Monday, June 23, 2008

War of the Websters

advisor
-- Webster's New World College Dictionary preferred spelling

adviser
-- Merriam-Webster preferred spelling

2 comments:

Joel said...

This is actually a huge encouragement and comfort. I'm always a little stressed about the -er -ors (a little "errors," a little "Eeyore," a little "errr, um, or . . ."). You could probably have a series just on them. Maybe I'm imagining this, but it seems to me that sometimes (i.e., with other -er -or pairs) it does make a difference, that it isn't just a matter of a preferred spelling but that there is some nuance of meaning between the two. Or maybe that's just something I've interpolated into the accident of affixation (sigh; I wanted to say "accident of accidence" but that's a little too sloppy).

June Casagrande said...

Glad to hear it's comforting! (That was my hope.)

The NY Times, I noticed today, still uses "adviser."

Conversely, a search of LA Times archives for the last four years shows 6,096 hits for "advisor" (which now that paper's official style), yet there are still 81 hits for "adviser."

Hopefully, that compounds the comforting effect -- even the big guys seem a little messed-up on this one.

Re doing more -er/-or stuff: will do just as soon as I can come up with some more. (For some reason, not a single other one comes to mind. Happy to take suggestions!)

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