Memory Alpha talk:List of common misspellings

American/British English

I'm not sure if we should add text to this article, it might interfere with the "Special:Maintenance" functions (just as we shouldn't add extra text to redirects) -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 04:43, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to wikis so I'm not sure what it would mess up, but I just think having a list that calls other spellings inaccurate without an explanation is the kind of thing that gives the USA a bad reputation. If it was alternative spellings or something like that I could understand, but grouping authorisation with Rodenberry requires some kind of note. Ben Sisqo 04:46, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Please put any notes in Memory Alpha:List of useful redirects -- that is where actual links to any non-American English spellings will be. I don't think it is rude at all to use the List of common misspellings for its purpose -- to list the correct American English terms we would like to see the others replaced with on the site. The Special page i linked above has a subfunction that uses this list as a library file to search for the terms -- the list itself is a data page, not a presentation piece. I'm just following a policy which was stated by the site's founder. I'm a little puzzled why it would be offensive that we are writing in the same language from different sides of an ocean. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 04:53, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Should we add other words that American arbitrarily decided to change to spelling of, ie honour, metre, favour, centre ect. ? Jaz 03:47, 28 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Yes.

BTW, the language i've spoken and written my whole life, American English, was changed from the European version over 200 years ago, around the time of the American Revolution. How is this "arbitrary"? Who cares?) -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

I have no objection against using American spelling on this Wiki. However, I think it is rude and arrogant to say that "honour", "metre", "organisation", "defence", "archaelogy", or "sulphur" are "misspellings" when that is actually the standard spelling used not only in the United Kingdom, but also in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and several other Commonwealth countries. In fact, from the point of view of English speakers throughout the Commonwealth, the Americans are actually the ones who are "misspelling" those words when they write "honor", "meter", "organization","defense","archeology", or "sulfur". The best thing to do is to recognize (recognise) that either orthographic standard (British or American) is equally valid, as the Wikipedia does. 200.177.28.149 13:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the anon. Star Trek was all about people and races getting along, so why can't we just say that British/American English spellings are both accepted? -- TrekFan ^Talk 09:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Omelet/Omelette

Well, I don't know about the question of "proper" spellings -- personally, I think most Americanizations such as honor and maneuver make things easier on people like me who speak it as a second language, although I know that wasn't the issue in question -- but is omelette the American spelling? I honestly don't know, but most American changes removed letters, so this seems backwards. Makon 02:08, 2 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Omelet(te) is one of those gray/grey (see what I mean?) areas that no one is quite sure about. Despite the logical nature of most changes, I, as an American who deals with international matters on a daily basis, wish Noah Webster would have kept his nose out of things. :-P Technically, I think omelet is the American spelling, but so is "archeology," and I've never seen that in print. Weyoun 02:24, 2 Nov 2005 (UTC)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "omelette" is the standard British spelling whereas "omelet" is the North American variant. 200.177.28.149 13:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Like "dialogue/dialog" below and "grey/gray" above, Merriam Webster cites both as equally valid AmEng spellings ("omelette or omelet"), and as you can see, the longer version gets top billing. Otherwise, the two available scripts ("Time Squared" and "Imaginary Friend") split the spelling 50/50, so there is no wrong answer. --Alan 02:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

USS Al-Batani/USS Al-Battani

Brought up at ten forward and moved to Talk:USS Al-Batani. Apparently, the correct anglified way to right it is with two Ts, and that's how his name appears on wikipedia. Jaz ^{talk | novels} 04:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Dialogue/Dialog

We've had a few discussions recently about this: User_talk:Leandar#Spelling; and User talk:Gvsualan# What's wrong with "Dialogue"?. As pointed out on the latter page by Alan:

• this isn't really that important
  
• but we should be consistent.
  
• and a bot can easily ensure that consistency
  

Note that this isn't actually a British/American spelling divide, but more two accepted spellings. So vote here for your preferred spelling! :-)

Dialogue - As a user of (mostly) British spelling, I like extra letters.;-) Seriously though, its what I've always seen and written. – Cleanse 01:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Dialogue - My dictionary told me this spelling and as far as I remember I've always written it this way here on MA. – Tom 02:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

We don't need to vote on this. Really. Like I said on my talk page, 1) "dialogue", no matter how much my spell checker hates it, gets top billing in my hard-bound dictionary, and I quote "dialogue also dialog", and more importantly, 2) on-screen credits use the spelling "dialogue". --Alan 02:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

That's why I opened this discussion...to get opinions. Renegade54 on the first page I linked preferred "dialog", so I thought I'd put this discussion in the most logical central location. Can you blame me for trying to spice up a potentially boring discussion? I wasn't seriously suggesting a vote was needed (note the smilies and the !), just that we should discuss it on this talk page for inclusion on this list. No hard feelings taken or intended though. – Cleanse 02:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's how I would deal with this issue. Here's what they've done on Wikipedia (an yes I know, as I've said many times, that this is not Wikipedia, but we can always learn from them...): If the initial author of the article wrote it in Commonwealth English, we use Commonwealth English on that article, but if American English is the initial usage, then we use American English. Nat.tang 03:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a case of neither. --Alan 03:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

See User talk:Leandar#Spelling for the full text of my opinion. :) I don't really care one way or the other, as long as we're consistent throughout. As Alan says, in most dictionaries "dialogue" seems to have at least a slight edge over "dialog" (if not more than slight). My only statement about a preference towards "dialog" was that, when two spellings are equally valid, I've been standardizing MA on the simpler of the two, using the rationale (valid or not) that in the future, as the language evolves, it will evolve towards simplicity rather than complexity. "Dialogue" is perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned, though (even though my spell checker doesn't seem to like it, either, but accepts "dialog" just fine). And Nat, as Alan also said, the rule of thumb you invoked has no basis in this case. We only use the British spellings here if they occur in a direct quote or a proper name (i.e. "The Blah Theatre"). -- Renegade54 04:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I added this to the list, but this was reverted by OC for there being "no consensus". Yet, the same user cited this talk page for using "ue" here: [1]

Silly me. We can just keep citing this talk page as opposed to adding the preferred spelling to the list.

It's been a few days and I see a broad consensus for "dialogue". Really, it's not a huge issue.– Cleanse 02:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you're edit was in support of "-ue"? Crap, I screwed up. Having a bad night I guess. Well, even so, I'd still say that on this talk page, there is not clear consensus (not all that many people said anything, so Renegade's comment stuck out), but the other talk page I cited, from Alan's talk page, seems to definitely support "-ue". I do too. I'll let someone else judge if this is consensus or not. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 04:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that makes a bit more sense. Sorry about the sarcasm then - I just don't like double standards. But as it was a mistake, I hope there's no hard feelings. I probably should have worded the comment more neutrally.

I'm cool to wait a few days and leave it up to an admin to decide when/if there is a consensus.– Cleanse 04:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Torpedoes/Torpedos

Throwing this one in here. My spellcheck (MS Word) preferes torpedoes. There also appears to be around 40 pages that have torpedos. "Torpedoes" redirects to "torpedo." Maybe have a bot do the corrections if this is accepted. ---- Willie ^LLAP 13:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)