How to spell 'lens'

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BJ Bignell said:
It's tire with an "i". Don't use the "y", it's just wrong.
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Sorry, not where I come from... Back home you'd be the one in the wrong :D

Beaurepairs Tyres

Bob 'Tyres are our life' Jane


BJ Bignell said:
As for colour, neighbour, odour, etc etc etc. The "u" belongs there; you know it does.
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On this point we agree... There are some US spellings that I have not converted to... probably won't either.

Peter
 
As to tyre v. tire - this is a matter of English English v. American English.

Same with theatre v. theater and colour v. color. Much goes back to Noah Webster who first "codified" American English and also "simplified" spelling.

More to the original topic.

The LENSE spelling is clearly a regional (US South) variant. I'm not a etymologist so can only "guess" but I would presume is arose when a number of people began to parse the plural "LENSES" by simply removing the second "S" in order to "create" a singular form.

Kind of a bassackwards way of deriving a word form. ;)
 
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One lens is spelled: LENS.

If you have more than one lens, you have LENSES.

You do NOT have a LENSE.
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I was wondering how long before the BRITISH see this! :)
Kiu
 
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There is a difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar and spelling rules.

So even if this is a new spelling (which it apparently isn't), you would still have to live with it.

You might not like it, but that's just the way language works. It changes. You think Shakespeare would agree with our spelling?
 
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Lens is spelled 'lens'. Plural is 'lenses'. I know what you mean about 'lense'.

However, on eBoy, a lens filter is also a 'lens' or a 'lense'. At least, according to the ignoramuses who list them for sale.

In addition, let me say that it gets right up my sleeve when someone uses 'noone' in place of the two words 'no one', as in no person. There is no such word as 'noone'.

Others frequently misused:

There - they're - their
to - two - too

The proper use of an apostrophe is the downfall of many, including myself:

http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

But the one that I almost always misuse is....

its / it's

I can never seem to get that right.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
BJ Bignell said:
It's tire with an "i". Don't use the "y", it's just wrong.

As for colour, neighbour, odour, etc etc etc. The "u" belongs there; you know it does. It'll be less painful for you in the end if you just stop fighting it right now.
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Langenscheidt-Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

tyre (1) a thick rubber band, solid or filled with air, that fits around the outside edge of a wheel, esp. on a motor vehicle or bicycle, as a running surface and to soften shocks - see picture at CAR
(2) a protective metal band fitted round a wooden wheel.
 
copake_ham said:
As to tyre v. tire - this is a matter of English English v. American English.
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I presume you mean "British English". Referring to Britain as "England" is as insulting as calling a Canadian an American :p

And "lense" is preferable to the alternative strange spelling, "len".

And don't get me started on "remuneration"/renumeration". Bloody neanderthals.
 
bmattock said:
Lens is spelled 'lens'. Plural is 'lenses'. I know what you mean about 'lense'.

However, on eBoy, a lens filter is also a 'lens' or a 'lense'. At least, according to the ignoramuses who list them for sale.

In addition, let me say that it gets right up my sleeve when someone uses 'noone' in place of the two words 'no one', as in no person. There is no such word as 'noone'.

Others frequently misused:

There - they're - their
to - two - too

The proper use of an apostrophe is the downfall of many, including myself:

http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

But the one that I almost always misuse is....

its / it's

I can never seem to get that right.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
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the one that gets me is 'alot.' Example: I like it alot.

also, 'irregardless' Although proabably listed as a word and somewhat "accepted", it means the same thing as regardless, and is nonstandard (almost a double negative in a way). But hey if you want to type the extra 'ir' go ahead. :)



:)
 
RayPA said:
the one that gets me is 'alot.' Example: I like it alot.

also, 'irregardless' Although proabably listed as a word and somewhat "accepted", it means the same thing as regardless, and is nonstandard (almost a double negative in a way). But hey if you want to type the extra 'ir' go ahead. :)



:)
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You mean like flammable/inflammable? I've never understood that one.

Mark
 
thanatos said:
I presume you mean "British English". Referring to Britain as "England" is as insulting as calling a Canadian an American :p

And "lense" is preferable to the alternative strange spelling, "len".

And don't get me started on "remuneration"/renumeration". Bloody neanderthals.
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I stand corrected.

But, I'm curious, is all "British English" the same? Or is there a "Scottish English" and a "Welsh English" etc.? By "English" I just mean the language - not the people who live in England. I don't want to get you folks up in Scotland starting to strip naked and paint yourselves blue again like back in March! :D
 
The "lose - loose" thing drives me nuts as well. Don't even get me started on "their - there -they're", "to - too - two", and "alot". I can live with the "lense" thing because it's an easy typo to make although I still find it annoying. All those pale in comparison to netspeak and SMS shorthand... those abominations make me ill. Is this overly pedantic or anal retentive of me? Probably, but the importance of proper grammar and spelling was beaten into me as a child.

I think a lot of these mistakes come from relying so much on spell checkers. We forget that they can't tell us if we've used the correct word in the correct manner, only that every word we've used is spelled correctly.
 
Don't forget to search for misspelled items on e**y. Could net you a nice bargain.

I'm reading English Literature right now but I am often guilty of bad spelling. When it comes to Old English and Medieval English though, you can forget about standardisation of spelling. or grammar for that matter.

Clarence
 
markinlondon said:
You mean like flammable/inflammable? I've never understood that one.

Mark
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Exactly. That one can get someone killed. I worked with a technician once that tried to tell me that inflammable meant that something wasn't flammable. He was a smoker, too. I wonder if he's still alive (?). :)



.
 
copake_ham said:
But, I'm curious, is all "British English" the same? Or is there a "Scottish English" and a "Welsh English" etc.?
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The spellings are the same but the pronunciation may be different. Like New York vs. Noo Yawk. ;)

There are also dialectal word differences, especially within England. An "alleyway" in the south is a "ginnell" in the north. A "child" in the south is a "bairn" in the north - there are hundreds of examples.

And as an aside, before I was an MD, I was an optometrist (I know Bill, I saw it and stayed out of it :D ) and the locals called their spectacle lenses "pebbles".
 
thanatos said:
And as an aside, before I was an MD, I was an optometrist (I know Bill, I saw it and stayed out of it :D ) and the locals called their spectacle lenses "pebbles".
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I never had anything bad to say about the optometrist, just about the eyeglass manufacture industry. Argh. Sorry if I gave offense. Or is it 'offence' in the UK?

License/licence, right? And you go to hospital, not to *the* hospital; same for university.

And some of the terms I've heard bandied about - such as the one for 'bathroom' as 'loo', 'bog', or 'khazi'. And I had never heard of having a slash before I had a friend from the UK. What we do here instead is what you do when telling a joke 'taking the p*ss'. Strange how we've diverged.

My wife refers to it as 'two nations, divided by a common language'.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
RayPA said:
Exactly. That one can get someone killed. I worked with a technician once that tried to tell me that inflammable meant that something wasn't flammable. He was a smoker, too. I wonder if he's still alive (?). :)



.
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That is precisely why the word "flammable" exists. People think "inflammable" means won't burn. In order to keep the great unwashed from mistakenly lighting up while leaning against a gas tanker, someone along the line came up with the bastardized version of the word.

As for "lense" being common usage in Texas, as hypothesized in this thread: I have never seen it written as such in all my 51 years as a Texan, not in any publication, not in any context. It was when I discovered eBay, and also these photo forums, that I became aware of this annoying trend.
 
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