I think ned heite should jump in here & explain to you why not only american
but also british & german and french and other languages using "latin"
characters put in "f"s in place of SOME "s"s in their texts -
US english is somewhat different, I was told, in that merriam-webster has
some form of official status that OED or its "commonwealth" equivalents
don't have (but don't quote me on it); more like the germans or french (&
israelis?) who have institutes which decide how things are going to be
spelled & how to invent new words for new computer technologies...
geoff carver - SUNY buffalo
[log in to unmask]http://www.lego.com/eng/play/games/
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Larry
Porter
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 14:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: speaking as an/a historian
American English (an oxymoron if I ever heard one!) is a work in progress.
They used to make an "s" look like a funny looking "f", for instance.