on 19/3/02 9:09 PM, Spehro Pefhany at speff@INTERLOG.COM wrote:

Spehro,

> The "it" above was a reference to the use of "hobbiest", which is NOT a
> correct spelling of "hobbyist" anywhere in the English-speaking world.

My apologies Spehro, I did not even notice "hobbiest", as my attention was
drawn to your [u] - as I am sure was Jim's - he is a New Zealander after
all. ;-)

> Anyone claiming otherwise should provide an authoritative cite.

No. Was never referring to "hobbiest" - just favour.

> I did provide the optional 'u' above to be inclusive of both people of
> the Southern mainland and the other regions such as the frozen Northern
> hinterland, the fog-bound Eastern islands and the Antipodian island
> portions of the English-speaking world. ;-)

The u is not optional. It was dropped by our friends in the United States to
make things eazier for them. :-)

> PICs, like all computers, tend to do just what they are told. I think
> most good programmers are a bit anal-retentive about details. There
> are regional variations, as have already been mentioned, and there is
> just "wrong". The PIC won't guess what you meant, it will just do as it
> is told, exactly (hardware problems aside).

Yes. Although, I have not yet seen the command MOVHOBBYIST in any of my PIC
text books! :-)

> The English rules are not applicable to people who don't have English as a
> first language, it must be extremely difficult, as it confuses even us
> native speakers from time to time.

I admire anybody who can converse in a language other than their own -
particularly in a technical and engineering context.

> According to Google, hobbyist is misspelt on the web this way about 7%
> of the time. The worst word I've found is actually more often misspelt
> (or misspelled) on the web than it is spelled correctly!

Oh, this seems this is a *hobby* of yours! :-) I get quite annoyed when
Google says; "Did you mean [insert American spelt equivalent here].

Where is the button for "No, I did NOT @^$#en mean ...."

Cheers,

Sean

> Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

PS: - It's analogue! :-)

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