Editorial note: Override vs Overwrite

Hi all (especially the English native speakers),

In the spec we have 3 occurences of 'overwrite/ing' and one of 'override'.

I've brought up this question before, and was told 'overwrite' was the term to use. But I keep seeing 'override/ing' used a lot more
for this specific meaning. I've also noticed 'override/ing' being used in some W3C recommendations as well. So, I'm still not sure
if 'overwrite' is the proper term.

Here are a few occurences of 'override/ing':
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#h-8.2.4
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/cascade.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/#user-override

Granted, there are also occurences of "overwrite/ing" in W3C specifications as well, but most of them seem to have a different
meaning.

If I look at the Webster the definition 3a of override (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/override) seems (to me) to be closer to our
meaning (somethink like "take precedence over") than any of the definitions for overwrite (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/overwrite).

...And we have Richard himself using 'override':
http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-bidi.html#ri20030218.135307338

...and he uses it even in his proposed changes to the introduction section:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2006JanMar/0252

He can't possibly be wrong, can he?

So, it seems right to overwrite overwrite with override, and be over. Right?

But what do I know...
-yves

Received on Friday, 31 March 2006 18:26:28 UTC