Re: [groff] 04/04: tmac: Move macro diagnostics away from `quotes'.

[Damian McGuckin]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2017, G. Branden Robinson wrote:

> At 2017-11-20T11:35:13+0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> > Hi Branden,
> >
> > > Are you familiar with the U.K. practice[3] that says an abbreviation
> > > doesn't get a period if the abbreviation ends with the final letter of
> > > the abbreviated word?
> >
> > Nothing has been brought to a stop, unlike, say, Prof. Moriarty.
> >
> > > [3] en_GB: practise
> >
> > We English use practice for the noun, and practise for the verb.
> > Just like advice and advise.
>
> Curioser and curiouser!  I have seen practise used in practise as a noun
> many times.  Here's a prestigious example:
>
> https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783642391644

> In this case I am taking prestige as proportional to price tag.  ;-)

Sadly it is US variant. Look at the URL.

English as spoken by most of the world has lots of examples where 'ice' is 
for the noun and 'ise' is the verb. Like licence/license.

Noah Webster pushed for spelling reform after he published his 1828 
American Dictionary of the English Language. Those reforms only really 
took off in the US. I could say the rest of the world was smart enough to 
largely ignore Webster's efforts but English has so many irregularities 
cause by its roots in Latin and Greek, that his ideas are not without 
merit.

Also, when spelling programs came out, Webster's digital copy of their 
words was $100 and the British Oxford was over $5000. It does not take a 
genius to figure out which one dominates a lot of software tools. The 
rules used by these tools to create British spelling from an American 
English database often leave a lot to be desired.

When in doubt, check the Oxford dictionary or better still, there is also 
Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Regards - Damian

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