Western European or West European

English translation: Western European

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:Western European or West European (languages)
Selected answer:Western European
Entered by: Mikhail Kropotov

14:59 May 3, 2005
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Linguistics
English term or phrase: Western European or West European
Which is (more) correct?
Mikhail Kropotov
Germany
Local time: 11:00
a simple explanation
Explanation:
"west european" would be the adjective for "west europe".
"western european" would be the adjective for "western europe".

(note no caps to avoid controversy about capitalisation or otherwise of the points of the compass :-) )

In most contexts "western europe" is used, hence most logically and grammatically correct adjectival refs will similarly be to "western european".

However, if you have a reference to "west europe", which would most likely be as some kind of pseudo proper noun, e.g. a sales region called "West Europe", then "west european" would be the appropriate adjective.

It's that simple :-)
Selected response from:

Charlie Bavington
Local time: 10:00
Grading comment
Thank you for the explanation.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +14Western European
NGK
4 +4a simple explanation
Charlie Bavington
4 +1western European
Robert Donahue (X)
3location vs concept
Balasubramaniam L.


Discussion entries: 11





  

Answers


1 min   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +14
western european or west european
Western European


Explanation:
is more common

NGK
United States
Local time: 05:00
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in GermanGerman
PRO pts in category: 20

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  RHELLER: usually capitalized
5 mins

agree  Kim Metzger: Western - NY Times Manual of Style and Usage: capitalize when referring to the region of the US, to Europe and the Americas or to the group of nations that opposed the Communists.
14 mins

agree  Michael Bailey
28 mins

agree  Konstantin Kisin
43 mins

agree  ohemulen
56 mins

agree  Elizabeth Lyons: Yup! :)
1 hr

agree  John Bowden
1 hr

agree  Vladimir Dubisskiy: West European - incorrect usage here
2 hrs

agree  Refugio
2 hrs

agree  Kirill Semenov
2 hrs

neutral  Charlie Bavington: true, but there is a logic behind the different terms
3 hrs

agree  humbird
11 hrs

agree  Shane London
1 day 9 mins

agree  Alfa Trans (X)
1 day 15 hrs

agree  Saleh Chowdhury, Ph.D.
4 days
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1 min   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
western european or west european
western European


Explanation:
...


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 mins (2005-05-03 15:03:33 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I know Google isn\'t the be all end all, but the results bear notice.

Results 1 - 10 of about 553,000 for \"west european\".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="west european"

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,450,000 for \"western european\".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q="western european"

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 mins (2005-05-03 15:04:06 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

More correct? Western European sounds more correct. : )

Robert Donahue (X)
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 12

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Vladimir Dubisskiy: but Google can hardly be a valuable reference with this regard. Some Stylebooks more likely. But it was always "Western European" even at Pre-Google times :-)))
2 hrs
  -> Thanks Vladimir. I was using google to show that it was more commonly used, not to measure validity, honest. : )

neutral  Charlie Bavington: again, there's a good reason why it's more common and therefore sounds more correct....
3 hrs
  -> OK, so why the neutral then if it's indeed correct? : ) Thanks Charlie.
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +4
western european or west european
a simple explanation


Explanation:
"west european" would be the adjective for "west europe".
"western european" would be the adjective for "western europe".

(note no caps to avoid controversy about capitalisation or otherwise of the points of the compass :-) )

In most contexts "western europe" is used, hence most logically and grammatically correct adjectival refs will similarly be to "western european".

However, if you have a reference to "west europe", which would most likely be as some kind of pseudo proper noun, e.g. a sales region called "West Europe", then "west european" would be the appropriate adjective.

It's that simple :-)


Charlie Bavington
Local time: 10:00
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 28
Grading comment
Thank you for the explanation.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Robert Donahue (X): That's an explanation I can agree with.
27 mins
  -> by default, for European languages, I would say "western" myself. but if he has a book which has divided Europe into North, S, E & West, say, & uses those terms as pseudo regions for some classification purpose, then he should use West European.

agree  tappi_k
8 hrs

agree  Rafal Korycinski
15 hrs

agree  Elevenít (X)
2 days 14 hrs
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11 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
western european or west european
location vs concept


Explanation:
To me west european suggests a geographical area, the western part of Europe; and western european suggests a concept, something that is characteristic of western europe, something that is not physical but is usually associated with western europe.

If that is of any help!

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Note added at 11 hrs 7 mins (2005-05-04 02:07:02 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

On second thoughts: west is merely an adjective for europe and stands alone, whereas the two terms in \"western europe\" go together and convey a single meaning, which is the concept or idea that is western europe.

Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 15:30
Native speaker of: Native in HindiHindi
PRO pts in category: 12
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