speak/spoke American...", which includes "speak/spoke American English" etc. Nardog (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Per LiliCharlie. Since there's no evidence given that "General American" is meaningless to most readers, this can be dismissed pretty easily. As can the notion that "General American" isn't a noun (it's a proper noun!). There's basically no justification for considering it specialist language in need of a common alternative. Sure, it appears more often in specialist literature, but that's because specialist literature talks about it a lot. There's no evidence that "General American English" (or "General American accent") exists as a common name alternative to "General American." No links to non-specialist literature, dictionaries, or even YouTube videos. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Please re-read the move request. I didn't say American for the language wasn't a noun; I said it was an uncommon noun in normal usage. The "evidence" that General American will be meaningless to most readers is its virtual non-use in everyday speech. As for links to non-specialist literarure, try Google. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I see. So by insisting that we include nouns or noun phrases, you're saying that readers might misinterpret "General American" as an adjective, not that it is one. Another guess that doesn't really have any substantiation.
 * The search results you've provided with the sources doesn't really indicate what you think. Actually, it looks a lot like you've just slapped a search result without taking a close look at the results themselves. Let's go through a dozen:
 * Green (2002) uses the phrase "general American English" differently than the subject of this article. This is why she capitalizes it this special way. She is talking about the collective body of American English dialects, not the specific manner of pronunciation (accent) that is the subject of this article. You can see this when she discusses lexicon (p. 20), auxiliaries (p. 44), verbal paradigms (p. 74), and syntax and morphology (p. 76).
 * Wolfram & Schilling (2015) are doing the same. As you can see from their discussion of verbal paradigms (p. 380) and relative pronouns (p. 388).
 * Skandera & Burleigh (2005) do use the phrase "General American English" as synonymous with "General American" but they also use "Standard American English" which is not the same thing and quite a strange error. Nevertheless, we can call this a hit.
 * Schweke (2007) is talking about dialects (with mention of lexicons)
 * Brown (2006) is talking about grammar (auxiliary systems)
 * Bonfiglio (2010) shows up because "General American accent" is in quotes in reference to usage of the early 20th century. Hardly an indicator of contemporary usage.
 * Blumenfield (2013) does use the phrase "General American accent", though take note that he uses "General American" much more frequently.
 * McGuire (2016) is a hit.
 * Rank (2006) is a hit.
 * Dal Vera (2003) is not talking about GA.
 * Tench (2011) seems to use the phrase "General American accent" when introducing the concept to indicate it's an accent, but then slips into using just "General American" or "GA" for the remainder.
 * So you've basically found two sources that actually say and do what you say they say and do. That's not common usage. Not even close. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 00:30, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Standard American English" which is not the same thing and quite a strange error – the article we're discussing specifically states that Standard American English is an alternative name for the topic. Blumenfield (2013) ... uses "General American" much more frequently ... Tench (2011) slips into using just "General American" or "GA" for the remainder – the point is how the topics are introduced, since that is the purpose of the title we're discussing. No one is suggesting we replace "General American" with "General American English" throughout the entire article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:00, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You've got the burden of proof here. Shifting the goalposts mid-conversation isn't going to help you. Nor is failing to address the arguments of other editors. You made a claim about general usage. Your claim was shown to be quite incorrect. It's hard to take you seriously when you can't even admit you were wrong. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 06:58, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * See reply below. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per LilCharlie. General American refers to an accent, not a distinct dialect. That "dialect" is American English.  Calidum   13:55, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * in fact describe "General American" as a dialect or dialects. Kövecses (2000, p. 81) specifically refers to "three large dialect areas" encompassed by General American, while Labov et al. (2006, p. 263) assign the term to a hypothesized "conservative Inland Northern dialect". Any of the other sources referring to a General American "variety" can also be said to referring to dialect, since the latter term encompasses any given variety of a language. Furthermore, linguists often use dialect in place of accent. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Article titles should be what the thing is called, not what readers with no knowledge of the matter might expect the thing to be called. W. P. Uzer (talk) 22:21, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. I think "General American" is too ambiguous of a title for the average reader. Moving to "General American English" or "General American accent" is completely appropriate. Rreagan007 (talk) 14:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * How is it ambiguous? What else does it refer to? Isn't it rather unkind to readers to misinform them as to what the subject of the article is actually called? W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Honestly, when I first saw the title "General American", I had no idea what the heck it referred to. I thought maybe it was referring to an average American person, or perhaps that it was the name of a corporation. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:17, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It is the job of the article body to tell users what a term refers to. Page titles, as W. P. Uzer said, tell users what the thing is actually called. Thus we have a page called Oganesson, and it would be incorrect to rename it to something extended like Chemical element Oganesson or Oganesson element because non-experts might think Oganesson is the name of a corporation. In short, we do it the old-fashioned way: We expect users to read our articles, not to deduce an article's content from its title before jumping to the next page, though we do have lead sections providing for users with little time and patience. — P.S.: Mnemotechnically it is a good thing you first thought that General American referred to something else. Mentally contrasting two similar terms is a train of thought that serves your memory and helps you expand your vocabulary. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's not correct. The subject of the article should be readily apparent from the title. That's why we use the most common name rather than the official name for article titles, so readers will be able to know from the title alone if it is the article that they are looking for. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:28, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * In which case, "General American" would be the most common name. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 06:06, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I've known the term General American for decades, and if there were an article entitled General American English I would suspect it deals with something else, maybe a controlled natural language similar to Basic English, not an accent like General Australian or General British. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The Oganesson article is not particularly relevant here, but in any case it's unambiguous, unlike "General American", which could potentially refer to a range of things. Titles should be natural and recognizable. This is laid out in the second paragraph of our titling policy. We don't expect readers to read every article to find out what the topic is. Several editors have now indicated that this article's title lacks recognizability in at least some cases. There is little to lose by giving readers more clarity and precision. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:54, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: according to some of the first sources cited in the article, such as Labov, Ash, & Boberg (2006) and Van Riper (1986), there is no scholarly consensus that the term "General American" refers solely to accent, as opposed to dialect. Therefore any objections along those lines seem to be a red herring. Nonetheless, it's fairly easy to find sources that specifically refer to "General American English" as a phonological system, that is, an accent or system of pronunciation, for instance Adger et al. (2007), Bauman-Wängler (2004),Blumenfeld (2002), Durand et al. (2014), Fogle (2008), Garn-Nunn & Lynn (2004), Green (2002), Hayden (1950), Kalackal (1985), Kennedy (2003), McMillan & Montgomery (1989), Romaine (1998), Silveiro & Watkins (2006), Teschner & Whitney (2004), and others. So "General American English" seems both commonly used and unambiguous, which is something to consider even if "General American" is the most common name used. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You might want to check our system of soft and hard redirects. Standard American English takes readers to a disambiguation page, not here, and explicitly says that it is technically incorrect to refer to General American as "Standard American English". Do you really not know the theoretical and practical problems with "Standard American English" as a concept? Do you not know that it's basically a myth as far as pronunciation goes? Why would we, a locus of accurate and accessible knowledge, want to denigrate ourselves with falsities for the sake of alleviating the slight discomfort some feel between when they learn they are ignorant about something and when they address that ignorance with a few sentences of light reading?
 * Given that you've demonstrated several times in this thread alone a troubling difficulty in providing correct analysis on what literature does and does not say, I hope you can indulge all of us in actually providing page numbers and quotations to illustrate this lack of consensus that you allege. You may also want to elaborate to all of us how a source from 1986 (or 1950 for that matter) is still relevant on the matter of this consensus. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 06:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Shifting the goalposts mid-conversation isn't going to help you. I don't know what this is referring to. I directly responded to your points about "Standard American English" being an error, and the fact that two authors use "General American English" to introduce the topic, which is relevant to how we name the article.Nor is failing to address the arguments of other editors. Pot, meet kettle.You made a claim about general usage. The only such claim I have made is regarding the lack of usage of "General American" in everyday speech, which I think is just common sense.Standard American English takes readers to a disambiguation page, not here, and explicitly says that it is technically incorrect to refer to General American as "Standard American English". You might try reading this article, which states, "Some scholars, despite controversy, prefer the term Standard American English." Whether you or I think that's technically incorrect is irrelevant; we give ideas due weight based on their prominence in published, reliable sources.Do you really not know the theoretical and practical problems with "Standard American English" as a concept? Do you not know that it's basically a myth as far as pronunciation goes? None of this is relevant to how published, reliable sources use the term.Given that you've demonstrated several times in this thread alone a troubling difficulty in providing correct analysis on what literature does and does not say... That's just, like, your opinion, man. (Kindly refrain from poisoning the well, thanks.)I hope you can indulge all of us in actually providing page numbers and quotations... You could always try following the links I posted above, but if you insist: • "The Atlas data do not justify the labeling of any one dialect as "General American", a term promoted by John Kenyon to indicate a conservative Inland Northern dialect"

• "General American has been used to designate a regional type of American English, a type of American English which transcends all American regional boundaries, a variously constituted body of speech features of American English found in the speech of the great majority of Americans, and a set of American dialects which, perhaps by definition, share certain features under discussion ..."—Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC) Comment: A walk through our five criteria for deciding on an article title:
 * Just from a quick search, I see several more sources using "General American" (with a capital G) for a dialect of American English: Bailey (2017), Burkett (1978), Clopper & Bradlow (2009), Herman & Herman (1997), Kövecses (2000), Treiman et al. (1997) and Troutman (2001). Any concerns about giving readers the impression of a dialect therefore seem moot, since that's just what these and other sources call it. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:09, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Poisoning the well is the name of a type of ad hominem attack where one interlocutor attempts to undermine the credibility of another with irrelevant details. In this case, what I have pointed out is quite relevant, particularly in a discussion that depends on evidence. You made a claim about terminology and provided search results for dozens of sources saying that these sources backed up the idea that "General American English" and "General American accent" exist as a common-name alternatives to "General American." Even if we were to ignore the problem that that links to specialist literature wouldn't back up claims about common-name usage versus usage in specialist literature, almost none of the sources even used those terms in the way that you said that they did. So, to recap, you said that General American is specialist jargon, I said there was no evidence that your proposed terms were common-name alternatives, you provided links to demonstrate that they were, and your links failed to demonstrate that. Then, to add to the absurdity, when I pointed this out, you shifted the goal-posts by saying that it was about how the terms were introduced. No, it's not. It never was and shouldn't be.
 * We have high standards for factual accuracy, and if you're going to propose something as drastic as renaming this article, you should come correct and come hard, or not come at all. I'm not going to go easy on you when you demonstrate repeatedly that you don't know what you're talking about. We have all been correcting you every step of the way in this conversation and now, when facts don't back you up, you're appealing to "common sense." This is not convincing.
 * I took the time to look through the last set of links you've provided. You've now provided another set of links to books with a claim about what they say. I've indicated that, based on the level of credibility you've demonstrated here, I don't trust your assessment and asked that you actually provide the relevant quotes for all of these sources to save myself and other editors from potentially wasting more time. I've also implied that older sources have less weight than newer ones when it comes to current usage. To be explicit, a source from the 1980s or before is only really going to indicate historical usage.
 * If you don't want to actually do this, that's fine. I'll leave it to other editors to determine if they find that convincing. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:15, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note that the sources you were not ones that I specifically cited. So any problems with the specific sources  are with those selected by you. You mentioned Skandera & Burleigh (2005) as a "hit"; three more sources that show up for me on the first page of search results are De Houwer & Wilton (2011), McMillan & Montgomery (1989), and Teschner & Whitney (2004), which use "General American English" in the context of phonemes and/or pronunciation.Green also discusses differences in pronunciation between African American English and "general American English" (2002, p. 106) (Note that "general" is only sometimes capitalized even in the term "General American", according to Webster's.) I'd say these four or five "hits" out of the first ten results are a pretty good indication that "General American English" is sufficiently common among scholars. However, even a less common but unambiguous name may be appropriate, per our titling policy: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."I have since offered  that use "General American English" to designate a sound system of American English. Considering that your initial comment suggested we, your objection to even a handful of scholarly sources confirming the usage of "General American English" is bizarre. Shifting the goalposts, indeed. Note also that my claim of "common sense" was about the lack of usage of "General American" in everyday speech. This would be the time to refute this claim, if you have evidence to do so. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:16, 11 August 2019 (UTC) (edited 02:49, 11 August 2019 (UTC))
 * And yes, how sources introduce the concept is always relevant; is this not what titles do? If there were no ambiguity, sources wouldn't need to add "English" on to the end of "General American", even if they mostly use the briefer term in prose. The fact that "General American English" is mentioned at all in a given source is significant. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Cherry picked? That's quite the accusation of bad faith. You want to maybe walk that back a bit or is it your position that I'm being dishonest? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 02:39, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Possibly an injudicious term on my part. Would you consider walking back your multiple accusations of "goalpost shifting" then? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To elaborate on another point, I am not appealing to 'common sense' when the facts don't back me up. I am appealing to   published, reliable sources that use "General American English" in the context of this article's subject. The fact that "common sense" also applies here does not indicate shifting goalposts. A move can be advisable for more than one reason. I would have thought that was common sense, but apparently not. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the attempt to be civil, but you seem to believe that I have chosen a select few sources when in actuality I went through the first two pages of results and examined all of the ones that I could (except one that was a little too old). It's as representative a sample as I could make it. As I said, it looks a lot like you didn't examine the sources from the search results yourself. You haven't demonstrated usage and, when I pointed this out, mentioned "common sense" as a justification for why you don't need to. That's a burden of proof shift. If that isn't an appeal to common sense in lieu of corroboration from sources (which you shouldn't do whether or not you've been tasked with corroboration), I don't know what is. I will not be walking back my charge of goal-post shifting. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 22:30, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You haven't demonstrated usage and, when I pointed this out, mentioned "common sense" as a justification for why you don't need to. Where did I say anything resembling this? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To be explicit, a source from the 1980s or before is only really going to indicate historical usage. This seems wholly arbitrary, unless the meaning of the terms has radically shifted in the last 40 or so years. In that case, we can excise much of the content from the lead section that relies on either Wells's Accents of English (first published 1982) or Van Riper's "General American: An Ambiguity" (first published 1973, collected in volume 1986, ebook released 2014). In any case, we have multiple sources from 1950 all the way up to 2018 (see quotes below) that use "General American English" for the topic at hand. Rather than a historical curiosity, these show that there is a continuity of usage across multiple decades. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:08, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 1. Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
 * The current title is certainly a name that I—being someone familiar with the subject area—recognize. As I said above, I would hesitate and not be sure if an article entitled General American English deals with the same subject.
 * 2. Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
 * As I write this, General American had 17,268 page views in the past 30 days, General American English had 295. So it seems that the majority of Wikipedia users did not come here via the latter page. And our subject is actually called General American in English, not only in specialized literature, but also in leading English dictionaries such as Webster's and the OED.
 * 3. Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.
 * General American seems to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
 * 4. Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
 * General American is shorter than General American English, which would be longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
 * 5. Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.
 * General American is consistent with the naming pattern of page titles such as General Australian and General British, which also refer to accents of English that are used nationwide.

Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:15, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * General Australian and General British are redirects, not article titles. So there's no consistency benefit to be had there. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * about #3 (Precision): Published experts are not unanimous on the meaning of "General American"; see my below. Also, there are several other topics on Wikipedia that All pages with titles beginning with General American. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:31, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for being patient with me while I looked through these sources. I appreciate the time you've taken to identify the parts of each source that you feel highlights the usage you are talking about. There are a few sources that do, as you say, indicate that the term General American English can be used synonymously or even interchangeably with General American as we cover it in this article, e.g. Evertz (2018), Teschner & Whitney (2004), Durand et al. (2014). The clearest example of this is Treiman et al. (1997), which defines General American English with a quote from a source that is describing "General American". If it's just about how the terms are potentially interchangeable, then we could add Blumenfeld (2002), Clopper & Bradlow (2009), Herman & Herman (1997), Plag et al. (2007), which seem to use the terms interchangeably, but use General American (or, in one case GenAm) far more frequently than General American English. Take note that Kennedy (2003) also uses "British Received Pronunciation" where we (and most linguists use "Received Pronunciation"). I'm assuming that no one is planning on proposing a rename to our article on Received Pronunciation, though the logic for such a proposal would be strikingly similar to this one.
 * Support as per WP:PRECISE – somebody who is not in the linguistics field will have any idea what this means without the word "English". --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You say "per WP:PRECISE", but my reading of that policy seems to clearly back using "General American" since it says that titles should be no more precise than is needed to unambiguously define the topical scope of an article. Since there's no ambiguity with "General American", adding "English" or "accent" has no disambiguating function. AFAIKT, the experience of simply not knowing the topic just from the title alone is not what WP:PRECISE is about. Do you care to elaborate how WP:PRECISE would back up your stance? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 22:36, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the current title is "ambiguous" – that's what I said. The proposed move removes the ambiguity. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't know the expression General American is also used in a different sense and is therefore ambiguous. Please point me to the other article that could justifiably carry that name. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've already explained my reasoning, I don't need to explain it again. The "opposers" of this RM are getting dangerously close to WP:BLUDGEONING – you've made your points, so you can drop it now. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * IJBall, I think we're talking over each other here a little bit. The term ambiguous in the context of Wikipedia articles means that it is able to be understood to mean multiple things. This is why we disambiguate with redirects, hatnotes, etc. So what you are describing as "ambiguous" is different than WP:PRECISE is talking about. You seem to mean "ambiguous" as simply vague, while WP:PRECISE is saying article titles shouldn't be "ambiguous" in the sense that their titles should be clearly disambiguated. That's why LiliCharlie is asking for what else "General American" could refer to. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:08, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Just a minor addition: there's a line in WP:UCRN (already quoted earlier by Sangdeboeuf) that uses "ambiguous" in a different sense, not related to the need for disambiguation between titles: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. But even if it's claimed that the title is ambiguous in this weaker sense, I agree that that should be supported by specifying the other possible meanings of "General American" that give rise to the ambiguity. Colin M (talk) 15:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Since we're not discussing an actual disambiguation page, I think we can consider partial title matches as giving rise to ambiguity in use of the term. Other topics that might be called "General American" include General American Investors Company and General American Marks Company (a subsidiary of GATX, formerly the General American Transportation Corporation). Terms that redirect to other articles also include General American Oil Company (precursor of Amoco). (A search for "General American Life Insurance Company" yields several more mentions.) —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:25, 13 August 2019 (UTC) (edited 23:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC) to remove an unlikely match)
 * Oppose W. P. Uzer really hit the nail on the head when they wrote: Article titles should be what the thing is called, not what readers with no knowledge of the matter might expect the thing to be called. I'm generally in favour of moving from jargon-y names to more widely recognizable ones, but this isn't analogous to, say, Geococcyx, an obscure, jargon-y term for a thing that's fairly well-known under a different name (Roadrunner). This is an obscure/specialized term for an obscure/specialized topic. Someone who doesn't know what "General American" is isn't going to suddenly WP:RECOGNIZE the article's topic when they instead see "General American English" - at best, they'll have a better idea of the general domain of the topic. But people aren't arriving at this article out of a vacuum (unless they're surfing the "Random article" button) - anyone who searches for this term, or clicks a link to this article from another article already has some understanding of what they're getting into. Colin M (talk) 00:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you'll find that what the thing is called includes the proposed title "General American English" – see the dozen or so published sources quoted below. Should we not strive to give readers a better idea of the general domain of the topic when doing so incurs no loss of accuracy and only a minor loss of concision? We don't know how many readers are arriving at this article out of a vacuum – most "See also" sections just contain bare titles, and someone who begins typing a similar phrase in the search bar will see the title suggested automatically. —This is similar to how the topic is characterized in our article. The source goes on to compare GAE pronunciation to the Southern Vowel Shift and Northern Cities Shift (p. 192).  —The source uses "General American" and "General American English" interchangeably. —The source is discussing phonological transcription, which is related to sociolinguistics.  —This passage comes from a section comparing different accents of English; GAE is compared with RP, Scottish English, Australian English, etc. —The source is directly contrasting GAE with Received Pronunciation (RP).  —The use of parentheses shows how "General American" and "General American English" are equivalent terms. The source goes on to contrast GAE and RP (p. 71).  —The source uses both "General American" and "General American English" in the same paragraph.  —There's an interesting note about the preference of dictionaries for "General American" on  p. 128; I don't see Van Riper himself saying any term is preferable to another. He uses "General American" the most, probably out of convenience.In addition to these, Celce-Murcia (1991), Fogle (2008), and Gutierrez-Ang (2009) have chapters on the "General American English Sound System", and Kalackal (1985) has a chapter on the phonology of "General American English". —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC) (edited 12:27, 13 August 2019 (UTC))
 * Thank you, this is excellent research. You're right, the quote from W.P. Uzer does oversimplify the situation. I accept that "General American English" is used. But I think we also agree that "General American" is the most commonly used term, right? You say the move "incurs no loss of accuracy and only a minor loss of concision", but I think that's leaving out the greatest loss: WP:NATURALNESS (The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.). Sure, searching Google Books for "General American English" turns up plentiful examples. But what if we were to first select, say, 100 of the highest quality sources dealing with this topic (linguistics textbooks, highly-cited articles from respected journals, etc.) and do a count based on those? How many "General American English"es would you expect to find? 1? 5? 20? 50?
 * As a lazier experiment, I searched Language Log (by adding  to Google searches) and found 78 results for "General American" and 8 for "General American English". ("General American accent" gets 7). That's a pretty wide disparity. Colin M (talk) 13:30, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * A lot of those usages seem to be reader comments. As an even lazier experiment, I checked the first five results, and three out of the five were just that. (A fourth one refers to "[pronunciation] norms of general American newscasters", which is an odd framing; are the newscasters or their pronunciation being called "general"?) In any case, I'm doubtful that Language Log is really among the "highest quality sources" on the topic.It's not surprising that people frequenting a specialist language blog would often use jargon-y terms; a lot of online enthusiast communities are like that (Wikipedia being no exception). And academic journals will of course use specialist jargon in most cases, since they're written by specialists for other specialists to read. While "General American" isn't a technical term like Geococcyx, it's pretty self-evidently a truncated form of "General American English" that specialists – such as Van Riper (1986) – use for the sake of convenience, just as many – such as Wells (1982) – shorten it further into "GenAm".We're back to the question of ambiguity vs. frequency of use; WP:UCRN definitely supports using a less common name if it's clearer, which I think the proposed title is. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, but these aren't exactly YouTube comments. The average Language Log commenter likely has an academic background in linguistics. And I'm doubtful of your dubiousness of LL's quality - it's the real deal. The contributors are highly respected/influential linguistics professors. Colin M (talk) 23:13, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Whatever the commenters' background, their comments on the site are still self-published and not acceptable as sources. Even if we accept the site as a whole as reliable, it doesn't resolve the ambiguity/commonality issue. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You seem to be hinting that if we had 100 of the highest quality sources dealing with this topic, we would see far more uses of "General American" than "General American English". Obviously we can't make that assumption until we have actually looked at such sources. And that's assuming the sources already provided are not of "highest quality". Many of the sources come from mainstream academic or university publishers, with a couple being peer-reviewed journals. So I don't see any reason to doubt their quality or reliability. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:59, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

There are a few sources that use the phrase General American English, but are talking about something else than what is covered here. I've mentioned Green (2002) already, but this also includes Garn-Nunn & Lynn (2004) and Skandera & Burleigh (2005). Adger et al. (2007) is pretty clear about this as, earlier in the paragraph from the quote provided, they explicitly say that they are referring to a body of dialects with phonological and grammatical features under discussion. Thus, they are not looking at General American as it is covered in this article. It's clear from the next sentence following the quoted one that they are using this as synonymous with Standard English and quite apparent that they are talking about more than accents, as they take more space (pp. 195–208) discussing grammatical issues of "General American English" than pronunciation. Romaine et al. (1998) aren’t really clear on the matter. It seems to me that they are talking about two different things.

"General American English" appears in Van Riper (1986) in reference to usage of the early 20th century. Hardly an indicator of contemporary usage.

I think it would be fair to say that you have found a handful of sources that use the terms General American English and General American interchangeably. You have also found a handful of sources that use General American English to refer to something else. To me, this indicates that the term General American English has such low salience in linguistic literature that there is no clear meaning for it as there is with General American. Thus, in addition to picking a rarely used term, renaming the article to "General American English" would be adding ambiguity that we don't have with the current title. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]
 * I'm assuming that no one is planning on proposing a rename to our article on Received Pronunciation, though the logic for such a proposal would be strikingly similar to this one. Your assumption is correct. Such a move would not be necessary, since the term "Received Pronunciation", unlike "General American", is unambiguous and widely understood.There are a few sources that use the phrase General American English, but are talking about something else than what is covered here ... this also includes Garn-Nunn & Lynn (2004) and Skandera & Burleigh (2005). How does this follow? Both Garn-Nunn & Lynn (2004) and Skandera & Burleigh (2005) use "General American (English)" for a standard variety of pronunciation. Compare this to how one source cited in the lead section of our article describes one meaning of "General American": Other sources describing "General American" in terms of standard pronunciation (or "Standard American English" pronunciation) include Benson et al. (1986, pp. 179–180), Kretzchmar (2008, p. 37), Lorenz (2012, p. 12), Van den Doel (2006, p. 15), and von Schneidemesser (2007, p. 286). Additionally, Wells (1982, p. 118) refers to General American as "pronunciation taught to learners of English as a foreign language", which is certainly a feature of any "standard" variety. (Note that not all these sources agree that such a standard variety exists; this is only to show that "General American" is used in this context. From there it follows that discussions of GAE/SAE pertain to the same topic as well.)Romaine et al. (1998) aren’t really clear on the matter. It seems to me that they are talking about two different things. In the passage I quoted, Romaine is directly contrasting General American English with Received Pronunciation. They are talking about a system of pronunciation variously called "General American" or "Network English" (or "Network Standard"), as described in our article under : General American is thus sometimes associated with the speech of North American radio and television announcers ... sometimes called a 'newscaster accent', 'television English', or 'Network Standard'. Romaine uses "General American English" equivalently to "General American" as used by MacMahon (1998) and Baugh & Cable (1993), whom Romaine cites on p. 39."General American English" appears in Van Riper (1986) in reference to usage of the early 20th century. Hardly an indicator of contemporary usage. Your fixation on historical vs. contemporary usage is simply a red herring, given that you've already acknowledged more recent sources that use the terms interchangeably. George Philip Krapp, who, according to Van Riper (and our article) is responsible for the spread of the term "General American", also used "General American English" and several other terms to refer to the topic; there could be no clearer indication that the terms are equivalent.You have also found a handful of sources that use General American English to refer to something else. If you're going to make the case that any of these sources are referring to something other than the topic of this article, it would be more convincing to specify what that thing is, rather than simply handwaving it away as "something else".To me, this indicates that the term General American English has such low salience in linguistic literature that there is no clear meaning for it as there is with General American. First, there is not a clear, agreed-upon meaning for the term "General American", as our article points out under ; this is Van Riper's point in describing the term as "ambiguous" (1982, p. 130). Refer again to Kövecses (2000):  Second, the supposed "low salience" of the term "General American English" has no bearing on what we name the topic, since WP:UCRN specifically allows less-common but unambiguous names to be used. "General American English" is less ambiguous than "General American", especially considering other Wikipedia article titles All pages with titles beginning with General American. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:40, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Given that this literature review was all triggered by a claim that General American is specialist jargon and all you've done is quote specialist literature, there's not much point in going too much deeper on all of this. Quoting specialist literature doesn't work to indicate non-specialist usage.
 * You haven't explicitly disputed my claims about Green (2002) or Adger et al. (2007). Can I assume that you agree with my reading on these? If so, then that's all that's necessary to indicate what I was saying about the ambiguity of General American English vs. ''General American.
 * To sum up, then: the proposed rename is less clear, as there is ambiguity about what the proposed term refers to, and less common, since sources overwhelmingly use "General American". A quick search at the linguistic literature from the last 40 years at JSTOR finds "General American" to appear more often (210 results) than "General American English" (53 results). Of the thirty or so results of the latter group that I could access, there was a roughly equal amount using GAE to mean something different from GA as those using it as a synonym for GA. Two appeared because of the vagaries of punctuation. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record, I haven't made any claims at all about non-specialist usage, and there's no need for any non-specialist literature if it can be shown that "General American English" is an established term in (linguistic) specialist writing. Nonetheless, several of the sources I presented are non-specialist works: Blumenfeld (2002) and Herman & Herman (1997) are manuals for actors; Celce-Murcia (1991), Kennedy (2003), and Prator (1951) are all TEFL/TESL manuals; Fogle (2008) and Gutierrez-Ang (2009) are general communication sciences textbooks; and Treiman et al. (1997) appears in the psychology journal Child Development.Even conceding that Adger et al. (2007) and Green (2002) are discussing American English dialect features beyond pronunciation as "General American English", the term "General American" can likewise refer to a hypothesized variety of AmE not limited to pronunciation: according to Kövecses, the term "General American" as originally used actually encompasses the Northern American English, Midland American English, and Western American English dialect regions (2000, p. 81), while Van Riper says that General American' ... is shown to be split by east-west lines ... in vocabulary (cherry pit/seed), grammar (dove/dived) and pronunciation (the vowels of fog and hog) ..." (1986, p. 119). As such, "General American" is no less vague, and likely more so given that Van Riper is on record direcly calling it "ambiguous" (1982, p. 130).No one is disputing that "General American" is the more common term; to repeat, WP:UCRN specifically allows for less-common titles in certain situations. I believe this one qualifies. I'm not familiar with searching a specific field on JSTOR; could you provide links to your results supposedly using GAE to mean something different from GA? Once again, it would be more convincing to specify what this "something different" actually is. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2019 (UTC) (edited 23:13, 19 August 2019 (UTC))
 * For the record:
 * You said in your proposal that Insofar as General American is used in academia, it's specialist jargon that should be clarified. (emphasis added).
 * I said in response to this that there was no evidence that "General American English" (or "General American accent") exists as a common name alternative to "General American."
 * That's when you provided links. By calling General American "specialist jargon" you were making implicit claims about non-specialist usage, which you were clearly attempting to demonstrate in response to my rebuttal.
 * I'm not really interested in diving into more links. You now concede that General American is the more common term and LilCharlie has outlined how it fits the five criteria for article titles, and that's really all that matters. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:06, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * By calling General American 'specialist jargon' you were making implicit claims about non-specialist usage... That's a non-sequitur, but it doesn't matter; I've established that "General American English" is used in both specialist and non-specialist literarure.I'm not really interested in diving into more links... This after you (1) requested links to literature, (2) requested quotes and page numbers from said literature when I provided links, and (3) said the sources were all "specialist literature" when a number were explicitly not. Much as I prefer to assume other users are acting in good faith, it seems as though you're simply WP:STONEWALLING this discussion by repeating the same (irrelevant) points and refusing to engage with others' arguments.You now concede that General American is the more common term... I never disputed that it was. It's irrelevant, since less-common terms can also be used as titles....and [LiliCharlie] has outlined how it fits the five criteria for article titles... LiliCharlie used General Australian and General British for comparison. Both those names are redirects to more specific article titles, which actually supports the proposed move. Some of their other points are also debatable (particularly #3, "Precision"), as a full reading of this discussion will show. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:53, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To repeat my earlier request, please provide a link(s) to the JSTOR search results that you say are using GAE to mean something different from GA, so that other users can verify this statement. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:06, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I requested links, quotes, and page numbers. You provided them. I responded. As I said, you've demonstrated that both terms are used. That doesn't change my stance on what the title should be for this article, particularly as you also demonstrated ambiguity in the term GAE that isn't present with GA. This notion that the dual meaning of GA as both a body of American English accents and a standard pronunciation is anywhere near the ambiguity found in the literature that you provided strikes me as oversimplistic. There's quite a lot of semantic overlap between the two meanings of GA. That's why, per WP:NOTDIC, we don't have two separate articles called General American (standard language) and General American (accent), even though we acknowledge this dual meaning.
 * Now you're requesting that I provide links to back up a claim that you have, several times, explicitly said you don't think matters. Why should I bother?
 * If you'd like to make a more detailed critique of LiliCharlie's title criteria, that would be more relevant. You had only responded to the issue of consistency. To your response, I'd say that LiliCharlie was mistaken to link to "General British", but General Australian links to a section about a variety of Australian called "General Australian" (not General Australian English). Moreover, we have the article Comparison of General American and Received Pronunciation, as well as the absolute paucity of articles using the phrase "General American English" vs the great number using "General American" or its abbreviation "GA". — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:06, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Now you're requesting that I provide links to back up a claim that you have, several times, explicitly said you don't think matters. Once again, your're stonewalling and claiming I said something I didn't. I said that the frequency of use of the two terms as demonstrated so far is irrelevant. Your claim was that sources you found are using GAE to mean something different from GA. That speaks to potential ambiguity, not frequency of use. Once again, what are these sources? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:45, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not the first time you have accused me of acting in bad faith and it's getting tiresome. Please reconsider your talk page behavior.
 * I have already indicated that several of the sources you provided indicate ambiguity. As I have said several times, in the sources you provided, Adger et al. (2007) and Green (2002) use GAE to refer to a body of dialects. You have conceded this, but say that it doesn't matter (and then, strangely, act as though I haven't identified what this alternate meaning is). You have also said that the relative frequency of the use and meanings of terms doesn't matter. I'm sorry, I just don't see the point of going through the links of dozens of sources to identify which ones use what meaning of GAE when what these sources say won't make a difference. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You have conceded this, but say that it doesn't matter (and then, strangely, act as though I haven't identified what this alternate meaning is). I said the proposed title was arguably less ambiguous than the current title, even taking all the existing sources into account. You identified Standard English as the meaning of GAE used by Adger et al. (2007). If that's the "something different" you are alluding to vis-a-vis the mysterious JSTOR sources, you haven't said so.I just don't see the point of going through the links of dozens of sources to identify which ones use what meaning of GAE... The point of talk page discussions is to reach consensus. That is done with reference to published sources and Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The sources presented so far support "General American English" as a less ambiguous alternative the current title. That can always change if new sources are presented. But if you don't identify your sources, then any arguments based on those sources are moot. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:54, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So we're just ignoring Green (2002) now? I'm sorry, but I think at this point, I'd rather leave it to other editors to decide if I've been unclear. Regards. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are correct; Green (2002) was also discussed in terms of dialect features. I've struck the word "only" from my last comment. That doesn't change the fact that you have made a claim about sources using GAE to mean "something different" than the present topic without showing what these sources are. Your responses when asked to substantiate your claim have been evasive and misleading: I never said any potential sources won't make a difference; I asked for sources specifically to inform this discussion with a view to establishing the relative weight (and/or notability) of any alternative meanings. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:06, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * [T]he dual meaning of GA as both a body of American English accents and a standard pronunciation.... I assume you meant "accents and standard language/dialect" based on what you wrote two sentences after this one. For the record, the meanings of GA are dialect and pronunciation acccording to Kövecses (2000, p. 81), the former being the original meaning now deprecated by linguists.There's quite a lot of semantic overlap between the two meanings of GA. That's why, per WP:NOTDIC, we don't have two separate articles called General American (standard language) and General American (accent)... An article would violate WP:NOTDIC if it defined multiple meanings under the same name, since that's exactly what dictionary definitions do. Creating a separate article for GA/GAE as a variety of Standard English would be entirely appropriate as long as the topic were sufficiently notable.General Australian links to a section about a variety of Australian called "General Australian" (not General Australian English). This is incorrect. The uses "General Australian English" three times, including the first mention of the topic; "General Australian" is only used once. So that comparison still supports the proposed move to "General American English". —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:CONCISE. The title does not concisely describe the subject. Red   Slash  23:08, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * do you mean WP:PRECISE or WP:CONCISE? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:13, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. The current fails to define the topic.  The current is a jargon, a shortening used in repeated uses where the context is established, and repeated mentions of many variants of English is a tedious repetition of "English".  The title is a standalone, context free, description, and should not be in jargon.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:22, 23 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Umbrella term?
The link to Umbrella term in the lead sentence suggests we are talking about the words "General American English". I thought the article was meant to be about the linguistic variety itself. If that's so, we shouldn't be discussing terminology in the first sentence even if we do so in the body. The only source I see for "umbrella term" in this context is Bonfiglio (2002), who says "General American" was "discarded" by post-war linguists. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:28, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not a fan of that wording either. I think "continuum of accents" establishes that there are multiple accents covered under the term. That it is defined by "absences" doesn't seem relevant to this point. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 22:52, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh sorry -- just saw the discussion. Are we making a distinction without a difference here? Should I should remove the piping on "umbrella"? That way it's not referring to "umbrella term" if that's what you don't like. But this is certainly an umbrella variety/accent or umbrella sound system. Wolfdog (talk) 00:28, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That works for me. The main problem was linking to a topic that deals with semantics rather than language varieties. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)