Talk:Terrapin (disambiguation)

American English focus

We're losing encyclopaedic focus here: "in British English the name is widely applied to other freshwater turtles such as red-eared sliders, Trachemys scripta elegans." Yes, and what else? This is an ENGLISH language encyclopaedia, so all the types of turtle referred to as "terrapin" should be listed -- not just one authoritative example.--Rfsmit (talk) 01:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The lead sentence is poor for several reasons. Firstly it is not strictly 'diamondback terrapin' as there are other valid named terrapins such as painted terrapin, River terrapin's (northern river terrapin and southern river terrapin), smiling terrapin, Seychelles black terrapin, Serrated hinged terrapin and maybe others. The British English language claim is not correct. The issue is that British people have become accustomed to the use of general words 'terrapin', 'tortoise' and 'turtle' without much understanding of them because Britain has no native turtles. So in common usage a British person could be referring to any turtle when the word terrapin is used. British English speakers from elsewhere, such as Australia and South Africa use the term differently. Amending disambiguation page to reflect that. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)