Template talk:English grammar

Use for this table
Having just created this table, I have just realised that some of the links in it do not only apply to English (D'oh!). Can anyone suggest a usage for this table? My only worry is that if it becomes a series for all grammar, then it will become far too long.

Lofty 11:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup, that won't do. I would stick to articles specifically about English grammar, and not all articles on grammar which happen also to pertain to English. For example, I would remove Relative clause but include English relative clauses. --Doric Loon 19:14, 28 June 2006

Rename Article
Given that this grammar template pertains only to English grammar, shouldn't the template be renamed? 66.229.182.113 06:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it should. For the same reason, it should also be removed from ~50,000,000 of the pages it's currently on. Ruakh 13:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

English declension
The article named English declension is really about Old English. It shouldn't be together with the rest. FilipeS 21:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

English nouns?
Looks like maybe it is time for a full article and a link here for English nouns (currently just a section in Noun. Facts707 (talk) 05:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * *′′′Agree′′′ with the above. Great work in grouping together the necessary types. My only recommendation further would be to include Verbs in the Parts of Speech list and have a collapsible list for these as well as possible to further clean this up. 173.167.211.241 (talk) 17:15, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Change template from Sidebar to Sidebar with collapsible lists

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the sidebar have collapsible lists to make it easier to navigate? InvalidOS talk  14:20, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. Although at the moment most of the articles are about linguistic concepts more generally, including a few which barely feature in English. Meanwhile there's a whole category's worth of other things we could include. If we're keeping it, though, I think some good top-level sections would be Morphology, Parts of speech, Verbs (given the number of articles), Syntax, Orthography and Nonstandard grammar Other. We could also maybe have one s for Phonology (if we want to include it) and individual words like Than and Y'all which have their own article . Of the ones already in the sidebar I've tried to group those which I think should stay (please forgive the mess):

Morphology: Diminutives (in Australian English) Plurals Prefixes (in English) Suffixes (Frequentative)

Types of words: Acronyms Adjectives Adverbs Conjunctions Compounds Demonstrative Determiner English articles English honorifics Expletive Intensifier Interjections Interrogative words Portmanteau Possessives Prepositions Pronouns (case, person) Nouns

Verbs: Auxiliaries, contractions Mood (Conditional, Subjunctive, Imperative) Aspect Irregular verbs Modal verbs deduction habits and past facts Passive voice Phrasal verbs Verb usage

Syntax: Adjunct Argument (linguistics)? Clauses (in English) Copula (linguistics) Inversion Periphrasis Predicate?

Orthography: Abbreviations Comma Hyphen

Variant usages: Grammar disputes Double negatives

─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 19:27, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I've been through the category (Category:English_grammar) and there are actually only a few things I think are worth adding since a lot is already covered by the top-level articles and it would be easy to inundate the sidebar with links to fairly short and not too important articles. That said, these are the things I would add: ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 21:29, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Types of word: Adverbs (Flat adverb?)
 * Verbs: Tense (Past, Present, Future), Aspect (Continuous, Perfect, Habitual), Transitive/Intransitive -ing
 * Syntax: Zero-marking in English, Do-support
 * Orthography: Capitalization
 * Other: African-American Vernacular English, Ain't?, American and British English grammatical differences, Thou, Singular they
 * Yes, a long as they are not auto-collapsed by default, per MOS:DONTHIDE. While that's primarily about in-article ("main prose") content, and we make exceptions for navigational boxes, we shouldn't make one just to make one. It's an accessibility problem and, on mobile, a usability-at-all problem. Much can be done by grouping this stuff under template-internal heading (presumably also links, to broad-topic articles), and using concise inline "flat" lists instead of a space-wasting vertical one using a whole line even for one-word entries.  If the sections within the template are made collapsible under conditions, that's okay.  E.g. many of our page-bottom navboxes auto-collapse except for their title bar if the page has multiple navboxes.  We should do the same with multiple sidebars. At some point, the usability/accessibility problem of the navigation being collapsed and not easily expandable for some people is outweighed by the page being overwhelmed with navigational linkage that distracts from the actual content.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:21, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes - its too unwieldy as it is now. But, SMcCandlish raises a good point that they should not be collapsed by default. --DannyS712 (talk) 05:15, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. Make use of the listNname parameters to allow expanding individual sections within the template. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:35, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dictionary photo
Looks like there have been a couple of failed attempts to replace the dictionary photo on this template. Using a photo of clear brand-name dictionaries does seem inappropriate, for both implying that the content of all these articles comes from Longmans, and that the subjects are limited to the scope of dictionaries.

User:Brett's suggestion of File:A_pile_of_English_grammar_books.png (general grammar books, no prominent publisher name) and mine of File:Bookman Ornament 9617 (bookshelf).svg (a clipart bookshelf, no text at all) both seem more suitable to a general purpose grammar template. --Lord Belbury (talk) 12:45, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this, User:Lord Belbury! User:Alborzagros keeps reverting it to the dictionary photos without any explanation. I left a message on their talk page months ago, but there was no reply.--Brett (talk) 13:13, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth I didn't realise that there'd been previous disagreement on the issue, I just replaced the picture with what I considered to be a more appropriate one, and it got reverted by Alborzagros with no edit summary. I'd be happy with either the grammar books or the clipart here. (I also considered File:Bookman_Ornament_4858_(bookshelf).svg, which is a wider but neater image.) --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I really liked the original clipart one Belbury proposed. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 08:59, 8 February 2022 (UTC)


 * It looks like User:Alborzagros is the author of the dictionary photo: File:English-English and English-Persian dictionaries.JPG. I am the author of the photo of the grammar books, but I just put it together to find something to replace the dictionaries. I'm open to other suggestions.--Brett (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)