Spelling (PR#6570) - R-devel

Tue, Feb 10, 2004 8:57 PM #

Oxford English Dictionary (online)

Subset, v.

  trans. To underlet, sublet.
 
  1681 STAIR Inst. Law Scot. I. xiii. 253 As the half may be sub-sett, so any other right less then the value of the half, is sustained as an Infeftment of warrandice. 1752 Scots Mag. Nov. 551/2 A small farm.., which he had subset at about 6 l. Sterling per annum. 1801 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 381 A missive of tack,..which made no mention of assignees,..was..found, neither capable of being assigned, nor subset. 1806 SCOTT Fam. Lett. (1894) I. 35, I have subset the whole of the sheep farm. 1838 W. BELL Dict. Law Scot. 582 To assign or subset a lease of the ordinary endurance of nineteen years.
 

    b. absol. or intr.
 
  1801 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 379 A tack of lands does not imply a power, either to assign, or even to subset. 1838 W. BELL Dict. Law Scot. 582 In such leases..an express authority to assign or subset must be given.
 

    Hence subsetting vbl. n.; subsettable a., capable of being subset.
 
  a1722 FOUNTAINHALL Decis. I. 454 The axiom against sub-setting is only against an assignment... But a sub-set is lawful, and was so found 12 March 1686. 1765-8 ERSKINE Inst. Law Scot. II. vi. ?33 (1773) 265 It remains a doubt, whether the power of subsetting is implied in the nature of a tack, without a special clause. Ibid., By a subset the principal tacksman is not changed. 1801 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 379 All tacks, likewise, that are to subsist for a great length of time, are also assignable, as well as subsettable.
 
Latchezar Dimitrov

PS. So you better ask non-native English speakers :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch 
[mailto:r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of 
MSchwartz@medanalytics.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 10:48 PM
To: r-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch
Cc: R-bugs@biostat.ku.dk
Subject: Re: [Rd] Spelling (PR#6570)


On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 21:14, Deepayan Sarkar wrote:

On Tuesday 10 February 2004 20:25, Roger D. Peng wrote:

Unfortunately, with English it's conceivable that they're both 
correct.  But the double 't' sounds/looks *more* correct

to me. Of

course, this is coming from a native English speaker who is 
generally unfamiliar with the rules of English.

On the other hand:

test --> testable?
arrest --> arrestable?
contest --> contestable?
detest --> detestable?
...

So maybe the single 't' is correct.  Did that clear things up?

This is probably not a valid comparison, since test->testing whereas
set->setting.

Oxford (OED) lists the word 'settable' but not 'setable'.

subsettable

(or
subsetable) is obviously an artificial word (we use subset

as a verb), but

presumably invented derivatives of 'subset' should behave

in a manner similar

to those of 'set'.

Deepayan


OK...wait a minute.  I just found the following at:

http://grammar.uoregon.edu/spelling1.html

[Go Ducks!]

To Wit:

DOUBLING A FINAL CONSONANT WHEN ADDING A SUFFIX: from 
"Correct Spelling Made Easy" (p. 69)


1) The word must end in just one consonant.
        
Compel (l + ed or ing) = Compelled; Compelling

But Not : Resist (+ ed or ing) = Resisted; Resisting
        
        
2) There must be only one vowel before the final single consonant.
        
Refer (r + ed or ing) = Referred; Referring

But Not: Appear = Appeared; Appearing
        

3) The last syllable of the verb must receive the accent.
        
Commit (accent on mit) = Committed; Committing
        
But Not: Profit = Profited; Profiting
        
        
4) The suffix to be added must start with a vowel--in order 
to double the final consonant.
        
Defer (r + ed) = Deferred

But Not: Defer + ment) Deferment


So, if these rules are correct, it should be "subsetable", as 
'subset' meets 1, 2 and 4, but fails 3, as the accented 
syllable according to various dictionaries is 'sub' and not 'set'.

Is it too late to change my vote?

Thus, 'testing' fails due to rule 1 ('st'), whereas it is 
'setting' due to 'et'.

HTH,

Marc

<I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming 
of...well...programming...>

______________________________________________
R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listi> nfo/r-devel

Marc Schwartz

Tue, Feb 10, 2004 9:38 PM #

On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 21:57, Latchezar Dimitrov wrote:

LOL....

OK....this would make sense then if the aforementioned grammar rules
were applied to the root word of 'set' rather than 'subset'. In other
words, it would be 'settable' as opposed to 'setable', then add the
prefix 'sub'.

If that is the case, then 'set' passes rule '3' regarding the accented
syllable, since of course 'set' has only one syllable.

Well...there ya have it...English...as clear as mud.

Marc

Brian Ripley

Mon, Feb 16, 2004 10:21 AM #

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Marc Schwartz wrote:

On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 21:57, Latchezar Dimitrov wrote:

Oxford English Dictionary (online)

Subset, v.

  trans. To underlet, sublet.
 
  1681 STAIR Inst. Law Scot. I. xiii. 253 As the half may be sub-sett,
so any other right less then the value of the half, is sustained as an
Infeftment of warrandice. 1752 Scots Mag. Nov. 551/2 A small farm..,
which he had subset at about 6 l. Sterling per annum. 1801 Farmer's
Mag. Nov. 381 A missive of tack,..which made no mention of
assignees,..was..found, neither capable of being assigned, nor subset.
1806 SCOTT Fam. Lett. (1894) I. 35, I have subset the whole of the
sheep farm. 1838 W. BELL Dict. Law Scot. 582 To assign or subset a
lease of the ordinary endurance of nineteen years.
 

    b. absol. or intr.
 
  1801 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 379 A tack of lands does not imply a power,
either to assign, or even to subset. 1838 W. BELL Dict. Law Scot. 582
In such leases..an express authority to assign or subset must be
given.
 

    Hence subsetting vbl. n.; subsettable a., capable of being subset.
 
  a1722 FOUNTAINHALL Decis. I. 454 The axiom against sub-setting is
only against an assignment... But a sub-set is lawful, and was so
found 12 March 1686. 1765-8 ERSKINE Inst. Law Scot. II. vi. ??33 (1773)
265 It remains a doubt, whether the power of subsetting is implied in
the nature of a tack, without a special clause. Ibid., By a subset the
principal tacksman is not changed. 1801 Farmer's Mag. Nov. 379 All
tacks, likewise, that are to subsist for a great length of time, are
also assignable, as well as subsettable.
 
Latchezar Dimitrov

PS. So you better ask non-native English speakers :-)


LOL....

OK....this would make sense then if the aforementioned grammar rules
were applied to the root word of 'set' rather than 'subset'. In other
words, it would be 'settable' as opposed to 'setable', then add the
prefix 'sub'.

If that is the case, then 'set' passes rule '3' regarding the accented
syllable, since of course 'set' has only one syllable.

Well...there ya have it...English...as clear as mud.

Is this English or American (you know, the language referred to in the USA
as `English')?  The rules (and usages) for doubling do differ between the
two languages: they can even differ by meaning for words with two or more
meanings (and don't ask me for examples as I have forgotten them).

As an English English speaker, my sense and my employer's dictionary both
suggest doubling here.

Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Marc Schwartz

Mon, Feb 16, 2004 1:33 PM #

On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 11:20, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

SNIP

I don't know that Peter has made a final decision, but I _think_ that
there was a general consensus on the use of the double "t".

I believe that it was Thomas, who earlier in this thread, suggested that
the English (as in 'not American') spelling is generally preferred in R
documentation, though there is a level of schizophrenia (his word)
regarding some things (ie. color vs. colour, etc.).

Best regards,

Marc

Douglas Bates

Mon, Feb 16, 2004 2:01 PM #

Marc Schwartz <MSchwartz@medanalytics.com> writes:

Yes, we don't have many in the Development Core Team who did their
pre-university education in the U.S.A., even among (which I initially
spelled as "amoung") those who currently live and work in the U.S.A.
Those born and schooled in Canada (Robert Gentleman, John Chambers,
Duncan Murdoch and me) outnumber those who were schooled in the U.S.A
(only Luke Tierney, I believe).  Others currently working in the
U.S.A. include Thomas Lumley (Australia) and Duncan Temple Lang
(Ireland).  All of us who were schooled on the British spellings and
now are expected to use American spellings in our everyday writing
have a certain level of schizophrenia.