1 EAGLETON NOTES: One L or Two?

.

.

Monday 31 October 2011

One L or Two?

This week I shall be travelling.  Or will I be traveling?
travel |ˈtravəl|
verb ( -eled , -eling ; also chiefly Brit. -elled, -elling)
1 [ intrans. ] make a journey, typically of some length or abroad : the vessel had been traveling from Libya to Ireland | we traveled thousands of miles.
People who use British English have a small problem with Blogger because it uses US English.  Now I am the last person to say that one is correct and one is not but it is quite irritating when every time I spell a word with 'll' or 'ise' (as in realise) I'm told that I'm wrong.  'Cos I'm not!  I used to be a very good speller.  Now I'm constantly making errors (much to CJ's chagrin when we are doing crosswords) and am frequently racked (or wracked) with doubt which is not helped (and may even be caused in part) by spillchuckers.  

Of course there are words which are a particular bête noire.  Mine was 'across' which  for the first 60+ years of my life I always spelled 'accross'.

One I only recently discovered or realised was inquiry (US) instead of enquiry (UK).  Odd that it had taken me so long to come across that one.

PS.  I managed everything in town in record time so am doing this over a cup of coffee before I mend the shed roof and make lunch.  Oh how I love days when I get lots done. 

8 comments:

  1. Synchronicity! I was experiencing just the same frustration with Blogger!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The trick is not to use the spell checking in blogger but instead just use the the one in your web browser. Usually you can configure the language the browser spell checker uses, so you can have British English if you prefer it to US English (and honestly why wouldn't you).

    ReplyDelete
  3. My British english spell checker doesn't work no matter what I do. Perhaps it needs an update, but I'd be just as happy to disable it altogether (and no I can't do that either). I'm quite a good speller too, but always have to think twice about "niece" or is it "neice"? "Niece" I think... hm...

    ReplyDelete
  4. You think you have a problem. On the laptop I use for editing the letter 'C' is missing.
    A good job I'm not thinking of a canal holiday or next to the Caledonian Canal.
    My spillhecker heks in English...the beauty of Live Writer. It even knows to put a 'U' in olour.
    I know a few words but have always had trouble spelling dyspepsia I've got.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I primarily learned British English in school/university and try to keep to that. But I probably end up using a mix because of getting fairly equal shares of British and American through media and reading.

    I do most of my blog posts in Windows Live Writer. WLW does not care whether I write travelling or traveling; apparently it considers one as good as the other. But it protests to the u in colour. I on the other hand insist on it. That's probably my most frequent disagreement with the spellchecker!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mark, like Jenny I have been unable to find a way of disabling the spillchucker in Blogger and although the language for Firefox is set as British English it will not over-ride Blogger. I've not tried the other browsers. As an Apple user I do not have IE8 but I have Chrome, RockMelt, Opera and Safari all of which I use for separate purposes. Mind you despite it being Apple Safari has always been a pain in that it won't close without being forced.

    I might try one of the other browsers if I have some time over the next day or two.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Predictive text and spillchuckers, why do they always argue with me? I use WLW because it is less argumentative although we still have our moments.

    I was informed today that all our advisers at work have now become advisors - and was told to "let it go" when I wanted to discuss the change! Does it matter? I'm still not sure!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Erm... I never use a spell checker, no matter whether I write in German (not on my blog anyway) or English. Does that make me haughty, believing I am quite able to get my words out reasonably alright without that help?
    Oh, and Getting Things Done days are my specialty :-)

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is activated 14 days after the post to minimise unwanted comments and, hopefully, make sure that I see and reply to wanted comments.