On 2026-11-09 G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Hi Morten, > > At 2026-11-09T15:43:53+0100, Morten Bo Johansen wrote: >> On 2026-11-09 G. Branden Robinson wrote: >> >> > Good catch! Expect this fix in my next push. >> >> Here's some more. Recurring corrections: >> >> columnation -> columniation >> esthetic -> aesthetic > > These are deliberate spellings. > > columnation: > https://www.oed.com/dictionary/columnation_n > https://wehd.com/17/Columnation.html > https://www.dictai.org/w/columnate
All right. > "aesthetic" is a spelling of æsthetic without the ligature. > > However, in groff's documentation we do not use similar "relaxations" of > the ligated "ae" vowel pair, nor, similarly, "oe". That is, we do not > (or would not, had these words anny occasion to arise) say > "encyclopaedia", "haemophilia", or "foetus". > > I consider those forms to be Commonwealth English affectations. They > should be discarded with powdered wigs, fox hunts, and the monarchy. ;-) > > The spelling "esthetic" is standard (if less common). Accepted. I have a shell function that looks up words in Merriam-Webster and writes to my tty, but since "esthetic" redirected to "aesthetic", I suppose that's why the function just showed an empty output. > https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/esthetic > https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/esthetic > > Further, whereas one could argue that the unligated "ae" bigram > indicates to the reader that the vowel sound is a "long e", as in "feed" > or "meat", and one can point to "encyclop(a)edia" and "h(a)emophilia" in > support, "(a)esthetic" breaks that pattern. One says "ezz-thetic", not > "eeze-thetic". Alternatively, to don a fez is a fine esthetic choice, > but "eeze-thetics" are sleazy. ;-) > > But for all I know they say "eeze-thetics" at Eton and Balliol College. Really? ;-) I would never have thought that. Some English gents have to enter the fray here - even if you wear wigs ;) >> @c We don't know the width of what at-g-at interpolates, so indentation >> -@c might be hinky. Format for the common case of a null prefix. >> +@c might be jittery. Format for the common case of a null prefix. > > That's not a typo. :) Since this is a comment, I feel that > colloquialisms are more acceptable there than elsewhere.[1] Also, > "jittery" is not quite the denotation I want here. The issue is not a > quantization problem, as implied by "jitter" is the audiovisual domain > (en_GB: "judder", a perfectly horrid word). The hazard of substituting > `@g@` with something else in our Texinfo manual is one of inaccuracy, > not imprecision. Okay. Merriam has: Synonyms of hinky 1 slang : nervous, jittery 2 slang : suspicious >> @@ -12933,7 +12933,7 @@ >> The default scaling unit is >> @samp{v}. >> @var{space} >> -must be nonnegative. >> +must be non-negative. >> Omitting >> @var{space} >> implies > > Our use of a hyphen in this word is inconsistent. But your change would > align that text with the majority. Here are the minority cases. Generally, I think I would always hyphenate "non-" words. "non-negative" to me is very slightly more readable that "nonnegative" (think of a reader whose eyes are tired). > BIGGS: This is hinky. This guy is a college graduate. He's not going > to go through all of this security and look for one of his own > people who may not exist. It's hinky. > > GERARD: What does that mean, Biggs--"hinky"? > > BIGGS: Strange. > > HENRY: Weird. > > GERARD: Just say "strange" or "weird". "Hinky"--it has no meaning. > > BIGGS: We say "hinky". > > GERARD: I don't want you people using words that have no meaning. I'm > taking the stairs and walking. ;-) Regards, Morten
