Re: [Qemu-devel] [Qemu-trivial] [PATCH] Fix typo in code and comments

[Stefan Weil <weil@mail.berlios.de>]

Am 26.04.2011 19:26, schrieb Stefan Weil:
> Am 26.04.2011 19:04, schrieb Jan Marten Simons:
>> Am Dienstag 26 April 2011 11:25:58 schrieb Stefan Hajnoczi:
>>> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Stefan Weil <weil@mail.berlios.de> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> Replace writeable -> writable
>>>
>>> Why make this change? writeable and writable are both commonly used
>>> spellings.
>>
>> It seems like "writeable" is the commonly used term in computer 
>> sciences and
>> "writable" is the normal english adjective formed from "to write" + 
>> "-able" in
>> general English.[1]
>>
>> As we are refering to computer science related "writeable" it should 
>> be left
>> as is imho. But as I'm no native speaker, you might feel different on 
>> this.
>> On a side note: Samba offers both spellings as valid for thier 
>> configuration
>> files. [2]
>>
>> [1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/writeable
>> [2] http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=22258.0
>>
>> With regards,
>>
>> Dipl. Phys.
>> Jan M. Simons
>>
>> Institute of Crystallography
>> RWTH Aachen University
>
> Commonly used is not necessarily correct.
>
> The Oxford dictionary only accepts writable (even when I select
> american english). Same result with Merriam-Webster.
> Google suggests writable instead of writeable.
>
> I see "writeable" only in computer programs and related contexts,
> therefore I assume that it is simply a very common spelling error
> contributed by non-native speakers (like myself). Interesting
> detail: The spelling checker of my mailing client (Icedove) marks
> writeable as correct and writable as wrong (which is obviously wrong).
> Maybe I should send a bug report to Debian.
>
> The ratio of writeable:writable in unpatched qemu is 37:47.
> Even if both writings were correct, I might argue that a
> uniform spelling is better and choose the form which is more commonly
> used.
>
> Let's improve the spelling for computer programs a little bit!


Debian's myspell-en-gb is wrong, so I just sent a bug report:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=624249

Several other spelling lists included in Debian are correct, e.g.
hunspell-en-us, iamerican, ibritish, aspell-en.

Here is a list from a native (american) speaker with common
spelling bugs: http://marvin.cs.uidaho.edu/misspell.html
It also includes "writeable".

Cheers,
Stefan W.