On Mon, 19 Apr 2004, John Baldwin wrote: > On Saturday 17 April 2004 09:16 am, Ceri Davies wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 10:19:58AM +1000, Bruce Evans wrote: > > > For a more modest task, try fixing the English spelling of "nothing" > > > to "no thing" and "consistent" to "consistant". > > > > There's noway that could be considered the same thing. Your reply notwithstanding, they (fixing non-broken spelling of no*) are considered the same thing, but "consistant" is just a spelling error. > > (Disclaimer: I really don't care which way this falls out). > > FWIW, nothing and nobody are special cases much like cannot and are certainly > the exception, not the rule. Phrases such as 'no one', 'no cars', 'no code', > 'no libraries', 'no binaries', 'no comments', 'no bikesheds', 'no spam', 'no > pets', etc. abound and all have 'no' as a separate word rather than as a > compound word. They are exceptions which prove the rule. Words in common use get combined. This has already happened for 'nothing', 'nobody' and 'NOMAN', etc., and is starting to happen for 'no one'. NOMAN was presumably a combined word to begin with so that it is easier to type. BruceReceived on Mon Apr 19 2004 - 16:42:54 UTC
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