Why can't fluther understand product name/numbers?

* cough * install * cough*

‘instal’ and ‘install’ are both correct according to several reputable dictionaries!

The common spelling is install. Using archaic spellings is, well, olde.

so who decides that a spelling is archaic? This is a British variant. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,
instal:
One entry found.
Main Entry:
in·stal
chiefly British variant of install

How do you explain the “cos”? Is that a British variant as well?

Just kidding, I know it’s not.

To answer the question, Fluther has no issue with program version names, or alphabet soup titles. Your question was moderated by a human moderator who requested that your discussion question have proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

this is silly, you must know perfectly well that cos is an abbreviation for because.

In the amount of time it has taken you to complain about the inappropriate spelling, you could have corrected the spelling and had your question re-posted.

There were no spelling mistakes in my message. A machine or human spell checker decided there were, but it/he/she was wrong. The important question is, what criteria are being used in making these decisions? No indication was given of WHICH words were wrongly spelled, so many people would be at a loss to know how to correct their messages. I am an editor of scientific texts and am not scared to argue my case, but many others might just give up. Surely this is not a good thing for the community.

I also edit manuscripts professionally, and the word “install” is never spelled “instal” despite what an online dictionary might say. Those were the mistaken words, and since one was glaringly in the title, it was returned for editing. It would be simple to change it, but, that is up to you.

‘the word “install” is never spelled “instal”’ – what do you base that claim on? A google search produced 14,500,000 hits for instal.

Anyway I’m now bored with this. I see you don’t know what you’re talking about so I will retire from this community. If your aim is to alienate people, you have succeeded in this case.

By the way, you don’t need the comma here: “but, that is up to you”. Check whatever authorities you rely on to verify that.

Squribel said “Your question was moderated by a human moderator who requested that your discussion question have proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.” My question did have proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation: the human moderator made a mistake, and doesn’t want to admit it.

Its INSTALL Jesus
For being argumentative why isn’t vimipa blocked or suspended for a short time ?

I beg your pardon, but ’“install” is NOT THE ONLY CORRECT SPELLING! Why do people want to insist it is? Do you think ‘color’ is the only correct way to spell ‘colour’?! Check the dictionaries please.

@vimipa Shilolo might not have “needed a comma” where he put it, but it was still grammatically correct. Just saying….

The moderator probably isn’t familiar with British spellings. You can send a message to the moderator arguing your case. About half of the questions I submit get moderated; it’s not a big deal.

cos means cosine.

@phoenyx Half? Come now…

No need to beg this one to stay.

wow, it’s already gotten to the point when people base their reasoning on search engine results, as if the search engine is infallible. a search engine searches through impure [wrong] as well as the pure [correct] and grey sources.

I live in Britain. I’m quite British. Nobody spells “install” with one L. If you spelt install with one L, it would be circled by your teacher. You are mistaken.

Searching the Cambridge English dictionary for “instal” redirects to “install”:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=instal

Looking in my shelf copy of the Oxford English dictionary, only “install” is listed.

I think it’s also worth nothing that you cited Merriam Webster; an American dictionary. The variation they have is retired English, and has no place being used today.

Hope this helps.

“spelt”

I’ve always preferred this spelling to “spelled”. Unfortunately, people would think I had dropped a few points of IQ for using it here in America. /sigh :D

That’s a whole another debate. ;)

But seriously nobody should be using “instal”, unless they also use “olde”.

Oh, and welcome to Fluther. <3

Even if “install” is out of the debate clearly there are other spelling issues that you need to address such as thinking that “cos” is reasonable ever. There is a reason that an entire generation of students can’t spell and it’s because of the internet. There are tons of articles about students that turn in “text speak” and things like “cos” in academic papers. Is it that much harder to throw in the other FOUR letters to the word? No wonder Americans come off as so dumb, it’s because we somehow believe that text speak is acceptable and that search engine result numbers count as viable evidence. All that means is that either the 14,500,000 results were the computer reading the word “install” wherein you will find “instal” or there are 14,500,000 other people that can’t spell.

@shilolo
I’ve submitted 7 questions in the past week or so, 3 of which were moderated.

@richardhenry: “Nobody spells “install” with one L”

Well, here’s one example: Susan Carruthers, writing in the Times Higher Education:

“The stricture of electoral success also frequently denies a place to sundry activists, unionists, and revolutionaries who challenged, or sometimes helped instal, the incumbents of office upon whom the dictionary concentrates.”

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=158574&sectioncode=26

You can easily find more examples. Why do people prefer to dogmatize instead of investigating? Instal is considered by many educated people as acceptable. Is that so hard to accept?

@vimipa are you British?

@adreamofautumn: is that relevant? I’m presenting evidence to back my claim, from UK and US sources. Anyway I am British: I teach scientific communication in a university in Finland. But that’s irrelevant too of course.

@vimipa You dig up an online citation that itself may or may not have been (professionally) edited, and that is what you use for support? I’m sure I could find you citations of misspelled words from the New York Times. Would that prove that a word is spelled that way, or just that the misspelled word slipped through the cracks?

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Winning the battle, Losing the war?” You certainly have not achieved your goal of obtaining advice on how to Install Quicktime, that is for sure.

dear shilolo, you can easily find examples yourself. Why have you decided before looking that things are the way you thought they were?

RAWR!

@vimipa it’s relevant because if you’re British I will see your argument as worthwhile and correct, however if you’re American I will assume that you’re a. one of those types that is desperately trying to pretend they’re British or b. you misspelled and are trying to save your own ass. Since you are British it alters my viewpoint. Though I do have to wonder how a professor somehow finds “cos” acceptable. I am not looking for a fight, I just know that if I wrote “cos” anywhere any professor I know would have a red pen field day with it.

@vimipa Because, in the common language usage, install is spelled install. There is neither a need to look it up, nor a need to argue about it.

Cos cos is not proper English; but cos is proper math!

See what I did thar?

but dear adreamofautumn, you need to consider things like audience, style, tone, purpose, medium, before deciding what is appropriate in language. Of course my students know that cos or ain’t are not suitable in academic texts. But we are not writing academic texts here.

@vimipa I know we aren’t, I just feel that use of words like “cos” are dumbing down the entire world. I’m sorry that I attacked, it’s a personal pet peeve that I really can’t stand. I am well educated and as my mother has mentioned on a regular basis she “wouldn’t have paid thousands of dollars on my education if she knew I would end up speaking like I never saw the inside of a classroom”.

I am Scottish and i spell it install never have i seen it “instal” thats just plain stupid i take it “vimipa” you are English, they like to argue even tho they are wrong .

@vimipa What’s with the “dear”? You clearly don’t mean it to be endearing, so you are using sarcasim to get your point across?

Oh god, I’m sad I missed this.
But I was rocking out to WHAM! in my best friend’s car. :)

@asmonet And having a MUCH better time than we are.

@asmonet I was here to make snarky comments at least :).

@chyna I’m sorry you didn’t understand that I used the word ‘dear’ to soften the tone. This discussion was getting acrimonious and I wanted to get away from that.

Sandystrachan says: “I am Scottish and i spell it install never have i seen it “instal” thats just plain stupid i take it “vimipa” you are English, they like to argue even tho they are wrong”, and several other people make similar comments.

1. The fact that you are Scottish or anything else is irrelevant to the discussion of whether a particular spellling is considered acceptable. To decide that, you need to consult reputable dictionaries such as the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, which I have in front of me now, and oh, I see is says “install (or instal)”.

2. The fact that you spell it install is also irrelevant. Millions of people spell colour ‘color’, but that doesn’t make ‘colour’ wrong.

3. The fact that you think you have never seen it spelled instal is also irrelevant. Our memory of what we have seen in print is very unreliable, and anyway millions of people can correctly say they have never seen ‘colour’ spelled with a u, but that is irrelevant: the fact is both variants are considered acceptable. Again, the only way to find out whether variants are considered acceptable is to consult dictionaries and other reference works.

4. Generalizations about ethnic groups are often false, and to many people they sound racist. Moreover, a poster’s ethnic origins are irrelevant to a discussion about whether variant spellings are acceptable.

5. If people want to continue the discussion about spelling – why there are rules, how they differ in different varieties of English around the world, how to determine whether a spelling is acceptable in a particular variety etc. – I’ll take part. But if people just want to make snarky comments and are not interested in the main issues, I’m outta here. (Or is it ‘outa’? :-)

Why would you install Quick Time 7.2? Surely WMP or RealPlayer would work just as well and come pre-installed and easier to synchronize

Thank you sandystrachan for going back to my original question. It seems you need Quick time if you want podcasts to be stored in the right folder etc. I just got the Sony walkman and I don’t know much about it yet.

Thank you also for the nice goodbye song. Actually I was only trying to help, by sharing my knowledge – isn’t that what this is all about? But then I’m new here too. Maybe I got it wrong.
PS it’s irrelevant, but as it happens I’m a fellow Celt. Make of that what you will.

What Sony do you have ?
And couldn’t you just use WMP and make the relevant folders yourself ? and have them get saved there all the time ?

Sony NWZ-S638FS 8GB, and you need the Quick time to instal(l) something called Media Manager, to make the drag and drop work properly. But I keep getting a “failure installing Quick Time 7.2” message – it goes through the installation process but at the end this failure message appears. Seems to be a common problem – several people mention it on Amazon but no solutions are offered.

But the point about the comma was correct.

@Jeruba I disagree. I used the extra comma on purpose, for effect. Rather than say “It would be simple to change it, but that is up to you,” I said “It would be simple to change it, but, that is up to you.” I deliberately emphasized the “but”.