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I guess on an instrument panel for a consumer product, they have to cater to the mentality of the masses. This reminds me of how they had to start using the word "flammable" on tank trucks because everybody thought "inflammable" meant "non-flammable."
________________________________________
From: Suzanne Chiles [mailto:suzchiles -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 1:12 PM
To: Downing, David
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: "Gage"
The first time I ever saw the spelling of "gage" was on a 1990 Dodge Caravan instrument panel. It was at that moment I swore I would never buy a Chrysler product under any circumstances.
Suzanne
On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 6:29 AM, Downing, David <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com> wrote:
At 2:59 PM -0600 12/9/08, Nancy Allison wrote:
>While "guage" is definitely not correct, I had the painful experience
of
>working in a technical environment that spelled the word "gage." It was
>widely accepted, too, and I had to bite the bullet and spell it that
>way. Still a disturbing memory!
>
>--Nancy
Well:
Gage is the generally used term in the mechanical engineering field
in reference to various instruments for geometric dimensioning and
tolerancing. i.e. thread gage, depth gage...
And it is an alternative spelling for gauge. If you don't like it,
you may cast your gage and challenge them to unequal combat of wits.
Scott
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Sounds like yet another example of a misspelling becoming accepted
because everyone was doing it. But I concede that it has become
*officially* accepted, because it's in my spell checker's dictionary.
And while we're back on the subject of twisting the language, did you
say "tolerancing"??? I'm not sure how much tolerance I have for that
one -- and my spell checker does *not* recognize that one.
David
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Suzanne Chiles
suzchiles -at- gmail -dot- com
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