Talk:John Lawn
A particular bugbear of mine - that's not de-Americanising, it's Briticising.--Old Dickens 22:43, 29 May 2007 (CEST)
I don't wish to bug your bear, old bean, but which was there first, d'you think? --Knmatt 22:52, 29 May 2007 (CEST) (please don't take that the wrong way - and ps. thanks for deleting my duplicates)
-or. There is no history of or reason for the extra "u" before the late 18th century. The Americans kept the original; the English thought extra "u"s looked French and sophisticated. (I battle national prejudice on this; most Canadians insist on 'our' to show they're not Americans.)--Old Dickens 23:07, 29 May 2007 (CEST)
How do you spell "axe"? I've no wish to stir up bigotry or prejudice, i'm just intrigued, seeing as you were the fellow with the deeply impassioned rant against "dwarfs". --Knmatt 23:11, 29 May 2007 (CEST)
- With the "e", but I wouldn't edit ax, or -our.--Old Dickens 23:46, 29 May 2007 (CEST)
As a rule of thumb, if the article has already been created by somebody who is more familiar with American English, I'd try to rein myself in from recorrecting the spelling to British standard - I try to take the p.o.v. that this is also a valid form of English and it would be cheeky to mess with somebody else's sincerely held standards. Still trying to make myself respect consistency. If I add to an article that is substantially in American English, to keep my edits consistent and follow American convention, rather than leave it a hotch-potch of British and American variant spellings: staying in the dominant style looks neater and more internally consistent. Hopefully my use of British English is respected - I know I might feel a bit miffed to find my writing corrected to American, so I try to extent the same courtesy to North American friends! Live and let live here?--AgProv 11:04, 30 May 2007 (CEST)
The sincerest form of flattery
I just noticed that Discworld wikia has copied this article word for word (as nearly as they could manage). --Old Dickens (talk) 04:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC) The copy carries the addendum that the original John Lawn is a retired doctor in West Yorkshire, but I can't Google any confirmation of his existence. --Old Dickens (talk) 17:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)