- From: Alan Stearns <stearns@adobe.com>
- Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:29:54 -0700
- To: "www-style@w3.org" <www-style@w3.org>
On 3/15/12 3:56 PM, "Ms2ger" <ms2ger@gmail.com> wrote: > On 03/15/2012 11:46 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: >> On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Sylvain Galineau >> <sylvaing@microsoft.com> wrote: >>> Well, fwiw, I don't think it's clear English at all. I've never seen this >>> word >>> spelled this way, every spell-checker I have on hand flags it and I've never >>> heard anyone say it that way either. It can't be clear if it's going to look >>> like a distracting typo to everyone but the editor. And I suspect it will... >> >> Dictionaries vary. "axises" is recognized in at least a few, and a >> quick google search finds many people (speaking normal English) using >> the word as I do. > > The W3C Spell Checker [1] suggested by the W3C Manual of Style [2] > doesn't complain about it, that's good enough for me. (It did notice you > use both "Javascript" and "JavaScript", though.) The W3C Spell Checker uses Aspell, which apparently does not have 'axises' in their normal dictionary [1] but does in their 'huge' list of English words [2]. So far the only references I've been able to find that include this spelling are very inclusive word lists: 'huge' Aspell and Scrabble. And the Scrabble dictionary lists it only as a plural for the axis deer [3]. I expect the 'huge' Aspell list includes it for that reason as well. Do you have an example of a dictionary that allows 'axises' as a plural for 'axis'? Google search can show you a lot of interesting spellings. But the number of "axis axises" results are less than 2% of the number of "axis axes" results. If I were using search results to determine the correct spelling, I think I'd go with 'axes' on that basis. [1] http://suggest.aspell.net/index.php?word=axises&spelling=american&dict=norma l&sugmode=slow [2] http://suggest.aspell.net/index.php?word=axises&spelling=american&dict=huge& sugmode=slow [3] http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/en_US/search.cfm
Received on Friday, 16 March 2012 00:30:20 UTC