Linguistics mysteries

[cosmolinguist]

Yknow, Microsoft Word, I actually agree with you that ‹neighbourhoods› is misspelled -- based on the mistaken assumption that any English word ending ‹-or› must be an Americanism, therefore necessitating ‹-our› in the UK, leading to the nonsensical frenchification of this perfectly good Germanic word (cf. Nachbar)...

...but why do I get the wiggly red line under it?! I've double-checked and all the settings are UK English and no other words (like "recognise") are getting the wiggly red line!

Comments

[cmcmck]

When I review for US historical journals, it drives me nuts that they think I'll remember to use all those americanisations. Sorry guys, I wasn't brought up with them and will stick with what I know. Change them yourselves if you must.

[cosmolinguist]

I used to do ad hoc proofreading work when I was un(der)employed; I'm good at it and I quickly developed a pretty good understanding of UK vs. U.S. conventions. After a brief phase of trying to fit in (and falling for what linguist Lynne Murphy calls the American Verbal Inferiority Complex), I have reverted to USian conventions in my own writing, but of course I use UK ones at work, which is what led to the thought process documented in this entry. :)

[silveradept]

Language, and software intending to help is with it, are equally unable to provide consistent explanations, or often, any explanations at all. At least, I think that's the linguist's explanation?

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah that seems right!

I'm always saying that the best and worst thing about language is that there's no authority beyond how people use it. :)

[silveradept]

Much as that makes so many prescriptivists Big Mad about that inability to control language to their benefit.

It's a treat how much you have to know how to speak and write other languages to be fluent in English, and that it's not really ever explained to US schoolchildren that this is the reality they live in.