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Forum:Artifacts or Artefacts of Rassilon?: Difference between revisions
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::::::::*Overall, counting the whole corpus, "artefact" appears in more sources, but "artifact" appears more times (largely because of a few early NAs). | ::::::::*Overall, counting the whole corpus, "artefact" appears in more sources, but "artifact" appears more times (largely because of a few early NAs). | ||
::::::::It looks like, contrary to what the OED or any other dictionary says, both spellings are alive and well in the UK, and both are plentiful in Doctor Who texts. (Also, I should mention that the OED and their usage guide have been accused of having a bit of a prescriptivist bent, and refer to various things as "preferred" even though actual usage is closer to 50/50.) So, now what? --[[User:Falcotron|Falcotron]] 02:52, June 9, 2010 (UTC) | ::::::::It looks like, contrary to what the OED or any other dictionary says, both spellings are alive and well in the UK, and both are plentiful in Doctor Who texts. (Also, I should mention that the OED and their usage guide have been accused of having a bit of a prescriptivist bent, and refer to various things as "preferred" even though actual usage is closer to 50/50.) So, now what? --[[User:Falcotron|Falcotron]] 02:52, June 9, 2010 (UTC) | ||
:::::::::Well...(excellent research by the way). | |||
:::::::::On the Virgin NAs I seem to recall reading somewhere (either ''Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story'' or on the now defunct Outpost Gallifrey forums) that the Virgin novels sometimes had an editorial lean towards American spellings of words / usage. | |||
:::::::::We can't really use how many 'artifact' appears as a ruling, because as you say in those early NAs it could be used dozens of times in a small group of novels. So what makes more sense is to go with 'artefact' which appears over a greater number of sources, which should indicate it's in greater use rather than the use of 'artifact' in a few source which could be editorial bias towards that spelling. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] 16:53, June 9, 2010 (UTC) | |||
