No flashlight entry on wikipedia!

[PhotonBoy]

http://www.wikipedia.org

"Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started on January 15, 2001 and are currently working on 131129 articles in the English version. Visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article right now."

 

[Mr. Bombastic]

Got the 'proper' word though! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch

 

[PhotonBoy]

Do you feel pressure in the last while to drop certain words like hoarding, boot, lorry, torch etc.?

I know in Canada that the spread of tools like Microsoft Word and the mass media are tending to make Canadians use color and flavor instead of colour and flavour, etc. In the last 10 years or so, kids tend to say 'zee' instead of 'zed'.

In general, though, I think that everyone benefits when more of us speak the same lingo, whether or not the preferred terms are what you're used to or not.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

Does that mean I need to replace "flashlight" with "torch" on at least 400 pages of a website? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[PhotonBoy]

Flashlight wins by a mile!

 

[Mr. Bombastic]

[ QUOTE ]
PhotonBoy said:
Do you feel pressure in the last while to drop certain words like hoarding, boot, lorry, torch etc.?

[/ QUOTE ]

No pressure at all! We alternate between lorry/truck, boot/trunk et al. Though we never use the international spellings like 'gray' and 'color'. Flashlight isn't a word most people use though, torch wins out there. I think that might partly be because the equivalent of 'torch' is used in European languages too, and 'flashlight' doesn't translate as well. Also 'torch' is shorter to say and is a word people are familiar with (because most people aren't torchaholics /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif)

[ QUOTE ]
I know in Canada that the spread of tools like Microsoft Word and the mass media are tending to make Canadians use color and flavor instead of colour and flavour, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree somewhat. Alot f ppl r lrnin2typ realy bdly due2msn & txt msgs. But, overall Microsoft Word seems more than happy to use the English dictionary rather than the International/American-English dictionary. Spellings like 'color' don't seem to be infiltrating our language much really at all. Though, vocabulary-wise, new words enter the dictionary all the time.

I get a bit annoyed that Word doesn't seem to recognise words like 'alot' 'goodbye' and 'aswell'. That confuses me a bit.

Maybe it's our distance?! I think Australians still use the traditional dictionary too.

 

[PhotonBoy]

SMS is just starting to hit here, since until this year, you couldn't send messages between the major carriers. That will change soon, so I'll get ready for that effect.

I've always used 'a lot' and 'as well'; I've seen them without the spaces, but have considered them to be mis-spellings.

I'm 56 now and have seen a lot of changes in Canada. We used to sing 'God Save the Queen' in school, had the mail delivered by 'Royal Mail' and flew the 'Union Jack' as the flag. All that's gone now, but so has much of the influence of the 'British Commonwealth'.