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Re: British vs American Spelling
From: Glenn Geers
Date: 2005 Apr 25, 07:38 +1000
From: Glenn Geers
Date: 2005 Apr 25, 07:38 +1000
On Sunday 24 April 2005 09:17, Peter Fogg wrote: > Many of the major European languages have had extensive reforms within the > last hundred odd years; cutting out the accumulated dead wood, curing > inconsistencies, simplifying spelling and the like. English seems to be an > exception, and not because it isn't needed. American English received some > rather more modest reforms proposed by Benjamin Franklin and they seem > sensible ones, on the whole. > > However other English speaking nations (like England!) declined to adopt > them. Australian English follows British English, mostly, but I think this > is slowly changing in favour of American. One reason is the spell checkers > of computers 'correct' British spellings despite promising otherwise. > Another is the fact that many text books at tertiary level are American. So > there is some confusion. Such is my own case. On the whole I use the > spellings of standard English but have adopted some of Franklin's reforms, > although this is admittedly inconsistent. > > Am still a bit puzzled by 'shew'. Not only is it unfamiliar, but it sounds > positively Elizabethan?! I've only seen "shew" used in old mathematics books (Whittacker and Watson has been mentioned). I have seen o with an umlaut used as well. The usage seems to be for the imperative form, viz. "Shew that..." which is a fairly common way to start Mathematics questions. Just my 2 cemts or pence worth or is that tuppence? Glenn > > > From: Gordon Talge > > I would like to get a little input. > > > > Quote: > > I use British spelling so I end my verbs in "ise" rather than > > "ize". I use the ending "our" rather than "or" (as in "colour") > > and I use the correct spelling "shew" rather than "show".