Re: WOT: "Correct" English
G'day, eh,
Sheesh. All I did was object to the OP (inadvertantly, I think)
inappropriately laying down a blanket statement about Canadians.
This would be Weally Weally Off Topic (and you thought the W was for Way!),
except for the claim that en_GB should be standard.
At 3:32 AM PST on November 21 Stewart V. Wright sent off:
> G'day Rob,
>
> * Rob Reid <kepler@xxxxxxx> [031120 23:39]:
> > At 11:40 AM PST on November 20 Stephen sent off:
> > > I've always tried to use proper "English" spelling as I'm a Canadian. Is
> > > there a UK spelling dictionary
> >
> > I'm Canadian and I prefer American spelling because it makes more sense.
>
> Huh??? Makes more sense? In what way?
Americans tend to spell words more like they sound. No redundant u's, center
instead of centre. "Centre" only sounds like "centre" in French*.
* Possibly other languages - I don't know them all. But not English.
> Too much Sesame Street for you me thinks.
It's a fine program, and helps instill a mastery of grammar. ;-)
(Isn't there a variant of Godwin's Law that relates to grammar?)
> The wrong idea is that US English is "the" version of English.
I wasn't saying it is.
> I suspect (and I'm prepared to be shouted
> down) that is is the MINOR dialect of English and that UK/GB English
> is the wider spread one. (Take the UK, Ireland, Australia, New
> Zealand, India, Fiji, etc (i.e. ex-colonies and Commonwealth
> countries)). Looking at the origin of the langauge en_GB should be
> the default, looking at population numbers that use the dialects en_GB
> should be the default...
Consider yourself shouted down. en_GB spelling* may be used in more
countries, but they are all countries with not nearly as many English
speakers as the U.S.. Off the top of my head I'd guess en_US is used 3 or 2
times as much as en_GB. (India is the big question mark. But note that the
previous sentence talks about use, not number of people.)
* as opposed to spoken language, which is much more fractured, i.e. "British"
English is not even spoken throughout Great Britain.
> This is in fact reminiscent of the Microsoft "What language do you
> want? US English?" garbage.
Bashing M$ is fun, but I don't see what the point is here. They are
American, and it's their software, after all.
> We should have mutt's default language as _proper_ "en" and then
> translate for the ignorant Yanks with an en_US. Let's regain the
> correct spelling of colour!
Didn't you mean to say "courrect"? You wouldn't want to go to spelling gaol.
I had to work gaol in somewhere. How do en_GB users sleep at night?
(Retorical question)
At 3:57 AM PST on November 21 Eugene Lee sent off:
> Although I prefer the spelling of "color" over "colour", I do prefer
> "armour" over "armor"
Aaarrghh. ;-)
> and "grey" over "gray".
That's regional? My experience has been that grey tends to be used more for
lighter and/or cooler shades, and gray for darker and/or warmer shades.
For the ensuing gray/grey jihad, please try to keep it on topic by discussing
it in terms of how it (and white and black) looks in your mutt terminal.