Monday 8 March 2010

Cleansing of Wiktionary

Today I Googled 'minimise'. There was no reason for this, at all. Anyway, I found myself on Wiktionary, on the 'minimise' page, to be greeted with the following line:

"(British) Archaic spelling of minimize."

A 'Wiktionary' search of the word 'archaic', brings the following definitions:

"Of or characterized by antiquity; old-fashioned, quaint, antiquated, as an archaic word or phrase."

"(of words) No longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity."


I would very much like for the person who wrote this line to understand... minimise is the correct spelling of minimize. It isn't an alternative, it is the proper way. It also isn't antiquity, or quaint. I changeED it to be 'Correct spelling of minimize', but in seconds somebody had changed it back.

After some checking up, I found the person to be 'vandalising' this Wiktionary entry to be none other than 'Mr J. K.', a self-titled 'retired mainframe computing boffin'. I was extremely shocked to find he is actually English, and not American. A traitor to our country, one may say. I shall be sending him an informative email.


I then tried to change it back, to find I have been banned from editing for 'disruptive edits', by a Mr. Jiao. A fan of Taylor Swift and Zac Efron. Yep... a man who controls, and insults our language is a fan of Zac Efron. He too shall feel the wrath of my keyboard.

As soon as I have time, I shall go on a cleansing of Wiktionary, removing any reference to a word that uses the English 's' instead of the American 'z' as being 'old fashioned', 'incorrect' or 'alternative'. I hope any patriotic readers will also join the cause, and claim back our language.

*Takes a deep breath*. I don't mind the language being changed, but don't list in the 'English' section of the website that the proper spelling of it is incorrect.

Quick edit: Before anyone points out, I realise the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries are trying to turn to the dark side. I have also sent them an email.

8 comments:

  1. We might be 400 years behind the French but I hereby appoint you as leader of the 'English Academy'. It's quite a responsibility.

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  2. You might want to inform yourself a little about the ise/ize issue before going on this crusade. The popularity of '-ise' is new in Britain, 'ize' was traditionally used in Britain for words with Latin/Greek roots (-izaire, -izein).

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  3. You are very true. I was informed by the Oxford Dictionary too :(. There is a blog post to come one day about it! =)

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  4. James is one of the nicest, kindest guys I have worked with. Your logic and crusade against Americanisation is sound, but hassling James, is something that really isn't fair.

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    1. As somebody who clearly is active on Wiktionary, you should know that one blog post 4 years ago barely classes as a crusade (if only the Christian crusades gave up so easily), and, it wasn't really hassling either!

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  5. i don't get why you have burled out peoples pictures but provided links to there personal pages. Also as you have been corrected by the Oxford Dictionary, shouldn't you stop attacking people for their personal preference

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    1. Good point! I'll remove the link when I'm at a computer. Also, I haven't been corrected by Oxford, nothing calls using the 's' archaic, but OED have finally given in and said they can be used side by side.

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  6. Good! We spell things -ise in New Zealand too so people should stop discrediting that way of spelling > : ( ...
    'OED have finally given in and said they can be used side by side.' well, does sound like you made a different ^_^ minimise and minimize are both right.

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