Arbitrary abbreviations in phobos considered ridiculous

[Regan Heath]

On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:21:00 -0000, Derek <ddparnell at bigpond.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:38:08 +1100, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:
>
>
>> British English may be the more "official" English, with American  
>> English as a mere variation ...
>
>
> In one sense, American English is often a sort of abbreviated version in  
> which seemingly superfluous letters are omitted. But in other cases, it  
> more accurately reflects pronunciation (colorize verses colourise).

In Britain (where I live) there are people to pronounce the 'u' in colour,  
and colourise.  The difference is subtle, and I've found many people  
simply cannot hear it.  It's the reason many people (and the brash  
American tourist stereotype springs to mind - but there are people the  
world over) have trouble learning and speaking a foreign language, they  
cannot hear where they're going wrong (or they don't care - which is a  
different issue).  I think my own ear is able to hear some, perhaps a good  
number of the subtleties, for example it was good enough that a local  
Colombian thought I was myself Colombian after having spoken a few short  
(uncomplicated, as my Spanish is basic at best) sentences with them.

>> Speaking of...do the British actually pronounce colour with a "u"  
>> sound? If
>> not, I'd argue "color" really is a better spelling ;) (Not as good as
>> "kulr", but whatever)
>
> I'm not sure about British pronunciation (I'm Australian) but 'color' is  
> said as "kull-ore' and 'colour' is said like 'kull-er' or even 'kull-ah'.

This is why Australians and New Zealanders (myself) should not be asked  
how to pronounce words, our vowels are all either 'wrong' or missing  
completely. :p

Back to the main topic, being from NZ, where British English is the  
standard, I prefer it to American.  But, I can easily adapt to whichever  
is used in a body of code.

Regan

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