On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:20:14 +0100, Chris Croughton
<chris@keristor.net> said:
> On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 21:28:53 GMT, Bob Cunningham
> <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 18:19:42 +0100, Chris Croughton
> > <chris@keristor.net> said:
> > [...]
> >> The one which annoys me is "noone" for "no one", it
> >> reads as "noon" with an erroneous 'e' on the end.
> > So far as I know, no dictionary condones spelling "no one"
> > closed.
> Not yet, but it's becoming so common that there may well be pressure to
> include it. Once newspapers take it up that's near the end, if the BBC
> adopts it...
Yes, I'd like to think that there will be great resistance
to the spelling *"noone" because of the great temptation to
pronunce the "oo" as in "foolish", but the existence of
"cooperate" and "coordinate" demonstrates that that
restraint won't be enough.
> > A British dictionary, _The New Shorter Oxford_, recognizes
> > "no-one" as a less frequent spelling, but an American
> > dictionary, _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate_, doesn't mention
> > it.
> It's been used hyphenated in the UK for a long time, although that has
> been considered "not correct" in some circles (like the "Oxford comma"
> is's a matter of debate between those who do and those who don't like
> it, with neither side giving way).
> I don't recall at the moment whether the hyphenated form is in either of
> the Concise Oxford dictionaries I have, and don't have them to hand,
> next time I'm back home I'll check (as I recall Fowler mentioned it as
> well).
You may not be familiar with the various editions of the
_Shorter Oxford_. They're far superior to the _Concise
Oxford_s in both comprehensiveness and depth of definitions.
I have the _New Shorter Oxford_ (1993), both hard copy and
CD. There's a later edition of the _Shorter Oxford_ that I
don't have.
> Chris C
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