Archive for the ‘The English Language’ Category

Spelling

Chiefly, correct spelling.
This is something which is really, really starting to get my goat.  I live in England, thus I spell words according to English dictionaries such as the OED.  When I’m talking to someone about the difference between spelling colour with and without a ‘u’, I do not expect their response to be [...]

The demise of the ordinal suffix

When did ’st’, ‘nd’ and ‘rd’ become unfashionable?  Why is there such an aversion to appending st to the number 1 when referencing the first item in a list or group?
It’s so simple: Monday, 1st December, 2008, yet, in so many places I now see Monday, December 1, 2008.  The last time I checked, we [...]