From owner-sc22wg5@dkuug.dk Fri Nov 29 21:24:20 2002 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) id VAA00614 for sc22wg5-domo; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:24:20 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from owner-sc22wg5@dkuug.dk) X-Authentication-Warning: ptah.dkuug.dk: majordom set sender to owner-sc22wg5@dkuug.dk using -f Received: from mailhub.dfrc.nasa.gov (mailhub.dfrc.nasa.gov [130.134.81.12]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id VAA00609 for ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:24:17 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from maine@altair.dfrc.nasa.gov) Received: from mail.dfrc.nasa.gov by mailhub.dfrc.nasa.gov with ESMTP for sc22wg5@dkuug.dk; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:30:16 -0800 Received: from altair.dfrc.nasa.gov ([130.134.164.107]) by mail.dfrc.nasa.gov (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-71686U2500L200S0V35) with ESMTP id gov for ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:31:30 -0800 Received: from altair.dfrc.nasa.gov (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by altair.dfrc.nasa.gov (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id gATIVW0e031888 for ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:31:32 -0800 Received: (from maine@localhost) by altair.dfrc.nasa.gov (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) id gATIVWJF031884; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:31:32 -0800 From: Richard Maine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <15847.45700.168774.39780@altair.dfrc.nasa.gov> Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:31:32 -0800 To: Subject: (SC22WG5.2641) Allocatable not allocable In-Reply-To: <200211290802.JAA97029@dkuug.dk> References: <200211290802.JAA97029@dkuug.dk> X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under 21.4 (patch 8) "Honest Recruiter" XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-sc22wg5@dkuug.dk Precedence: bulk Michael Metcalf writes: > Ever since allocatable arrays were invented, in the days of Fortran 8x, I > have been bothered by the fact that the word allocatable appears in no > dictionary. This morning, a spell-checker proposed 'allocable' as an > alternative spelling, and, lo and behold, the word is in the OED meaning > 'able to be allocated'. It's too late to change now, so this is just for the > record (Richard will be pleased to know). The ispell spell checker is happy with either form (it's also happy with "lo"), though that is not evidence of much; I don't think it counts as quite the same caliber as the OED. I still find it pretty sad that I used to get correspondence from my daughter's junior high school that referred to intercession when they meant intersession (in a context where either word could be interpreted to fit). I teased the principal (who I knew reasonably well) about it and found that she knew of the misspelling, but that Microsoft Word didn't like intersession, so the staff had taken to just using the wrong spelling. In a way, I found that worse than if they hadn't known the corect spelling - they knew it, but were letting Word's spell checker dictate to them anyway. "Allocatable" is a bit of a mouthful, I agree, though for me, it's not nearly as bad as "interoperability", which my fingers always want to type as "interopability". (Wouldn't be shocking to find an overlooked instance of the wrong spelling of that still in the draft). Fortunately, that one isn't a Fortran keyword, so I won't have to type it in my Fortran code, except possibly in comments. -- Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience; maine@altair.dfrc.nasa.gov | experience comes from bad judgment. | -- Mark Twain