[mea] Re: "Honourary" Mahatma Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
- From: Karen McElrea <karenmcelrea@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:49:16 -0500
They should have spelled it "honorary," though, I agree - it looks odd!
Someone from Belfast writing on a forum on this question says that "the
OED mentions that 'honourary' was an alternative spelling in
the 18th/19th centuries." So maybe the sign should read "Ye Olde Honourary
Mahatma Gandhi Way."
Public Works and Government Services Canada's Translation Bureau site
states that "In Canada, honour not
honor is the preferred spelling for the noun and the verb. Both
honorary and honourary are widespread in Canada [really?],
although honourary is rarely used in the rest of the world."
But the real Canadian authority, Katherine Barber, says on her
Wordlady site, "A recent Facebook poll I conducted about the spelling
of this word had 39 well-educated Canadians opting for "honourary" versus 22
for
'honorary,' similar to the results we found when we conducted a survey for the
Canadian Oxford Dictionary, as a result of which it is possibly the only
dictionary of current English to include "honourary" as a spelling variant."
So popular vote rules our dictionary. In what field were these
people well-educated, exactly? Were the 22 also well-educated? Was such a small
sample also the basis for its inclusion in the dictionary? How would this same
group of people have answered the same question for "humourously"?
To: mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mea] "Honourary" Mahatma Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
From: cheri.frazer@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:14:13 -0500
An Alert Reader (stole that term from Dave
Barry!) has pointed out that the new signs at The Forks spell honorary
incorrectly.
You can register your concern at 311@xxxxxxxxxxx
and/or contact CTV News; their crews were filming the signs today. Where
are the Raging Grammarians when you need them?!
-C.
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