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So on that basis, it would be correct to assume that by "canard" you
mean "an unfounded or false, deliberately misleading story," and not "a
short winglike control surface projecting from the fuselage of an
aircraft, such as a space shuttle, mounted forward of the main wing and
serving as a horizontal stabilizer," or, indeed, "an aircraft whose
horizontal stabilizing surfaces are forward of the main wing."
Yeah, it's nearly time to go home here...
Martin Polley
Technical Communicator http://www.surf-com.com/
martinp -at- surf-com -dot- com
Tel: (+972) (4) 9095-732
Mobile: (053) 864-280
ICQ 15617901
-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 4:28 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Paramet[e]rization
Shea Michael EXT Michael -dot- Shea -dot- extern -at- icn -dot- siemens -dot- de> wrote:
>To answer your question, it looks like this dictionary allows both.
>Though typically these are listed in most common usage first, ...
Michael,
Please disabuse yourself of this canard. Merriam-Webster states in the
frontmatter to all of their dictionaries that you cannot draw this
conclusion when alternate spellings are separated by _or_. If there is a
main entry followed by the word _also_ and then another spelling, the
first spelling is more common.
Here's the tricky part: Chicago dictates that, for the practical purpose
of avoiding inconsistencies between editors, the standing rule should be
to select the spelling that appears first. This, naturally, means that
the first spelling will be used more often to the extent that editors
follow that rule. So eventually, through the recursive application of
this rule, the first spelling will become the more common one. But
that's kinda cheating, if you think about it.
HTH,
Dick
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