On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, Bernard Leak wrote: > Dear List, > I present a few nits I have picked out of the > hair of blfs-6.1-pre1 (the book):
LFS, not blfs. > The word is "programme". Yes, it really is, unless you > are writing American. It is a curiosity of the LFS book > that it's not instantly obvious whether it's written in > American English or not. The use of "alternative" > suggests that it isn't mid-American, though it could > still be from darkest New England. On the other hand, > you have "stabilized" rather than "stabilised". > > For the rest of us: > "Program" is merely an American (mis-)spelling, > adopted by people who failed to know better. > Grim determination to believe that there *must* > be a justification for what one finds oneself > doing can lead people into odd places. Washing- > machines have programmes; VCRs have programmes; > why is a computer different? Likewise with "disk" > and "disc", though "disk" has slightly better > claims as a once-unobjectionable spelling now > discarded. > As somebody who used to program for a living, the normal usage in Britain is 'program' for a piece of software, programmes for the BBC. You may not like it, but that's how it is. Similarly, disk is the common term nowadays for magnetic storage. And if push comes to shove, I assume Canadian usage will be the preferred model ;) Ken -- das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
