Bug: spelling of "en route"

[Pecunia]

Shipment of 100 [gold] from Leucippium enroute to Mestonia!

The correct spelling is "en route", see Wiktionary.

[MoonHeart]

R U sure? I thought it was one word.

[Pecunia]

100% sure, even though I'm not even a native English speaker. See also the definition of "enroute" at Wiktionary (or any other dictionary for that matter). It's from French "en route", meaning "on the way".

[Sandra Linkletter]

Webster's Unabridged (hardcopy) agrees with Pecunia.

[Agamemnus]

How do you misspell a non-English word?

[goonsquad]

I think this may be a case of evolving language. My feeling is that language is not necessarily what is written in dictionaries, but what is in general usage. I've seen enroute in English as a single word frequently, and regardless of its origins, I would regard it as a legitimate word.

Con sider the word "gay". There is its original meaning, its 70s-80s meaning, and more recently it has a third meaning (uncool). Nobody uses the word for its original meaning anymore, it has evolved and continues to do so.

[dreadmime]

It /is/ a legitimate "Americanized" version. However, the actual spelling is en route. This is the same as how many folks in america tend to spell words slightly differently, and how funnier still, things like FireFox's spell checker tries to correct the "correct spelling" (at least, according to many of my Chemistry-aligned friends who deal with the international community attest to) of Aluminium to Aluminum. The british version is the "accepted true spelling" for most intents and purposes. But most Americans (and clearly the editors of the dictionary/spellcheck in FF3.) spell it Aluminum.

*shrug* Not a terribly large bug to quibble over.

[Sandra Linkletter]

Yes, as an American chemist I can tell you that we call that element aluminum. My grandfather called it aluminium and I thought it was because he was not terribly literate. Later I found out that people from his part of America speak a form of English that is a lot closer to what was spoken during colonial days. I don't know why it changed. I learned to spell "sulfur" as "sulphur", in high school, but by the time I got to graduate school it had become sulfur. I didn't grow up in a small town, either.

I also learned "catalogue" and "analogue", which had lost their "ue" by the time I entered university. Oddly enough, "vacuum" remains stubbornly bizzare, despite my spelling it as "vacumn" for 30 years before someone pointed out my mistake to me.

However, just because poorly educated people mis-spell words and mis-use grammer, doesn't make it a legitimate change in the language. The clerks at my local grocery can't properly use the words "they're", "there", and "their". Shall we all descend to their level? Or perhaps, "there" level?

[goonsquad]

Australia has its own hybrid of "the Queen's English" and the American variety. We have sulphur and aluminium, (both of which fail the Firefox spell check), the party in Government is called the Australian Labor Party, but most other -our words are spelt the English way. Catalogue seems to retain its ue, but analog not. Dialogue as in communication is spelt the old way, dut a dialog box in Windows is almost a different word. We generally use -ise rather than the American -ize, the last letter of the alphabet is called zed, not zee. And in this country, mad means bonkers, rather than angry (this was changed in C4 just before its release- people were "mad" if they didn't have food, I suppose hunger will do that to someone). And "eftpos" is now a fair dinkum, ridgy didge word, created through usage.

I recently had a scroll from an American (no names) using the word "arse" (rather than "ass"). This I found highly impressive.

[Caesar Clifford]

I recently had a scroll from an American (no names) using the word "arse"

Yeah in this part of the world we tend to call an arse an arse but it is always amusing when Americans use the word ass which here is a donkey not a backside. Interestingly arse is not in my dictionary for Firefox and it insists on telling me I have spelt the word wrong.

[King Faticus]

ass means a donkey in America too o-0
don't know why is became arse aswell


btw I say arse

[Jacquou Le]

I'm cool with "enroute" or "en route". But I prefer "en route" just bacause it's easier (for me) to recognize the word. When I read "enroute", I have to pause a short moment to know it as "on the way". Maybe I have reading problem. Maybe not. I don't know, but again, I prefer "en route".