Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!eci386!woods
From: woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: American to English spelling
Message-ID: <1990Nov12.233115.1659@eci386.uucp>
Date: 12 Nov 90 23:31:15 GMT
References: <2402@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <27180@cs.yale.edu> <5727@alpha.cam.nist.gov> <27203@cs.yale.edu>
Reply-To: woods@eci386.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
Lines: 33

In article <27203@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes:
> In article <5727@alpha.cam.nist.gov> koontz@cam.nist.gov (John E. Koontz X5180) writes:
> >Actually, I've been given to understand that Canadian spelling has some  
> >American elements.  
> 
> Yes, it does.  See, among other books, _The Story of English_ (and accompanying
> BBC television series).
> 
> However, I just saw `programme' in reference to a computer program in a USENET
> article which came from Canada.  What could this be, other than a misspelling?
> `Program' meaning `computer program' is the standard spelling everywhere;
> `programme' is the English/non-American spelling for the word in all its other
> uses.

It may have been a posting from me.  I tend to use "programme" always,
though I won't go to any great lengths to change it if it refers to
software.  On the other hand, I don't use "tyre", and I am very
un-stable in my use of "..ise" or "..ize", eg. I use "organize" and
"organisation".  I guess my rule of thumb is "..is.." and "..ize",
i.e. I use `zed' when it comes near the end of the word, and `ess' in
the middle of a word.

I write a fair bit of technical documentation and such, and I edit the
UniForum Canada newsletter (README), keeping with the above
practices.  I use the British option of spell (-b) to help me out.  (My
favorite UNIX spellers are vspell and the built-in one in JOVE.)
Certainly spell is not the best tool, but it is available almost
everywhere.  I just wish System V had look!
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP		ECI and UniForum Canada
+1-416-443-1734 [h]  +1-416-595-5425 [w]    VE3TCP	Toronto, Ontario CANADA