[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Copyedit English localization as American English (PR #5029)

[Minh Nguyễn]

I’ve copyedited the entire English localization, fixing a number of spelling, capitalization, and grammar issues. The English localization now uses American English vocabulary and spelling throughout.

## Rationale

Ideally, the `en` localization would be some flavour of “international” English, presumably an amalgam of non-American dialects. However, most user agents follow [the industry standard](https://cldr.unicode.org/translation/translation-guide-general/default-content) of treating `en` as American English and `en-001` as international English. I don’t think we can expect Translatewiki.net to supply a separate `en-US` localization anytime soon, since [MediaWiki has essentially declined](https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T33874) to distinguish between `en` and `en-US`. The `en-GB` localization will continue to be written in British English, but Australians, Canadians, Indians, New Zealanders, South Africans, etc. will see Americanisms until Translatewiki.net adds separate localizations for their dialects, which fortunately would be more feasible.

## Scope

These changes affect user interface strings across the entire project. Most of the changes relate to vocabulary, but I took the opportunity to fix some glaring issues, such as tag names that got mixed up.

The date format and quotation marks follow the American standard. I refrained from addressing other typographical issues, such as curly quotes, or using (or avoiding) the Oxford comma more consistently; those things can happen in a followup PR. Because many strings can refer to features anywhere in the world, I’ve also refrained from unduly applying U.S. legal norms to these strings; in fact, I’ve globalized a number of strings that had previously made regional assumptions.

## Process

I went through the file line by line, pausing every so often to avoid [semantic satiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation). Then I searched for some Britishisms like -our and -ise.

Many of the strings are applied to Nominatim search results or the map key. Mappers will undoubtedly care that these strings retain some resemblance to the terms used elsewhere in other OSM software. For the most part, I followed the preset names in [the iD tagging schema’s (American) English localization](https://github.com/openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema/blob/455d733d87a6619cd7639ac66fcec167b922c93a/interim/source_strings.yaml), figuring that a user should see something similar on the homepage and the Edit tab.

## Caveats

Some terms simply don’t have a single household word across the English speaking world – or even across the U.S. – while others have no real word in the real world because of artificial OSM tagging distinctions. At some point, id-tagging-schema started compromising by tacking on alternative names with slashes, but a more general term would be more appropriate for these strings. Since this project only identifies existing features rather than helping users choose tags for a new feature, I took some liberties in order to avoid verbose, ambivalent strings.

I’m aware that many of these changes may break longtime users’ intuition and muscle memory. Many users who don’t speak English as a first language probably still use the English localization anyways, and some may be familiar with the raw OSM tagging vocabulary that previously was reflected in these strings somewhat haphazardly. It may be necessary to scale back these changes somewhat, but I’ve started with a more maximal set of changes in order to document the tradeoffs we end up making.

On that note, this is a draft until I’ve gotten a chance to annotate some tricky decisions that I’d like feedback on.

Fixes #4975.
You can view, comment on, or merge this pull request online at:

  https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/5029

-- Commit Summary --

  * Copyedited English localization as American English

-- File Changes --

    M config/locales/en.yml (816)

-- Patch Links --

https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/5029.patch
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/5029.diff

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