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[on:]

A short while ago I received a manuscript from a US collaborator. He used the word "sulphur", which I have not seen in ages. He's not British and the manuscript is not going to Royal Society either. The whole deal is within US. So for British friends here, what do you say about that? BTW, he also spelled "analysing" in the same article. I'm not very picky but among a few other more critical mistakes, these just stick out as "Maybe this poor fellow clicked the wrong dictionary for default spell check."

On the other hand, I did google "sulphur" and found someone in UK hating the idea to change to "sulfur" around 2000. So what's the general feeling of using the spelling "sulfur" in UK these days? At home and in scientific/engineering setting?

What about people in US? Any feelings if you see others in this country using the ex-British spelling, in world-class scientific journals?

I'm stirring mud here, could get dirty so stir carefully or just watch others get dirty.  ]

[Reply #1 on:]

Perhaps he was educated abroad?

I find the British spellings so much more interesting and often write "aluminium" just because.

--
Beat707: MIDI drum machine / sequencer / groove-box for Arduino

[Reply #2 on:]

I find this posting somewhat coloured.

Lefty

[Reply #3 on:]

Perhaps he was educated abroad?

I find the British spellings so much more interesting and often write "aluminium" just because.

--
Beat707: MIDI drum machine / sequencer / groove-box for Arduino

No he's not remotely related to UK. His boss aka my ex-boss is not remotely related to UK either.

[Reply #4 on:]

I find this posting somewhat coloured.

Lefty

I know that word. Strangely enough I grew up learning British pronunciation and spelling till around early 90's then everything is American accent and spelling. But growing up in neither UK or US I don't know how people in these two countries actually view this spelling difference.

[Reply #5 on:]

May be he just likes doing it correctly.

[Reply #6 on:]

May be he just likes doing it correctly.

+1

To Americans and others - stop removing characters from our words!

[Reply #7 on:]

I bet he also says solder correctly as well and doesn't drop letters from that and make it sound like sod her.

Did you know one in three Americans weight more than the other two put together.

[Reply #8 on:]

May be he just likes doing it correctly.

  I get it now. I'll make sure I use British spelling if I write to someone in UK. It's worth mentioning that all people I mentioned on this post, me included grew up in neither UK or US or country using either English as official language It's probably just a slip of finger that the poor guy clicked on UK English spell check. But as long as people in the US don't think that's insulting of any type, I'll just keep this off suggestion list.

[Reply #9 on:]

Did you know one in three Americans weight more than the other two put together.

No I didn't. I bet obesity and having many kids (if you count kids in) can contribute to that. If hypothetically my wife gives birth to a child right now, and we get counted as Americans due to tax purpose, I bet I'll be the one and they will be the other two, at least for the first several years  

[Reply #10 on:]

It's probably just a slip of finger that the poor guy clicked on UK English spell check.

That is hard enough to do when you want to do it. Most of the so called UK spell checkers are written in the U.S. and are full of errors. Or every time you open a document it defaults to the U.S. Spelling ARE YOU LISTNING MICROSOFT thought not.
If you must know I am dyslexic so you might not think it matters but it bugs the hell out of me wilfully misspelling words like they do in the US
Problem is children here are actually learning the wrong spellings because of this.
So do I feel strong you bet.

I do compromise on this forum and use the word ground in place of the proper term earth but that's about it.
Rant over. 

[Reply #11 on:]

Did you know one in three Americans weight more than the other two put together.

This American is working on that.  Playing with too many Arduinos doesn't help!  A recent project was a situp counter using a force-sensitive resistor.  I was a bit amazed, it works great.  I like my music loud, including while exercising, and sometimes I'd lose count.  No longer!  Ain't technology wunnerful!

[Reply #12 on:]

Sometimes it can even be regional within the USA.. I've seen (and used, I've noticed) both "Theater" and "Theatre" for example.. though generally I'd associate "Theatre" with stage rather than film, which I'd associate with "Theater".  Interestingly, I still always associated "Theater" with surgical observation suites.  I'd also normally associate "Theatre" with British spelling rather than US. I was born in southern California, but left in elementary school for the rural midwest- where I lived (the kid of a school teacher, English and Primary Education, so I got corrected a lot as kid) until I moved to Boston area a bit over twenty years ago.  I frequently end up with odd mixes of expressions.

What would you call the following:  A small-sized loaf of bread, cut, with various meats, cheeses and/or veggies inside? Is that a Sub?  A Hero?  A Po'Boy?  A Cubano?  A Torpedo?  You'll get different answers based upon Age, Ethnicity, and Location for the same sandwich, even within a local area.

I've always found linguistics fascinating... even within regions, ethnic and even city level linguistics can be wildly different and just plain crazy.  For example... Boston is considered "New England"- so you guys across the pond explain the pronounciation of the name of the city "Worcester".  Post a phonetic response as to how you would pronounce that.  No fair Googling.  Or for that matter, "Leicester".  Then, right down the street in Oxford (try that one for fun) we have Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg?  I'm not kidding : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chaubunagungamaug

Not only is the name AWESOME ( we just call it Webster Lake if we aren't looking to induce some type of Temporal Lobe Seizure ) on it's own, the translation (from Native American Algonquin) is even better:  "You fish on your side of the lake, I fish on my side of the lake, and Nobody fishes in the middle."  Legend has it that more than one person died over this particular little pond's relatively mundane stock of bass, pike and the occasional trout.  Just over two years ago I made a special trip to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, and sat there jigging with a worm in my kayak until I got a bluegill.. smack dab in the middle.  Just to make a point.

Somewhere around here I have photos of The Grudge House.  Up the road, one brother was successful in business and built a beautiful house overlooking the scenic road into town in those days (the 1700's), a gentle rolling country road over a covered bridge- we're talking Hallmark Card here, New England just SCREAMS Autumn and don't even think Christmas card - because the Snow-Covered Cottage image that just came to mind in your head really is here.. and he spent much of his money building that house, for the view.  Problem was, his was an ugly ego.  He then proceeded to flaunt it in front of family and berate his friends and family and all of that, generally was a jerk.  Anyway, as the story goes, his brother then suddenly did well in business, and became relatively wealthy in his own right.  His first investment:  the plot of land directly blocking his brother's mansion's view.  The jilted brother then built a poorly-appointed pauper's house directly obstructing his brother's view... and the brother had been such a jerk that the town council decided to not hear his complaints.  The ensuing feud went on for over a hundred years between the two brother's descendants and even certain members of the town council as recently as fifty years ago were petitioned regarding the property.. which is now considered a Historic Property.

As a photographer, that's what I like.  I do the other stuff to make a little money when I can.. but it's the weird stuff that I live for.  Even still, there's no way I could ever convey that story in a photo.. but if there were a way to do it, that's the kind of "art" I enjoy the most-- having an excuse to really just shake my head at human nature.. whether I can capture on film or not.  Find a way to convey that kind of story in a single image, and you'll live forever.  The Mona Lisa aggravates me the most because I want to know what's on her mind at that moment.  The look conveys there's a deep story, but we'll never know it.  She knows the punchline to a joke we'll never hear.

For quite some time, I lived on "Salem End Road", which was "back in the day" simply called "Salem's End".  What's that?  Salem's End is where the some of accused witches of the Salem Witch Trials fled to and maintained a hidden community in fear of being "tried" and executed.  It's where the castoffs of Salem's troubles met their End... creepy, huh?

Hmm.  Enough ramble out of me for the moment...lol.. off topic much?

[Reply #13 on:]

I happened to have lived on Long Island NY for some time and found many Native American names of locations. I thought that's typical in New England, although I don't know the exact extent of this historical/geographic definition of New England.

[Reply #14 on:]

The only RP (Received Pronunciation) I hear on a regular basis is that animated green gecko in the auto insurance TV adverts.

While this is one sort of English accent ( from the east of London ) it is by no means RP, in fact this is a rather common, working class accent. RP attempts to be classless but ends up sounding posh. Try this:-



When he talks of public school he means what you would know as private school. Public and private schools are the same thing in the U.K. the opposite of a public school is a State School.