RickK

Revision as of 06:20, 3 May 2005

Revision as of 07:03, 3 May 2005

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==Archaeologist==

This is the standard spelling in both American and British English. Merriam-Webster's, an American dictionary, has "archaeologist" but not "archeologist." The former is used by American universities, as a Google search will reveal; such a search will also reveal 336,000 hits for the latter versus 1.2 million for the former. Hence, I shall continue changing that misspelling unless you provide conclusive evidence that one is American and one is British. 141.161.70.7, 7:20, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

So you'll block me from editing, eh? Well, I've got access to lots of computers that have different IP numbers, so that will be a time-consuming process. But anyway, let me tackle your substantive claims.

As I pointed out earlier, there is nothing inherently British about "archaeologist." That is the title of the Wikipedia article, that spelling appears 237 times in the Wikipedia (as opposed to 55 times for "archeologist"), and that spelling is about four times more common on Google. Iowa (http://www.uiowa.edu/~osa/), Minnesota (http://www.admin.state.mn.us/osa/), Wyoming (http://wyoarchaeo.state.wy.us/), South Carolina (http://www.cas.sc.edu/sciaa/OSA.html), and South Dakota (http://www.state.sd.us/bop/Classification/ClassSpecs/30789.htm) all have state archaeologists. Are they British too?

Dictionary.com is not as thorough and credible a source as the well-respected Merriam-Webster, and nowhere is there evidence that "archaeologist" is an exclusively British spelling. In fact, http://www.onelook.com , which searches several dictionaries, does say that "archeologist" is sometimes used in America, but in all of them, "archaeologist" is the preferred, standard spelling.

I checked the policy, and nowhere did I see a clause saying that the spelling should be left as written if the spelling is mistaken or unusual. "Archeologist" is not wrong, but it's clearly in a minority position. Plus, I've undertaken several mass edits (by the way, do 40-odd changes really constitute a "mass edit?") in the past, and no one has complained. Your powerful reaction to a perfectly legitimate undertaking is unwarranted, to say the least. 141.161.70.7, 8:02, May 3, 2005 (UTC)