I never know how to spell the various derived forms of "cancel" that come up from time to time.
[rhaas pgsql]$ for a in canceled cancelled canceling cancelling cancelation cancellation; do echo -n $a:; git grep $a | wc -l; done canceled: 161 cancelled: 10 canceling: 141 cancelling: 4 cancelation: 0 cancellation: 51 So, apparently, we have a strong preference for spelling cancellation with two "l"s, but we have a strong preference for spelling "canceling" and "canceled" with only one "l". Here are the number of Google hits for each of these spellings: canceled: About 1,520,000,000 results cancelled: About 144,000,000 results canceling: About 12,200,000 results cancelling: About 20,900,000 results cancelation: About 1,550,000 results (did you mean cancellation?) cancellation: About 109,000,000 results So Google thinks that our practice of using one "l" in canceled and two in "cancellation" is typical, but our use of a single "l" for "canceling" is a minority position (though it's close). http://grammarist.com/spelling/cancel/ thinks that cancellation should have two "l"s and that the others have two "l"s outside the United States but that the United States is switching from two "L"s to one, with a single "L" now predominating. I have to admit that before I got involved with PostgreSQL, I thought that all of these had two "L"s, which maybe shows that I am old-fashioned, or just old. I personally find this whole thing quite annoying as it takes up brain space that seems like it might be better used for other things, but unless we're willing to standardize on the double-"L" spelling for everything, I guess I'll just have to keep checking our practice for that particular word every time I use any of them. I will be heading up to Ottawa in a few hours, assuming my plane flight does not get cancellllled. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
