Talk:Unimog/Archives/2006/April

English English vs American English vs ...
In an earlier edit changing petrol to gas, I wrote in the edit comment that I was changing the wording to American English (gas) because that's the standard for this Wikipedia. Another user pointed out that my assertion of an American English standard for this Wikipedia was incorrect according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. That user is correct. I was unaware of the Manual of Style's position on this, so I read into it. According to the MoS, there is no standard form of English for the English language Wikipedia. Instead, the language that one uses in a given article depends on: 1) the form of English most closely associated with the topic, and 2) the form of English used by the first major contributor to the article. The article should, in any case, adhere to one standard form of English (for example, American English, British English, Canadian English, Indian English, or Australian English)

I'd like to talk about this for a bit, because I think we may have an interesting boundary case in this article that helps further define the MoS policy on how to select the correct English variant for an article.

English language variants and Unimogs
Item 1 above says that the version of English used in an article should be the one most closely aligned with the subject. The Unimog is a German truck, and so one would have a hard time saying that there is a particular form of English closely aligned with the topic, at least when it's spoken of in Germany. The Unimog has an especially weak association with England, as the British military and farm trades did not (as far as I know) make much use of the Unimog, instead heavily prefering the British designed and built Land Rovers. The Unimog was used in many other nations, however, including Switzerland (by the Swiss military) and some nations in Africa and Asia. I am not aware of the modern history of the Unimog outside of Europe, but I know that in the 60s and 70s, when it was at its peak in terms of exposts, it was purchased in these regions for military applications. In Asia and Africa, I am unaware of any particularly strong association between the Unimog and a given variant of English.

There was one market the Unimog was sold in where there was a strong association with a particular variant of English, and that was the United States. Daimler-Benz, through its dealers and representatives, has sold and serviced Unimogs in the United States for I believe over twenty years.

To add to American English argument, in recent years, Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler. Chrysler is a US company.

Further, the US company Applied Minds created and widely publicized a variant of the Unimog called the Maximog. This Unimog variant has received press coverage (a Google search turns up articles on this project in the US newsmedia).

I believe that the Unimog sold more units and has a higher profile in the United States than in any other nation where English is the official language, though perhaps Canada could make a claim. I would like to hear whether others feel that the Unimog has a particularly strong association with Britain, Canada, India, Australia, or another country whose version of English is widely recognized?

--- comment: i don't want to argue about the point that there are more unimogs in the us than gb, but mercedes-benz has only started to officially sell unimogs a few years ago. all earlier/old models were imported privately or via independent small companies

English language provenance of the article
Item 2 above refers to the version of English used by the first major contribution to the article (excluding stubs).

I wrote the first version of this article in Sept 2002, and I think I could argue that this was a non-stub creation in American English. The article remained unexpanded until 2004, when other editors added content to it. These edits largely retained the American spelling, but (wisely) introduced metric measurements, which I believe are most strongly associated with Unimogs -- I would be surprised if a German-engineered vehicle was built in terms of feet and pounds!

I'd like to open this up to comments -- what do others think? --Zippy 08:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)