Infosphere talk:Manual of Style

Oxford!
I'm an Oxford comma man, myself. It helps with clarity. Personally. --Buddy 06:04, 16 August 2008 (CEST)
 * Well... me, not so much, I prefer non-Oxford British English. Mainly because Oxford has a strange love of the -ize spelling.  Which I feel is in too much love with the Z letter (which, by the way, is pronounced "zed" to avoid confusion with the letter C), and I suppose the non-Oxford comma rule is more familiar to Danish, which is my native language, so I guess I am biased.  But aren't we all?  --SvipTalk 11:24, 16 August 2008 (CEST)
 * It's all phonetic! I'm totally not getting into it! "-ize" is how it's pronounced, thus, how it should be spelt. But English isn't much for phonetics, anyway, which is why "Them" isn't spelt "Dhem" (or &ETH;em), which would be proper. And, the argument for "Zed" is flawed. These are the same people that tell us "Aluminium" is the proper way to spell Aluminum, because it conforms with the other elements, but then they go and say "Zed" when NO OTHER LETTER sounds like that. If the alphabet were pronouced "A Bed Ced Ded E Fed Ged..." then it would make sense. But it isn't and it doesn't. The end. And now we're completely on a tangent!~!!!! --Buddy 01:09, 18 August 2008 (BST)
 * If you'd bother check Wikipedia, you would have learnt; "In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed (pronounced /zɛd/), reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta." Hell, it is "sæt" in Danish (sounds just like 'zed') for Z.  And it is Aluminium.  The argument for -ize is that it comes from Greek.  While that is technically true, it went through French first, where it was changed to an -ise spelling.  Gotta respect the Frenchies.  But let's face it, Buddy, Z is hardly a natural letter in Latin.  Latin didn't have it.  It is directly imported from Greek.  But I suppose you don't like Greeks, eh? --SvipTalk 02:11, 18 August 2008 (BST)
 * Oho! I'm not going into it! English is a terrible language. But then again, that's what happens when you force an alphabet of 26 letters onto a language with forty (or so) sounds. You get approximations and stupid spellings galore! It is agreed by linguists that the only un-accented English is spoken in the western US, thus "Zee" is correct. And it's aluminum. Unless you buy rings made of Platinium. "The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both, but places aluminium first.[33] IUPAC officially prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although several IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum." The whole concept is retarded. Meh! --Buddy 02:52, 18 August 2008 (BST)
 * Clearly, you are referring to linguists in the US, there's a wide variety of accents over there, including the west. Obviously, if a lack of accent exists, it's somewhere in the UK. Both 'i's in aluminium are pronounced. Are you saying El is a non-unique? - Quolnok 11:43, 18 August 2008 (BST)
 * When aluminum was invented/discovered, it was spelt aluminum. Hence, it's aluminum. Brits can't change it and then say that's the right way to spell it. Not that that's stopped them before. "The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina." And "Californian English" is the only non-accented English. Period. Ask a British linguist if you must. =&THORN; --Buddy 21:54, 22 August 2008 (BST)