On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 11:04:03PM +1030, David Purton wrote: > On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 01:59:20AM -0500, David Yitzchak Cohen wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 10:38:18PM +1030, David Purton wrote: > > > On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 06:22:18PM -0500, David Yitzchak Cohen wrote: > > > > On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 04:32:40PM +1030, David Purton wrote: > > > > > > > > > Even the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives both as valid > > > > > variants. > > > > > > > > Is that the American version, or the British version, just out of > > > > curiosity? > > > > > > English version > > > > Well, all that tells us is that in England, they've finally given up > > and allowed the other (gray, apparenly, would be the American Invasion). > > The American Oxford, though, should tell us whether the British Invasion > > was staved off here, or whether everybody's just given up on trying to > > trace the origins of the two spellings regionally. > > > > Not in this case - the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives this: > > "Both spellings have analogies in two words in general use derived > from Old English forms of graeg...; the practice of printing houses is > various and individuals tend to use the variations with a difference > of implication..." > > These are some of the quotes given: > > "The night is chill, the cload is gray" COLERIDGE (1772-1834) > "The grass path grey with dew" BROWNING (1812-89) > "Grey is composed only of black and white; the term gray is applied to > any broken colour of cool hue and therefore belongs to the class of > chromatic colours" 1885 > "It was the Friar of orders gray" SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) > "My horse, gray Capilet" SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) > "I... with grey haires and bruise of many daies, Do challenge thee" > SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) > "With kamuse nose and even greye asd glas" CHAUCER (1340?-1400) uh, huh ... interesting, dare I say. . . > Judging from how the dictionary is set out, I think OUP prefers grey. ?? OUP - Dave [who's really tired at 5AM Turkey Day] -- Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor? It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right? Please visit this link: http://rotter.net/israel
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