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

[Denis M. Wilson]

Going back to shortened words, New Hart's Rules (OUP), states that an
abbreviation (trailing letters removed) is followed by a period, eg
Prof. whereas a contraction (other letters removed) is not, eg Mrs

Maybe UK English only...

Denis

On Tue, 21 Nov 2017 13:55:05 +1100 (AEDT)
Damian McGuckin <address@hidden> wrote:

> 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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