Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: Associate status application

[Martin WHEELER]

On Wed, 22 May 2002, Marc Eberhard wrote:

> I would recommend to consistently use British spelling throughout the text.
> It looks a bit funny to me, that the AFFS part uses British spelling
> (obviously!) and the FSFE part uses American spelling.

Unfortunately Marc, British spelling is not as consistent as you would
have it.

I belong to that generation which was taught to use 'organize' and
'organization' as the standard spelling, even though the variants with
's' were also in use at the time; moreover the Oxford English
Dictionary has always given 'organize' as the primary form, with the 's'
form as a variant.
(The Cambridge Dictionary will doubtless give it arsy-tarsy -- but they
would, wouldn't they? :)

Today's generation is utterly confused about the use of "its" and "it's"
and will happily use 'center' and 'theater' as well as Computer Capitals
On Every Bloody Word, so as a descriptive linguist I will just point out
current usage and make no prescriptive judgment.

The real giveaway in that text however is 'focuses' -- which of course
is spelled correctly for British usage.

The text as it stands is OK for me -- but it's also OK if you use the
's' form.  My own spelling habits will always remain consistent with
what I was taught at school in the 1940s and 50s however.

Cheers,

Martin
-- 
Martin Wheeler <address@hidden> gpg key 01269BEB @ the.earth.li