Re: Litre, liter (was Re: OT Marx Brothers)
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, May 15, 2003, 23:52 |
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On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 06:56:31PM +1000, Tristan wrote:
> Sorry, you misunderstood me. They aren't perceived as American
> spellings---they're perceived as wrong, as much as <thier> is wrong for
> <their>. People aren't aware of the American spellings for these words,
> so they exist no more than <thier>.
I can understand that. I was aware of many British spelling
distinctions: "-ise", "-our", doubling final "l"s before suffixes,
keeping "ae" in Greek roots instead of shortening it to "e", etc.
And of course "tyre" just looks like a misspelling rather than a
new word. But the first time I ran across "gaol" - in a British novel
I read in college - I had absolutely no idea what it was.
Even after reading enough context to determine that it referred
to some sort of prison, it just never occurred to me that it could
be an alternate spelling of "jail". I mean, it so clearly must be
pronounced "gay-ole", or perhaps "gowl" (rhyming with "fowl"). I
just assumed it was some sort of foreign borrowing akin to "gulag".
-Mark
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