What is en_US ?

[Alan Cox]

> Dialects in the UK and Ireland have all but disappeared.
> When I was young Geordies and Glaswegians were unintelligible.

They are alive and well (and unintelligible). As to the US English use
well in the UK proper it is considered a sign of poor education, lack of
intelligence and being socially disadvantaged to speak like an American
(unless you are one, in which case we'll feel sorry for you instead
providing you didn't vote for Bush). Thus it does matter hugely to the
point it determines influence, jobs and career paths.

> English everywhere is converging fast,

Linguists would disagree.

> and only pedants worry about the differences.

Pedants would disagree.

> Anyway, as the OP, my complaint was that 
> Fedora should not describe the language as en_US 
> unless there is some other variant of English on offer.

It should definitely say en_US because that is what it is.

We currently (well yesterday) have 100% coverage for en_GB, and given a
couple of days someone could add en_CA to that list. If people will keep
moaning I might even have to add en_SouthWales for the people who do talk
proper.

Alan