OT - Variant spellings

[QuikSand]

So, I'm waiting in a hallway recently, and am glancing at some big display made by the Maryland Archeology Society - it's a long series of brochures, photographs, and other propaganda largely designed to promote how important archeology is. Fine, whatever.

By way of background, I get a certain "grating" feeling when I see words misspelled. (Yes, I realize that I commit a lot of typos on this forum - I hope the difference is apparent) I guess it's something that you either have instilled within you or you don't... spelling and grammar always just came easily to me ever since I learned them in school - I always was able to tell when something was wrong, because it just "sounded wrong."

Aaaaaaaanyway... so here we are with the archeologists. I look at their material, and inevery single case, I see the word spelled just like that: archeology.


Thing is - this is by all accounts the alternative spelling of the word. Acceptable, but certainly not the first choice. The preferred spelling is, of course, archaeology.

Hey, I guess it's up to this little club to decide how they want to spell the key word in their own title... but it just strikes me as unusual that they would deliberately (and this has to be deliberate) choose an unusual spelling.


So, is there a point to all this? Hmmm.

Probably not.

But why would they do that?

[Easy Mac]

Is isn't it correct? Everyone says it, but does it not seem weird to say is not it outloud?

[QuikSand]

Is isn't it correct? Everyone says it, but does it not seem weird to say is not it outloud?

I spend far more than my fair share of time thinking about this sort of thing... and I confess this is the first that has ever occured to me. I wonder if there are any other contractions where we put words out of order.

It seems tough to say that "isn't it" is incorrect usage. Perhaps we give it a pass on the grounds that the phrase has become itself an idiom, not to be parsed out literally.

[Easy Mac]

Well, just about anything that ends in "sn't" qualifies... doesn't it? :)

[QuikSand]

By the way - here's a link to the aforementioned group.

hxxp://www.marylandarcheology.org/home.htm

Uh... it's work safe and all.

[Huckleberry]

It seems tough to say that "isn't it" is incorrect usage. Perhaps we give it a pass on the grounds that the phrase has become itself an idiom, not to be parsed out literally.

Or are people really saying "is itn't" really fast? :eek:

[Maple Leafs]

I'm annoyed by alternative spellings in general.

I hate going to the trouble of looking up a word, only to see, essentially, "Hey, spell it however you want! Close enough is close enough."

I could probably make some generalization here about how this reflects on a society that seems increasingly uncomfortable with the concepts of right and wrong even for questions outside the bounds of morals and ethics. But I won't.

[JonInMiddleGA]

... but it just strikes me as unusual that they would deliberately (and this has to be deliberate) choose an unusual spelling.

Me thinks you're giving far the average person-who-digs-up-old- stuff-and-studies-it too much credit.

(FTR, that's not a "dig" on them as a group, you could pretty easily insert any other profession into my statement just as well).

[Huckleberry]

hxxp://www.ultralingua.net/grammars/english/32.htm

Apparently the negative question dilemma has already been addressed.

[Kodos]

What I hate is companies that intentionally misspell their product names, especially if those products are aimed at children. Hey idiots - Our kids have enough trouble spelling already! Don't go teaching them the wrong spellings on purpose! :mad:

[QuikSand]

Me thinks you're giving far the average person-who-digs-up-old- stuff-and-studies-it too much credit.

Am I? I'm not trying to suggest that they ought to be expert spellers... or even good spellers.

I'm just suggesting that if you are an archaeologist, and your group is all about archaeology, and named with the word archeology... wouldn't it eventually become obvious that you spell the word differently than your sister organization from Pennsyltucky and your national organization, and practically anyone else? Even if not everyone is like me (good for them) at least a decent share of the members have to notice this once, right?