Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On Tue, 11 Mar 2025 08:02:36 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 10/03/2025 21:02, rbowman wrote:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:10:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

On 10/03/2025 05:09, rbowman wrote:

On 09 Mar 2025 21:56:33 -0400, Rich Alderson wrote:
>

The original Tom Swift books date to before Curtiss, so that Tom
Swift's airplane (or was it still aeroplane?) used wing warping.

>
Probably. My brother went to college to become an AE when he got back
from WWII and always said 'aeroplane'. I suppose it was consistent as
he spent his career in the aerospace industry.

Aeroplane was the original spelling
>
Americans couldn't cope with the diphthong though.

 
Unless Brits say the word very strangely, which is entirely possible,
the AE has neither the long e (algae) or long i (alumnae) value.  'Air'
and 'Aer' are pronounced the same.

By Americns.
 

The question is it really needs to be turned into a three syllable word
with the addition of 'o'.
 

No, the question is why Americans who are soi find of inventing
polysyllabic words like 'burglarize' or 'copacetic;' couldn't cope with
three syllables.
 
Its probably because they didn't invent the word.
 
Aeroplane: late 19th century: from French aéroplane, from aéro- ‘air’ +
Greek -planos ‘wandering’.

Just because you let a good Anglo-Saxon language get corrupted by William
the Bastard and his little froggy friends doesn't mean we give a shit what
the French called it.