[Sussex] Noob

[Geoffrey Teale]

On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 11:56 +0000, pablo at WILDFIREPROJECTS.com wrote: 
> it does if enough people use it
> 
> Paul Morris

Thats a very common attitude - popular use defines language, and with a
strong case.

However, there is a deeper philosophical question of correctness that it
misses.

If we take Latin, for example.   The word "placet" could be spelt in a
number of different ways.  I believe "plaquet" and "plaket" are common
mistakes.  Given that there are a relatively small number of people
writing and reading latin today, if a majority of them decided to change
the spelling to "plaquet" would that make it right?  The fact that all
of the native latin speakers who ever lived (who far outnumber those
currently living) would spell it "placet" would have been ignored.  

Similarly, there are now more people in the world who use Americanised
spellings than "British English" spellings.  Does that mean that
whenever I spell "centre" I am doing so incorrectly?

-- 
Geoffrey Teale <gteale at cmedltd.com>
Cmed Technology