Re: American English (was: Bad coding standards)

[John English <je@bton.ac.uk>]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 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.

"Aesthetic" is, of course, perfectly normal for English English,
but I've got no idea about American English. My copy of Chambers
says this:
  "aesthetic: orig. relating to perception by the senses: generally
   relating to possessing, or pretending to, a sense of beauty;
   artistic or affecting to be artistic."

So I suppose aesthetic is the aesthetic spelling... ;-)

  "esthesia, esthesiogen, etc. US spellings of aesthesia, etc."

I trust Chambers implicitly (it's one of the few dictionaries that
includes that wonderful word "taghairm") so if they are happy
with "ae" rather than a ligature, I'm happy too. The OED is a
bit stuffy about these things sometimes.

How do Americans spell "anaesthetic"? Is it "anesthetic" perchance?

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