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Subject:US and international spellings From:Sandra Charker <scharker -at- MASTERPACK -dot- COM -dot- AU> Date:Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:32:18 +1000
For some years, engineers at our company's US office have 'Americanized'
our Australian software product by running a conversion program for
selected spellings. The company has now decided to resolve the conversion
issue by changing the base product to US English, so the documentation
group is getting into the act.
I don't want to raise the much-discussed issue of US vs the
Rest-of-the-World again, but I do want to ask the US list members about 2
words: catalog(ue) and dialog(ue). Both have dropped the 'ue' in software
jargon, but for both Webster's (New World College edition, 1996) lists the
'ue' spelling first. which means both are acceptable but 'ue' is more
common. This is not true on TechWhirl, where a search of the archives turns
up 58 hits on 'catalog' to 7 on 'catalogue', with at least 3 of those 7
being from list members in the UK. The preference for 'dialog' over
'dialogue' is much stronger, but that's because most of the occurrences are
talking about software.
My feeling is that the short spelling for both words is becoming
predominant in general US usage. Can anyone point me to evidence against
this, or that the short spelling is likely to upset general business
software users.
This question has at least one foot over the border of off-topicality, so
off-line replies might be best.
Thanks in advance,
Sandra Charker
scharker -at- masterpack -dot- com -dot- au
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