Questions tagged [orthography]
This tag is for questions concerning the written representation of the English language, especially spelling and word breaks (including hyphenation).
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Why does 'we' have one 'e' while 'see' has two?
I am wondering why the words me and we have one 'e', even though the word see has two.
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Is the spelling 'judgment' a feature of American English? (As opposed to the other -dg[e]ment words?)
According to the dictionary, the "e" is optional when a word ends in "-dg(e)ment".
Dictionary examples:
oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com:
"acknowledgement" (also "...
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Is there a term for antonyms that are a small edit distance from each other?
I'm looking for examples of dramatic typos - where a minor edit can dramatically change the meaning of a phrase, and would like to know if there's a name for this phenomenon.
Paronyms are a similar ...
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Why is Reuben spelled with an "eu"?
Reuben is most commonly spelled as such in English and in English only. The digraph "eu" as far as I know never represents /uː/ in English nor in any other language, and surely not in any ...
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What is a more contemporary expelling of this excerpt from Turner? [closed]
The following quote is by Turner (1509 – 1568), and to me, the spelling is incomprehensible. If the passage is re-written using spelling rules closer to those rules used in the present day, then how ...
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If the English word "obliterate" really comes from Latin "oblitteratus" (erased, forgotten), why is there no double t in the English word? [closed]
The English word "obliterate" allegedly comes from Latin "oblitteratus" (erased, forgotten), itself from "ob-" (against) and "littera" (letter of the alphabet). ...
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Do you capitalize words after mentioning a book with a punctuation mark in it?
If someone uses the name of a book/object with punctuation in it, does one need to capitalize the word after?
Do I write:
In the book Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the main character...
Or
In the ...
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What is the word for the fusing of, for example, "-ed" and the final consonant "d" to give the ending (with voice removed) of "bent"?
Instead of giving the past tense form bended, the verb bend fuses together bend and -ed and removes voice, producing bent.
Lent and sent are produced in similar fashion.
What's the word for the fusion ...
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Was the o in "go" and oe in "toe" pronounced differently in early 19th century Gloucestershire English?
No modern dialect makes the <o> and <oe> distinction, but when reading Medhurst's Hokkien dictionary of 1832 i came across (page 34)
Furthermore, <o> seems to be a monophthong and &...
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Historical pronunciations
Is there a unified resource that gives the pronunciation of an English word according to how those most responsible for establishing its current spelling would have pronounced it?
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Is the word Physics singular? [closed]
Is the word Physics singular or plural? Should we write "Physics considers" or "Physics consider"?
user486324
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Why did the /ʌ/ or /ʊ/ vowel in the Latin fundāre become the /aʊ/ of foundation?
Foundation has its origins in the Latin:
OED
fundātiōn-em. < Latin fundātiōn-em, noun of action < fundāre
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Why did English take the "mix pronunciations and spellings" route instead of one rule route like French, or separate languages/dialects like Spanish? [closed]
Like the multiple pronunciations of "ough" or different spellings for the same sounds in English I've read come from mixing different dialects into one language. Whereas with French, they ...
user485570
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Etymology of the "Mc" on last names [duplicate]
I what taught that my last name which starts the Mc that the c should be above the symbol =, does anyone know what this means?
I can not really type it out on a key board but if you write it out with ...
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Should there be a space after an em dash if the dash is used to cut off the end of a sentence and a new sentence begins afterwards?
Usually an em dash is used without any spaces on either side, especially when the punctuation is in the middle of a sentence. However, how should it be used if it were used at the end, such as when it'...
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How to remember "–ance" vs. "–ence" spellings? [duplicate]
The linked 'duplicate' question asked for a 'rule', which usually means something unambiguous that is built into the grammar, and the answer was no. I am specifically asking if anyone can suggest a ...
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Why is the English word "pepper" spelt with a double 'p' when it comes from Latin "piper" (with no double 'p')? [closed]
The English word "pepper" comes from Latin word "piper". But why is there a double 'p' in the English word, when there is no double 'p' in the Latin word? Where does the English ...
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When is it okay to contract two nouns to form one? [duplicate]
English doesn't really allow word contractions the way German and Dutch allow or even require. What rules, if any, are there when two nouns should contract to one or not?
e.g. Why toolchain and ...
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Why is it spelled "for completeness' sake" and not "for completeness's sake"? [duplicate]
Why is it spelled "for completeness' sake" and not "for completeness's sake"
Isn't the apostrophe at the end only for plural?
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Where is "comparision" as spelling of "comparison" coming from?
From time to time I encounter comparision as common "alternative" spelling for comparison (mostly while browsing questions on Stack Overflow). I don't recall encountering any other (mis)...
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Are all variants of English spelling basically British or American? [closed]
I am working on an English-language online resource. It seems an obvious good idea to allow users to choose a version in British English or American English spelling. However, I've noticed that spell-...
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Is [Pre-Populates, Pre Populates, Prepopulates] a word?
[Pre-Populates, Pre Populates, Prepopulates]
Simple at first but after some research I can't actually find much on this.
Background/Context: I need to write some sort of tech specification and the ...
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Ships' stores or ship's stores? [duplicate]
How do I write this correctly?
When I use Google, 'ship's stores' seem to be used the most. But an official government website from Canada writes it as 'ships' stores'. Which is correct?
Thank you!
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How to write s/he at the beginning of a sentence? [closed]
In a document I want to use the gender form of personal pronouns. But if I use "s/he" at the beginning of a sentence, are both "s" and "h" to be written in capitals? It ...
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Handling alternate spellings of a personal name [closed]
Dealing with a text that mentions several times the architectural historian Siegfried Giedion. A number of Giedion's books feature his first name as "Sigfried" and others as "Siegfried.&...
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Why was the Sanskrit word "laksha" anglicized to "lakh"?
This is something that I have been wondering about for a while, and I thought that I could ask about it here. I am unsure about whether this is strictly "on-topic" because it may be only ...
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Is there a word for letters that are shaped the same when capitalized or not?
The letters
c/C, o/O, s/S, v/V, w/W, x/X, z/Z
Are roughly congruently shaped from uppercase to lowercase. Depending on the font, there can be some serif differences but generally they have much less ...
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What is the ‘‑ht vs ‑th’ grammar or spelling rule? [duplicate]
Some words end with ‑th while others end with ‑ht. For example:
Height, weight, thought, drought, sleight, sight all end with ‑ht.
Length, width, breadth, depth, wealth, girth, dearth all end with ‑...
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What are all the orthographic rules for combining morphemes?
In my computational linguistics class, we talked about the complications with parsing English morphemes, and there was a list of orthographic rules for combining morphemes in the slides.
consonant ...
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What does this sentence in Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch” mean?
Charlie George is one of the few seventies icons who has so far managed to avoid being deconstructed, possibly because he appears at first glance to be one of the identikit George Best/Rodney Marsh/...
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"Lite" used instead of "light" in pinball
In pinball instructions, I always come across the spelling "lite" being used instead of "light", e.g. "drop all targets to lite special". The practice persists to this ...
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When is the old english letter Æ/æ modernised to A, E and AE?
The old english letter Æ/æ in various words have been modernised to either A (Æthelstan to Athelstan); E (Ælf to Elf, Æthelræd to Ethelred) and sometimes both A and E in the same word (Ælfræd to ...
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The origin of awesomesauce and weak sauce
John's awesomesauce weekend in Vegas ended prematurely.
And he prayed with such authority that my prayers felt like weak sauce by comparison.
How did the words awesomesauce and weak sauce originate ...
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What is the most proper way to add -ing to acronyms? [duplicate]
Sometimes acronyms represent actions. For example, a Super Smash Bros. player may be said to be "DI-ing" (Directional influencing).
In these situations, what would be the best-established ...
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Is there an unambiguous grapheme for /aʊ/? [closed]
When reading a book I encountered the town/locality "Slough", which got me thinking about how it's one of many towns in Britain that are spelled confusingly (I'm looking at you Gloucester!). ...
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Why is flexible spelled with an "i"? [duplicate]
Why is "flexible" spelled with an "i"?
My first instinct is to think that this word is describing something that is "able" to "flex", in the same way that "...
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Why are "i.e." and "e.g." written in lower case with periods, while "NB" is typically written in CAPS with no periods?
According to my armchair research on common abbreviations of nota bene, it appears that NB is the most common now, with N.B. being more common in centuries past after taking over the "original&...
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How can the difference between the chemistry words of valence and valency be described as a spelling difference when it makes them sound so different?
How can the difference between the chemistry words of valence and valency be described as a spelling difference when it makes them sound so different?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_(chemistry)
...
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Were "Fell" and "Fel" both correct spellings?
I'm trying to describe evil magic and creatures to my players and to set the tone, I'm trying to use Middle and Old English words and phrases. After googling a while I couldn't find a definitive ...
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Is there a term for a word that is written in a way that it looks like a word from another language?
I can't find it now but I remember seeing an English word written by a graphic designer in a way that made it look like a Russian word. I don't recall if the meaning of the Russian word was the same (...
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Why are compound words not entirely consistent?
Some compound words are separated by a space (e.g. ice cream). Others are simply joined together (e.g. football, doorknob). Others still are hyphenated (e.g. long-term, off-topic).
Why is the handling ...
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Which English is spoken in continental Europe? British, American , or its own version
Many Europeans speak English. What version is this English? is it British, American or its own continental English? If it's continental English which does it most closely resemble, British or American,...
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Noun-adjective hyphenation when noun contains a numeral
The specific context here is Machine Learning technical writing, but I think this question fits here because I just haven't seen any discussion of this anywhere, and few examples in my field, so I'm ...
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Loanwords: adapt spelling or pronunciation?
Maybe "yacht" isn't the best example, but it was the "automatic choice" for me due to
this Monty Python sketch.
Well, in Germany it certainly it's pronounced and written "...
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Is there a pattern in the positions of long and short vowels in Old English?
Long and short vowels aren't distinguished in writing in Old English. Are there any patterns I can use to guess the length of a vowel?
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When mentioning several items each of which is “Aᵢ”, should I use “Aᵢ’s” with an apostrophe or “Aᵢs” without one?
Here is a sentence I’m about to write:
Given a family of sets { Aᵢ : 1 ≤ i ≤ n }, we may assume that the Aᵢ’s are disjoint.
I mean the sets in the family do not intersect with each other. I am ...
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Why does racism drop the 'e' but ageism retains it?
Other examples include elitism, ableism, and wokeism, although the latter neologism seems to have a lively minor variant: wokism. It is difficult for me to see any rational basis for including or ...
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Why is chess written with a lowercase c whereas the game of Go is written with an uppercase G?
Both chess and Go are board games. Why the inconsistency in their spelling?
Here are two example usages with chess and Go:
It is sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish ...
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Nous vs Noos in English [closed]
While searching online I found that nous is a Greek term that means intellect, intelligence, mind...etc. Also, in some sources, I found that noos is an alternative spelling of nous.
Is "nous"...
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How to spell the sound that a person makes when blowing through their mouth
What word should I use to indicate the sound that a person makes when blowing through their mouth (e.g they're blowing out a candle or blowing hot noodles before eating)?
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