FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jesse Fisher]

Peter - no, it's not a put down. I have plenty of Brit friends, some of who like to get on a high horse about Americans messing with their language. Just to get them wound up (a very British-style thing to do) I like to accuse them of really speaking bastardized French, or point out the fact that Humphrey Davy, the discoverer of aluminum/aluminium actually spelt it without the last "i" in his original description of the element. The real point is to remind people that unless you want a dead language (such as Latin), it must be flexible and adapt as cultural practices change.

[Niels Brouwer]

After reading the opening post, my very first thought was that I have done a bit of interesting research too, to see if I could find out if only 1 spelling might be correct, and as it turns out, 'high', 'low' and 'colour' are the only correct spelling, as opposed to then incorrect 'hi', 'lo' and 'color'. There we are, case solved. Who cares about those Americans insisting on their confusing revised spelling? Why 'defense', but 'fence' and 'fencing'? Why 'catalog' and 'dialog', yet still 'tongue', 'pedagogue' and 'plague'? Why add the double l in 'fulfill', but then also use 'until' with just the single l? Such nonsense!

Joking aside, it's simply a matter of taste which spelling to use, nothing more. I personally prefer to go with British English spelling as much as possible, because of the haphazardness of the American spelling reforms. I feel the etymology of the many worldwide linguistic influences often comes across a whole lot clearer in the British version, e.g. 'centre' versus 'mother' signifying French versus Germanic etymologies.

So I'll go with a nice aesthetic smokey baryte, thank you very much.

[Jesse Fisher]

Actually, the American spelling reforms were not haphazard at all, but the doing of one Noah Webster, a fellow who took it upon himself to publish the first dictionary of "American English" in 1809. He attempted to simplify some (but not all) spellings to conform with how the words were pronounced. In the end, however, I'm not sure that it really matters as long as one's intended audience understands what is meant.

[Niels Brouwer]

I know it was Noah Webster who popularised* the simplified spelling of certain words, and of course I can see the benefits of a more uniform spelling system bases on the pronunciation. But what it has resulted in is a system that still doesn't have the benefit of uniform phonetic spelling, far from it. It implies there is a certain systematic approach, but instead you still have to learn the 'correct' spelling word by word (see examples above). Other proposed spellings didn't make it, such as 'scool', 'chimny' and 'senery'. That's what I meant by saying it's rather arbitrary.

* In fact, he didn't originate most of the spellings, he merely selected existing ones that omitted "superfluous and silent letters" such as the u in colour, etc. The fact is that up till then, English spelling wasn't consistent: even within Shakespeare's plays, you can find accused, accusde, accust and accus'd. Webster simply selected certain spellings based on simplicity, whereas Samuel Johnson (who was just as influential on British spelling as Webster was on the American one) chose to prioritise etymology, making the history of the words visible in their spelling.

Anyway, whatever the differences may be, I totally agree with that last statement.

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi to everybody!
It's always the same question: program or programme? Theatre or theater? Gemmology or gemology? Ok I apologise (or apologize) with our American friends, but I really like much more to hear and write in British English than in the American one. And then... what kind or American? The "yankee" American or the "southern "Uhmurkin"? (see the small book "How To Speak Southern", I was presented it by an American friend of mine from Memphis TN). Las but not least: in Italy many English language course kits are on the market with the denomination "English AND American Language course", thus considering British and American English as two separate languages!
Nevertheless I think we always use a sort of "international" English we understand to one another all over the world by! And this "international" English takes a bit from British, a bit from American, a bit from the "european" English (I mean the lEnglish language spoken in Scandinavia and in the Netherlands), a bit from Australian, a bit from the so-called "Japan English"... The most important thing is we all understand everybody and everywhere in the world! Oh, I was forgeting the issue: I would say smoky, because of the colo(u)r. Smokey is a smell for salmon, not a colour, in my opinion. Maybe I am wrong, if so I ask our English-mother-tong(ue) friends to let me know.
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[moosix]

Smoky or Smokey

[alfredo]

Whichever you prefer. (I use smoky myself.)