atw: Re: Program vs. Programme

Michael Granat:

> All prejudice aside - apart from my intense dislike of the
> contrarie MacQuarie dictionarie...

Tut. We've been here before. All modern dictionaries use the same corpus-based
technology to determine the current state of the language. But our corpus is
bigger and more up to date, so our dictionary better reflects the current
state of the language.

Of course, if you want a source of direction rather than reflection, you don't
want a descriptive dictionary at all; you want a prescriptive style guide. The
old Fowler is too old (and not Australian), and the Burchfield version of
Fowler is non-prescriptive (and not Australian). You could always go with Pam
Peters's Cambridge Australian English Style Guide.


Michael Lewis

--------------------------------------
Department of Linguistics
Macquarie University
--------------------------------------


**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: