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Similarly to Use American English rather than Commonwealth English for tags?, I would like to know what to do when editing a message written by someone else.

The question Is「ふむふむ」still used nowadays? was written is very clumsy English, but had the following bit:

I learnt from

The whole question has been rephrased by another contributor, but the conjugation has been turned into

I learned from

I would like to know if you think this kind of modification is acceptable/debatable. The fact that the OP is obviously not a native English speaker doesn't help choosing the right dialect…

PS: I would personally not appreciate my grammar/spelling be Americanised by someone else, as I try to use British English as much as possible (within the limits of my knowledge).

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    Whoops, I had no idea that was a valid spelling. I don't touch Commonwealth English when I recognize it (~re, ~our, ~ise, etc), but since the OP's English wasn't that good, I assumed that was a phonetic spelling mistake by the author. If I do miss something like that in the future, feel free to reject my edit.
    – Troyen
    Aug 26, 2011 at 5:05

1 Answer 1

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While the question of dialects in tags is open (and, I think, addressed in that previous question), the rule on flavours of English inside questions/answers/comments is extremely clear:

Do not, ever, edit somebody else's post to match your personal dialect of English

If it is correct (and coherent) in the author's dialect, then leave it be.

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  • My bad, this question did not show up as a possible match during redaction. I knew there was something like that, but the question on tags confused my memory.
    – Axioplase
    Aug 26, 2011 at 5:12
  • No worries. It bears repeating it here for everybody's benefit.
    – Dave
    Aug 26, 2011 at 5:13

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