en-GB-oxford LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

[Tex Texin]

Michael,

Thanks for this.
OK on Oxford spelling being an existing practice.

I looked and saw several references agreeing with you on practise as a verb.
However, other references allow it as a noun as well. See Bartleby.com
http://www.bartleby.com/61/90/P0499000.html
My own experience is that I have seen practise as a noun.

With respect to spell-check dictionaries, I will have to look around.

"Spell-check dictionaries are single compressed-wordlist files which
cannot be changed by the end user."

I worked on one product about 10-15 years ago, that used productive rules in
combination with a wordlist within its spell-dictionary. It was an inexpensive
product and was used on small systems (low memory and diskspace).
I don't recall if they had a rule for adding -ize to words like color. More
likely it had rules for words ending in -ize, to support -ization, -izer, etc.

It worked reasonably well. But probably most products work as you suggest.
However, configuration can be an install-time choice. Anyway, I'll poke
around, as time allows, to see what companies are doing now.

With respect to changes over time and "prove it", ok ;-). I'll have to go to
the library and compare revisions.
The OED website has a page on revisions, but it doesn't discuss preferences
such as -ise vs -ize.
http://www.oed.com/public/inside/revision.htm

Further responses are not required. I see your pov. I have to think about it
now.
tex


Michael Everson wrote:
> 
> Tex,
> 
> >I am a little surprised, since I thought tags were supposed to identify
> >existing practices,
> 
> Oxford spelling is an existing practice. Tagging English-language
> text for this spelling is not presently possible, because there is no
> tag.
> 
> >not be the first step in defining a practice (or practise)
> 
> "Practise" is a verb. American spelling advice/advise stands in the
> same noun/verb relation to British & Oxford practice/practise, though
> there is no pronuncuation difference in the practice/practise pair,
> as there is in the advice/advise pair.
> 
> >that spell-checkers can follow. Isn't that the argument by which es-americas
> >died (or is dieing)?
> 
> No. I rejected es-americas because it was not demonstrated that there
> is a single entity that can be subsumed under es-americas. My
> argument was that there was a great deal of variation, for instance
> in the second-person singular and plural pronouns, in "American
> Spanish" which did not, to me, suggest any kind of unity that could
> be subsumed under a single tag.
> 
> >Do we have examples that follow OED, other than the OED itself?
> 
> Oxford University Press publishes any number of English-language
> dictionaries which follow this orthographic practice. It is a
> long-standing editorial practice. An English-Cornish dictionary for
> which I was editor and which was not published by Oxford conformed to
> Oxford spelling. :-)
> 
> >There are many other rules differences between british, american, spellings
> >and probably if we look to canada, south africa, and australia a few more.
> 
> Perhaps, but one would like to see some evidence. It is certainly the
> case that "center, color, civilize" is "US English" in software and
> that "centre, colour, civilise" is "British English" in software and
> that one cannot get software which supports OED practice with either
> of those.
> 
> >I am not sure we need tags to distinguish these. Besides the spellings, there
> >are usages differences, so the terms need to change as well.
> 
> The tag is proposed to support orthographic practice, not other usage.
> 
> >I am not sure that producers of software nor users of software want
> >to select localization based on a preferred combination of spelling
> >rules alone.
> 
> I want to.
> 
> >I can see that users might want to select a spell checker on that
> >basis, but I question whether they need a tag for that. It could
> >just as well be the role of configuring the checker without
> >requiring a tag at all.
> 
> I can think of no spell-checker which can be so "configured".
> Spell-check dictionaries are single compressed-wordlist files which
> cannot be changed by the end user. Yes, we can add words to
> user-dictionaries, but regarding the -ise/-ize suffix which is very
> productive there is no option which the user can choose. And since
> the suffix is productive it is a real pain to require users to have
> to add their words to such a user dictionary
> 
> >Also, what happens if OED changes its preferrences over time and as the
> >language evolves?
> 
> Oxford spelling preference has been constant since *at least* 1933.
> It is a principled etymological spelling, with regard to the suffix
> derived from the Greek -izein suffix.
> 
> >I am sure some of their preferences must have changed over the 3 editions...
> 
> Prove it. :-)
> 
> >How does that affect the tag? Which rules preferences are important
> >to the tag, and which not?
> 
> The facts are as I have stated them.
> --
> Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf-languages mailing list
> Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

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Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex at XenCraft.com
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