All,
On Mon, 9 Nov 2026, dvalin--- via discussion of the GNU roff typesetting
system and related software wrote:
Aussie here, amused by the expressed parochial preference for
Ahmayrikahn dialect over international English. Casting an aspersion
based only on internal derogatory imaginings is a helluva cheap shot, no
basis for an argument. The pronunciation of aesthetic (correct
international spelling) is "airsthetic" here, with the "air" shortened
to about half length.
Yes. Even Wikipedia (no ae) spells this word exclusively as 'Aesthetic'
without any reference to 'esthetic'. I makes a habit of using British and
American English in other cases like 'Haemophilia'. I have encountered the
word 'esthetique' when reading, writing and speaking French (which has
deteriorated since I lived in Switzerland long ago).
Some Aussies and Kiwis even emphasise the 'A' so you hear the 'A' if you
listen hard enough. While I am not a fan of AI, a quick check says that
the use of 'Aesthetic' is a more common spelling across the US although
the 'esthetic' variant is used within the US professional beauty, spa, and
licensed skincare fields which is a bit outside groff's remit. Some quick
emails to a few friends in California and Arizona shows they spell this
word as 'Aesthetic' - none had ever seen that 'esthetic' spelling. That
said, they all used the word 'hemophilia' even though publications like
Scientific American use Haemophilia (which my Aussie friends and I
pronounce as Hay-mo-filly-ya)
Having never before encountered the local dialect "hinky", I find its
defence in a global effort to be rather "Go-mer Pyle". On the other
hand, "jitter" is an internationally recognised technical term, often
expressed in microseconds or nanoseconds of random variation in data bit
periodicity, while "visual jitter" is vibratory or random placement
discrepancy.
I would concur 100%
Also, while groff is not an international standard, I think that a cursory
consideration of language standards such as those used in international or
ISO standards would be wise given that we want maximum appeal. Except for
some very specific words, even ISO standards which originate as American
standards use Oxford English with the '-ize' suffix for Greek-derived
words. I have seen this with the rules governing the spelling in both ISO
9899 (the C standard) and ISO 60559 (a.k.a. IEEE 754 Floating Point). A
long time ago, DEC used a subset of English grammar and vocabulary which
was very neutral and was devoid of Americanisms and was very easy to read
by all, including non-native speakers. In all my reading of Bell Labs
documents, I never noticed Americanisms.
My 2c - Damian (another Aussie).
