Re: "y" and "r"

At 8:37 am -0400 1/4/01, Andreas Johansson wrote:
[snip]
>
>As you may've noticed, my spelling is also something of a mix. I write
>"colour" and "metre", but "realize" ...
But "realize" was once the British spelling also - and the universities of
Oxford & Cambridge still adhere to it (as I do also, because it's
etymologically correct).  The French -ise was popularized by the press
because it saved time checking which words should end in -ise, like
'surprise' and which in -ize.

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At 10:34 pm -0400 1/4/01, John Cowan wrote:
>Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
>> [T]here's some less logical
>> exceptions like "defense". Just looks cuter than "defence". To encourage the
>> irregularities, no English teacher I've ever had has ever complained about
>> the inconsistencies.
>
>Though I grew up with "defense", and am quite fond of it, it does undeniably
>conceal the etymological connection with "fence".
But it also undeniably reveals the etymological connexion [<-- Lat.
connexio] with Latin: defensum.

Indeed, there seems something perverse in the common Brit habit of writing
"defence" but "defensive" and "offence" but "offensive".  With these words,
Americans are both more consistent and 'etymologically correct'.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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