User talk:Spellmaster

As this account is only used occasionally, a query to User talk:John might get a faster response. The main exception to that would obviously be if you wish to query edits in progress using this account. --Spellmaster 19:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Typo fixing?

[1] — this doesn't seem to have fixed any typos. --Stemonitis 14:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Humourous and humorous

(refactored to enable following of the conversation) Please do not go through changing all articles to US spellings. Articles such as Alan Gibson, an english journalist, fits with British English better. Cheers, Ansell 09:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Humorous is the correct spelling worldwide. See my user page for a link to the discussion. For what it is worth I am a UK-English user and would never correct in this way. Thanks for your interest, --Spellmaster 09:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary.com is not the final source of knowledge. [2] [3] has many million results, and as such I do not think it is that "correct" worldwide. I guess I will get over it in the end. But I do not accept the discussion as it was. One thing you cannot say is that the "our" version is not used, it is in very high usage as per the google query and the wordreference actually having it first. Ansell 09:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding. The last time I looked into it, admittedly a few months ago, the main uses of the "...our..." variant were in sources before about 1800, and in Wikipedia. If we are to be taken seriously as a resource, I think we need to use standard spelling. I think this is a case ("honourary" is similar) where well-meaning editors have assumed that a UK/US spelling difference exists where none actually does, obviously along the lines of humor/humour, honor/honour etc. I quite agree that dictionary.com is not a good source for spelling info. My original discussion had input from UK, US and Australian users checking reputable paper dictionaries, and as far as I can remember nobody was able to point to an instance of "humourous" in a modern printed source. I really do appreciate that you (like me) care enough about spelling to query this. The last time the discussion took place was at Cane Toad; I am sure I can dig out further examples of discussion if you like. The main point is that on each occasion the matter has been discussed, nobody has been able to present evidence that it is a matter of national varieties of English, a matter on which I am very sensitive myself and so fully appreciate the sensitivities of others. Best wishes, and thanks again for your interest. --Spellmaster 09:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

In the honour/honor case, I know I would be shot for using honor in an academic document at my university. I cannot say the same for humour as I have never, possibly will never, find the need to use it in an academic document in my fields of study. Cheers, Ansell 09:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, "honor" is one of those US English variants which still looks "funny" to my eye. However, again, "honorary degree" is correct worldwide; there is no substantive use of "honourary" anywhere, hence the comparison. Best wishes, --Spellmaster 09:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

For the record, a quick google gives me the impression honourary degree is a canadian variant, per the number of .ca sites that come up. [4] But this is past the issue, I will let you get back to your work. Ansell 09:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that. Of course, google is an extremely poor source for spelling; I hope we can agree that other than the established cases of differences in spelling between national varieties of English, and on certain well-established instances of spelling variants which are equally acceptable (I remember being surprised to find that "propellor" is considered an acceptable variant of "propeller"), spelling is an issue on which we should be fairly prescriptive and consistent here, and should be guided mainly by paper sources, which tend to be more conservative and hence more reliable. I really appreciate your input, by the way; it is reassuring that others besides me care about such issues. --Spellmaster 10:04, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the Wiktionary entry should be changed, as well as several major poets works → friedfish 11:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Wiktionary is definitely not a good source for accurate spelling info! I prefer to go with reputable paper dictionaries, the vast majority of which prefer "humorous", in all varieties of English. Which poets did you have in mind? --Spellmaster 11:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I was just about to message you on this exact word, but on the RD Reynolds article. British/Canadian spelling is not considered a typo. ^---SilentRAGE! 22:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You wrote "British/Canadian spelling is not considered a typo". You are right. "Humourous" is neither British nor Canadian spelling though. Best wishes --Spellmaster 06:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it's more along the lines of somebody who is arrogant enough to call themselves the "Spellmaster", feeling that he has just been put to shame because he is wrong about the spelling of a certain word. Poor baby! LOL! It's not a big deal. No need to be so stubborn. Humour > Humourous. Get it? ^---SilentRAGE! 06:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't get it. You are wrong. Spelling is not always logical and this is an example. Laborious would be another similar example, where "labour" does not lead to "labourious". Not even in Canada! --Spellmaster 07:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"HumOURous" is an acceptable variant - See here. Many English words such as "czar" have a number of variants which are acceptable across national varieties. --MacRusgail 13:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

See below, and on your talk page. --Guinnog 17:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, see Humour. There's no reason to change the words. --Notmyhandle 04:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

PurplePlatypus

Wikipedia policy is to use the version of English appropriate to the country most strongly associated with the subject of a given article, not to use American English uniformly. Please stop vandalizing articles on Canadian and British subjects by deliberately changing correct spellings to incorrect ones. Also, note that dictionary.com uses the American Heritage dictionary, which isn't even a particularly good source for American English, and is simply not applicable at all to other versions. PurplePlatypus 10:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Was there a particular edit you wanted to query? I recommend you read my user page which explains the spelling changes I am making, and the consensus established for them. I would urge you not to misuse the term vandalism to describe good-faith attempts to improve the encyclopedia. I shall hold off making any more changes to give you a chance to review this and reply. Best wishes, --Spellmaster 10:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, forget about it. You can ignore my message (which was mostly to do with the Humourous thing). Sorry. PurplePlatypus 19:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

John Derringer

FYI, you fixed a typo (humourous -> humorous) in a direct quote in this article. I know you can't feasibly screen for this sort of thing, but in this case the typo appears in the source and hence must appear in the quote. It is followed by [sic] to indicate the presence of a typo. Thanks though! BFD1 19:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for picking that up; obviously you are right, if the misspelling was present in the original. --Spellmaster 00:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: "Humourous"

Hi. I was interested that you reverted my edit to Robert Garran with the edit summary "not a spelling mistake - Australian English in Australian articles". I'd like to reassure you that I am entirely sensitive to national varieties of English, and that "humorous" is considered the correct spelling worldwide. The most recent occasion this was queried was at Talk:Cane Toad, and I think I was able to convince the objector on that occasion that this is correct (see User talk:Malkinann for details). Best wishes, and thanks for your interest. --Spellmaster 11:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

My mistake, I seem to have misread the diff as changing "humour" to "humor", and missed the "ous" :) I've changed it once again. I'm sure you know how it is when people see bot or AWB edits, there's a tendency to get parochial and revert without completely reading what the change is! For your reference, by the way, the typical standard for Australian English is the Macquarie Dictionary, and that gives "humorous" as expected (although some editions of the Collins Australian dictionary give either as acceptable) so that would be the reference to give other people. --bainer (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

You may in addition want to point people at Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students- Common Spelling Errors which deals with Humorous & Honorary. --Tagishsimon (talk)

On the similar change made to "Aerican Empire". I thank you for pointing out the spelling peculiarity. Personally, I didn't realize that this was the case, although I always spell rigorous without an u. Having checked Oxford, it begs the question why such etymological differences might occur. Again, well done. Aericanwizard 19:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Space Science

Thanks for the spelling corrections but you also removed a header link to astronomy can you be careful not to do this please ... ^Jaster 16:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Header links are strongly deprecated in the MoS (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), and AWB removes them by default. Nevertheless I apologise for removing the link without replacing it in text, which would be my usual practice. Best wishes, --Spellmaster 13:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Cork → Cork (city) cleanup

If you leave a note here when your AWB run is finished, I'll have a go at cleaning up the remaining links to Cork. Cheers ! Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

No bother, I'll be round and about until 10 or 11 Cork time. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Honourary vs honorary

Hi your recent changes from honourary to honorary changed a number of articles which use British spelling. These include India related articles that use British as well as Indian English spelling and phrases. - Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 23:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The latter is the correct spelling worldwide. See User:Spellmaster for details. --Guinnog 23:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"Honorary" is correct, however, you also corrected "humourous", which can be spelt that way. --MacRusgail 13:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No indeed, see User:Spellmaster for details. --Guinnog 14:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Salmon Gums phosphorous change

Hi. While I appreciate your good and much needed work correcting spelling everywhere, I question the need to change phosphorous to phosphorus on this article. Phosphorous is the common spelling of the word in Australia, and the article is about an Australian town. As further evidence, I came across a mining announcement from 2001 related to the town that I added to the article today. It says the company is looking at the use of lignite from Salmon Gums for use in reducing phosphorous-rich iron ore - my point being, they spell it phosphorous as well. I looked up both spellings on dictionary.com and both appear to be correct, so I think the difference is US/UK and Australia common usage. We don't need more US spelling imposed on us!! I would like to change it back, because the spelling kind of looks wrong to an Australian reader. Phaedrus86 03:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I assure you it is not a US spelling thing. Phosphorus is the right spelling of the element everywhere. Phosphorous has a specific chemical meaning, it usually relates to phosphorous acid. Hope that makes it clearer. --Guinnog 04:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was wrong. I checked the dictionaries again and I see I failed to note first time around that phosphorus is a noun and phosphorous is an adjective, which neatly pulls the pin on my argument!. My apologies for having doubted you. Phaedrus86 07:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Bill "Phosphorous" Sears

I notice you corrected this to "phosphorus" in the article on Rich Carlson. I've un-corrected it because Sears himself seems to prefer the spelling with the extra 'o' (see here and here). Surely the spelling of a nickname is arbitrary, whether based on a real word or not? - Ben Ram 04:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

In a recent edit, you changed one or more words from one international variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For subjects exclusively related to Britain (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. If it is an international topic, use the same form of English the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to the other, even if you don't normally use the version the article is written in. Respect other people's versions of English. They in turn should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. If you have any queries about all this, just ask anyone on Wikipedia and they will help you. [5] Thank you. — jacĸrм (talk) 21:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

However, 'humourous' is not a correct spelling in any part of the world. --John 22:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Your insistance to change this doesn't make the change correct. The "reference" you post on your user page was added by yourself without a reliable third party. I have several dictionaries in my house and all of them list the spelling as "Humourous". Please cease this as I consider it to be a form of arrogant vandalism. --linca^linca 06:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No. It's "insistence" by the way. --John 16:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Typo fix

The word "Humourous" is spelled as such in Australian English, however you changed it to American English on an Australian-oriented page. I've reverted the change (in this case on Crowded House). Please be aware of the orientation of a page before utilising AWB's spell corrections as it cannot distinguish between countries of origin. --linca^linca 05:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Your understanding of AWB is clearly as flawed as your grasp of spelling. --John 16:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		What a humourous talk page. -- RG2 18:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Honourary

I think there is a good argument to be made for Honourary being a Canadian variant. It appears in University websites([6],[7]), newspapers([8]) and the Parliament of Canada website ([9]). Also this source [10] states that it appears in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.--J2000ca (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

That last is an interesting source. One of the contributors states "The decision about whether to have the “u” in honourary takes on subtle nuances in the Canadian context. In words with alternate spellings such as colour/color, Canadians can consciously choose to distinguish themselves from or identify with English or American usage.... I suspect that the much higher frequency of “honourary” here reflects this quiet form of Canadian resistance to hegemonic pressures."

To my mind this supports my own view; it is indisputably a variant that exists in Canadian English, but mainly as a "guerrilla spelling" akin to "riddum" in Jamaican English. Such variants can be celebrated (and even recorded if they are notable enough), but I still don't think they are suitable for use in an international encyclopedia. If that spelling was always used in Can En you would have a stronger point and WP:ENGVAR would come into play, as in the case of 'honor' and 'honour'. As it seems to be a minority spelling there, and almost unknown in the rest of the world I still think of it as unencyclopedic hypercorrection. Maybe 'womyn' would be a case in point too; I acknowledge the existence of this variant, but would still be loath to see this spelling introduced in all articles about women, say.

The consensus we have had in previous discussions was not to use it. Maybe that consensus needs to be revisited, if you feel strongly about it. Thanks, in any case, for caring about spelling. --John (talk) 06:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC) (Spellmaster's master)

I think there is a better case to be made for honourary then for riddum. Honourary has a much higher occurrence on google, is not pronounce different and is used in academia and government. I personally feel that riddum would be considered by most to be slang while honourary would be more a variant.

I think that in a dispute over whether it is a variant we should error on the side of accepting the variant provided sources can be found. In general I would agree with correcting it to honorary unless it's a Canada article and the sources use honourary. In that case I think the article should go with the predominately sourced one, except in the case of a direct quote. --J2000ca (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Link Removal

In a recent edit to Gas you removed a lot of links to other wiki articles. I reverted the edit because the definition of gas happens to be a controversial subject and I'd like to keep all the links there so that people actually know where to look when they don't actually know the information. Check out the Ideal gas page to see what I'm talking about. Its kind of ridiculous.Katanada (talk) 00:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:CONTEXT only links which add value are needed. Generally linking once in each article is enough. --Spellmaster (talk) 20:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks but I knew that. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

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