On Tuesday, 23 April 2013 11:58:52 UTC+1, Buchan Meteo wrote:
Metman2012 scrive:



Good there other pedants as well. I looked it up on the online OED.



That there are (: I had access to that when at uni here.



However, I agree that minuscule is correct, but unfortunately for us

pedants, most (all?) dictionaries are now descriptive rather than

prescriptive and as the wrong spelling is gaining in use, they will

eventually stop calling it wrong. It's a bit like infer and imply, less

and fewer, disinterested and uninterested. Does Italian have the same

issues (I'm assuming you're Italian - if not then I humbly apologise)?



I am, in part at least, (opinions differ on which half is the good part)

so no need to apologise.

Italian does not have quite the same issues because the scale is

different. The largest dictionary (also on my shelf) is in one, rather

fat, volume ... not two or twenty.

English tends to have many words with the same meaning, and individual

words with many meanings. It is also much more absorbent of 'foreign'

phrases, especially American, which has become the leading world English

(sadly). There are a number of English words that have found their way

into Italian (eg computer) and that can be unhelpful as English has more

letters in its alphabet. An obvious example is my name which in Italian

begins with G and in Scottish, begins with J (a letter which does not

exist in Italian).



I am pedantic in any language but perhaps more in English as I write in

that language.



--

Gianna

Peterhead, Scotland

Dear pedantic you're driving me frantic