[plug] KDE en_GB i18n question!

Colin Muller colin at twobluedots.com.au
Mon Mar 11 09:32:49 WST 2002


On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 11:31:55PM +0800, John Knight wrote:
> Is it really correct under British English (not in computing terms)? If it 
> is journalling under pommy speak, would you have objections to us changing 
> it? If there's some more people around that are also language inclined, 
> please answer up.

Notions of 'correctness' are always suspect in language, but the usual
en_UK formation for words ending in '-l' would be -lling. Think of:

marshalling forces (not usually marshaling)
barrelling along (not usually barreling)
duelling (not dueling)

As opposed to 'smiling' ('smile' does not end in '-l')

Then there's this:
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=journalling

as opposed to:
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=journaling

... which is not found.

And you may want to look at:
http://www.xrefer.com/entry/594794
Which says:
"Words in final -l are usually treated differently from those ending in
most other final consonants in that, in British English, in inflected
forms, the -l is doubled irrespective of the position of the accent."
[...]
And in case you wonder:
"The doubling rule does not apply when the l is preceded by a double
vowel or a vowel + consonant, e.g. ai, ea, ee, oi, ow, ur, as in
failed, squealed, peeled, boiled, howled, curled."

Colin



More information about the plug mailing list