Talk:Oxford spelling

Cooperate, medieval and standard

This is a reply to

1) OED DOES hyphenate "co-operate," and is in fact well known for its use of hyphens. 2) mediEval is probably commoner than mediAEval in BrE. 3) re "standard": watch your terminology, mister!

1. It doesn't, actually. I have here in front of me the 11th edition of the COD and it spells cooperate. It gives the hyphenated form as an alternative spelling (read: non-Oxford spelling). So does the online Oxford dictionary.
2. I often read the 'mediaeval is en-GB, medieval is en-GB-oed' claim, but I'm not going to start an edit war over it. If you insist medieval is more common, let's assume you're right.
3. I don't like the term "standard British English" either, but I thought I'd use it because the article uses it too (" The use of -ize instead of -ise does not affect the spelling of words ending in -yse, which are spelt analyse, paralyse and catalyse in line with standard British usage"). MrTroy 21:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Oxford spelling" simply means "British spelling in combination with -ize instead of -ise". It is not connected to a specific dictionary. User:JackLumber was right. In the OED, the head word is spelt "co-operate". Although it should be noted that the entry for "co-operate" dates from the second revision 1989, in the next update they might switch to "cooperate", because the spelling without a hyphen has become more common.

For medieval, the OED gives "medieval". "mediaeval" is becoming increasingly rare.

What you are referring to is the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" (COD), a dictionary that is based on the OED and designed to be used in daily life. The OED however is a scientific reference, a huge database and the entries look very different from the entries in the COD. The focus is on etymology, historical usage etc... I doubt that you have access to the OED. I can use it via a university library account. A personal subcription is very expensive... See: [1] SpNeo 17:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]