OT ae [was Re: Bad coding standards]

[Philip Anderson <phil.anderson@amsjv.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote:
<snip>

> Warning: non-Ada diversion
> 
> P.S. is aesthetics an allowable spelling in American
> english? I don't have an American dictionary at hand.
> The OED only permits the use of "e" or the ae letter
> which I can't even write in this ASCII character set,
> but does not permit a separate a and e character.

I don't have an OED (or other Oxford dictionary) to hand, but Chambers
(also) UK does not use the 'ae' ligature in aesthetics or any other 'ae'
combination that I can see, with the exception of 'aesc', an Old English
rune.  This represented the sound also written as ligatured 'ae'in Old
English, a vowel distinct from and further forward than 'a' (pronounced
as in 'cat' in my speech), and hence was a distinct letter.

Usually, 'ae' comes from Latin and in the middle of words often
represents Greek 'ai'.  In inscriptions, the Romans often ligatured
letters together, not just AE; in Late and Church Latin, it tended to
turn into plain 'e'.

Do the uses cited by the OED for aesthetics etc use the ligature I
wonder, or is it just the OED house-style?  I rather doubt if there is a
commonly-accepted rule, let lone a definitive one.

Socrates talked about his 'daimon', and it's usually 'translated' like
that to avoid the connotations of 'demon' I guess.

-- 
hwyl/cheers,
Philip Anderson
Alenia Marconi Systems
Cwmbr�n, Cymru/Wales