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I was recently re-tagging a question clearly about which had previously been tagged and .

I decided to remove the two English tags in favour of .
Should I have?

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  • Please link that question. It would certainly help. – user140086 Oct 30 '16 at 8:37
  • @Rathony This is the question, it has been migrated to writers but that's not to important. english.stackexchange.com/q/355998/184766 – BladorthinTheGrey Oct 30 '16 at 8:58
  • Thanks for the link. Since the question is not on-topic on ELU, I am not sure if it helps. – user140086 Oct 30 '16 at 9:11
  • @Rathony True, but a situation like this could easily arise (and probably has done) at some point on EL&U. – BladorthinTheGrey Oct 30 '16 at 9:21
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I wouldn't bother retaining the individual region tags for North American vs. Insular English if it's about transatlantic differences of the customary variety.

After all, one only gets five tags total, so it would be all too easy to waste all those enumerating myriad transpondian dialects.

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    But when searching, it is probably more likely to be use AmE or BrE – Mitch Oct 30 '16 at 3:18
  • Still I would use those dialect tags if the limit allows and there are not more important tags to use. – Helmar Oct 30 '16 at 10:49
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The following question, British Mass Nouns versus American Count Nouns has three tags, , and

This question, If someone says "They insisted that he left", is there any ambiguity in BrE or in AmE?, doesn't have [american-english] because the OP is asking about ambiguity in BrE.

This question, What is the US English for "soppy"?, doesn't have either [american-english] or [british-english], just [transatlantic-differences]. I think this question should be tagged [american-english], too.

And this question, Difference between "everlasting" and "eternal", has both [transatlantic-differences] and [differences] and I don't see any reason why this question should be tagged [transatlantic-differences].

I know a few enthusiastic users have contributed a lot to streamlining the tag system on ELU for the last couple of months, but IMO, there is no harm in tagging as many tags as possible. We can tag maximum five.

If you think a question is about [transatlantic-differences], but tagged only [american-english] and [british-english], please just add the tag without deleting the two in the same way as we tag while leaving other related tags such as , , , etc.

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  • What about @tchrist's argument; if it is about transatlantic-differences, aren't the BrE and AmE tags unnecessary? – BladorthinTheGrey Oct 30 '16 at 12:56
  • @BladorthinTheGrey Well, let's give a question some benefit of the doubt. As you well know, the tag system on ELU is not perfect and I don't expect it to get better. If what tchrist's argument applies to other questions with "difference" tag, wow, how many questions do you think should be edited to remove other tags? I am not arguing what is right or wrong. I am just saying the more, the better. – user140086 Oct 30 '16 at 12:59
  • Well, that sounds good. +1 We'll see what others think. – BladorthinTheGrey Oct 30 '16 at 13:00
  • Ah, I didn't know that, sorry. I was just editing the tags and smartening it up - probably unnecessary. If they're going to be deleted I shan't mess with such questions. – BladorthinTheGrey Oct 30 '16 at 16:01
  • @BladorthinTheGrey Yeap. I didn't know it for a very long time, either. Cheers!! – user140086 Oct 30 '16 at 16:02

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