User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Spelling debates/@comment-24894325-20151219214614/@comment-188432-20170129054120

Thanks to all who participated in this fascinating debate. This is a really tough issue because checker has so many different meanings, some of which would never be spelt chequer in Britain. The most obvious amongst these would be an inspector, as in a quality control section of an assembly line.

Mary hated her job. She was a faceless, soulless checker at Whatever Industries.

It's also used in The Doctor Trap, for instance, to indicate an object that is a "DNA checker".

We also have to think about the implications of it having distinct meanings as a plural, common noun vs. a plural, proper noun. That is, chequers is not Chequers. And both are within DWU fiction (even though no one has yet written an article about Chequers, yet).

So since there is some precedent for both spellings being used for the game, and since SOTO has already pointed out that it would be tedious to maintain by bot, I think we should probably just not enforce correction of the -que- variant, but instead strongly suggest its usage when referring to:

• patterns
• the game pieces used in the game of draughts

but have no real official stance on it as the alternate name of the game of draughts, or Chinese checkers.

Ultimately, I think I have to point to the fact that neither OS X's native spell checker (which is currently set to UK English) or Grammerly (also set to UK English) are red-flagging either spelling in any context. So I think it'd be really hard to ask our American editors to remember to use -que- in the senses that this thread has mostly discussed.