[Cryptography] The Strange Story of Satoshi Nakamoto's Spelling Choices: Part 1.

[bit]

From: cryptography <cryptography-bounces+bit=ungeared.com at metzdowd.com> On
Behalf Of Mark Rousell
Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2021 10:18 PM
To: cryptography at metzdowd.com
Subject: Re: [Cryptography] The Strange Story of Satoshi Nakamoto's Spelling
Choices: Part 1.

 

On 05/01/2021 16:57, bit wrote:

Satoshi Was Consistently Inconsistent 

Perhaps, the biggest takeaway from our research is that Satoshi was highly
inconsistent in his use of American and British spelling and he was
inconsistent from the very beginning. Many have noticed that in the Bitcoin
whitepaper the British spelling of "favour", however, seemingly no one had
spotted that in the same paper, he used American spelling for
"characterized" (British: "characterised"). Interestingly, this irregularity
would have been consistent with the rules of Canadian English.

 

This was quoted on Dave Farber's IP list to which I replied with this:-

As a British Englisher I can conform that this is not the case. The use of
"z" in words like "characterized" is entirely legitimate and consistent with
British English. It is a spelling form used most often, from what I have
observed, by British English speakers with an academic or
university-educated background (but this is just my anecdotal observation).
Nevertheless, "z" is considered legitimate in general.

If Satoshi Nakamoto is British or had a British education (particularly a
university education) then it would be consistent for him to use "z" in such
words.

There are of course no official rules for what constitutes British English
but the nearest we have, the Oxford English Dictionary, states the
following:

"characterize -ise v.t. describe character of [...]" [1]

(I have discarded the pronunciation guide characters)

Note that there is no separate entry in this version of the dictionary[1]
for "characterise".

I think we can conclude that "ize" in this scenario is a legitimate British
English spelling.

It's quite interesting. I think most people outside of UK assume that -ise
etc., is your default spelling. For instance, BBC's site seems to prefer it.
But the bigger issue is that Satoshi wasn't just inconsistent, he was
inconsistent even when it came to the same words: decentrali/s/z/ed,
optimi/s/z/ed etc. You can find the chart on our site. Could this be
natural? - I.E., would your typical educated Brit go back and force? Also,
what about words like: optimi/s/z/ation?

Footnote:-

1: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 7th edition, 1983, ISBN 0-19-861131-5. 

 

P.S. Further to my earlier message, my British English Londoner mother (aged
84) tells me that she was originally taught at school the "z" spelling of
words like "characterize" or "legitimize". It was only later that she
noticed other people using the "s" version.

Send regards to your mom ))

-- 
Mark Rousell
 
 
Also, I have been curious about coding in the UK. When you learn to code -
do you use British spelling for variables? And generally speaking - global
dominance of American pop culture must be affecting spelling norms?
 
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