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Flavor vs. Flavour

Posted by michael on from the pedantry-will-get-you-nowhere dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A recent flamewar ensued on the Linux kernel mailing list, this time debating the proper spelling of 'flavor', or is it 'flavour'? Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds joined the fray with some rather humorous comments. For the most part, it sounds like spellings will stay as they are, but it makes for an entertaining read."

7 of 925 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Flavor, flavour... by fehlschlag · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Linux: It gots much flavah!

    Isn't that flava?

  2. Color vs. Colour by dicepackage · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So is there going to be a debate on using color over colour?

  3. HumoUr by javacowboy · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Linus Torvalds joined the fray with some rather humorous comments.

    You Americans don't know how to spell humourous.

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  4. U.S. spelling has the original forms by Nice2Cats · · Score: 0, Redundant
    We Americans should just grin and bear it, and accept the fact that our "English" is nonstandard.

    Maybe I missed something, but who exactly gets to go around and tell people which version of what language is the standard? Is this one of those United Nations things? Or did I skip a ISO-bulletin?

    There are 60 million people in Great Britain and 260 million in the U.S., which at least tells us what the norm is. Hollywood (where people with British accents are either evil or buttlers) and rock music (originally banned in the U.K.) both are pushing the American forms throughout the world to the point where the Brits are adopting them (try to find a Brit who still says "lorry" instead of "truck" and doesn't remember WW II first hand). British English is getting more quaint by the hour.

    What is more, American English has the original forms, basically because we colonials were happy to be able to read and write at all, while the Brits had all of this free time to fool around with their spelling and pronounciation. If you check Mr. Shakespeare's manuscripts, you'll find color, not colour, and the pronounciation and spelling of alumin(i)um (Brits "aluMINIum", Yanks "ALUminum") started out the American way, until those bloody English blokes started going continental on us for a while.

    Anyway, the thing to remember is that it isn't all that important. The real reason to have different versions is to have fun in the Buffy episode where they all lose their memory (Willow bungles a spell) and Spike and Giles think they are father and son...

  5. small preview of linux-2.6 by stardome · · Score: 0, Redundant

    $ echo 'main(){ printf("flavor!\n"); }' >fl.c
    $ cc fl.c
    $ ./a.out
    Segmentation fault
    $ TZ=GMT ./a.out
    flavor!
    $

  6. Re:Ahh Americans... Go fuck yourselfs by dr_yuhwei · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Anonymous coward!

  7. Re:Webster was a tool. by RatFink100 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    For correct reason, see quote Robin Williams Live on Broadway 2002 in reference to a parallel situation: King James breaking away from Rome and starting the Anglican church:

    That would be Henry VIII not James.