Open Bug 241181 Opened 20 years ago Updated 2 years ago

inconsistent spelling of cancelled or canceled in Mozilla.

Categories

(Core :: General, defect)

defect

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: patrick.hendriks+bugzilla, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: bugday0420)

Attachments

(1 file, 1 obsolete file)

This probably affects several products/components.
[Darn, that one fired of too quickly.]

Spawned of from bug 241101 and notably bug 241101 comment 3: The word
cancelled/canceled is spelled inconsistenly in Mozilla. 

According to lxr it's almost 50/50 between "cancelled" and "canceled"
    629 cancelled
    552 canceled

This bug is similar to bug 237517 which deals with inconsistent spelling on the
Mozilla web pages.

If i have to pick, i'd go for "cancelled" :)
Severity: normal → trivial
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: PC → All
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Grepping the source almost all uses of the word cancel[l]ed are in variable
names etc. This is annoying to developers, but I don't propose to go and fix
these unless there's demand for it.

I will however attach a patch to fix the one case this occurs in the UI (in the
download manager and its associated help).

Note to language pedants:

"cancelled" is the only correct spelling in UK (and, I believe) Australian/NZ
English
Both "cancelled" and "canceled" are accepted in US spelling, although
"cancelled" wins by a 4:1 margin on a google search. (Assuming the vast majority
of sites returned by google.com are US sites).

I know that the default localisation is technically the US English language
pack. Realistically though there are no active localisation efforts for other
English dialects, and I think the default should therefore use the spelling that
is most applicable, i.e. "cancelled".

Patch coming up to change user visible instances of "canceled" -> "cancelled".
Assignee: general → Bruce.Davidson
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Comment on attachment 146719 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch to fix use of "canceled" in user-visible text. Fixes Mozilla and Firefox.

Requesting r/sr (rs=?) on this patch for 1.8 trunk.
Attachment #146719 - Attachment description: Proposed patch to fix use of "canceled" in user-visible text → Proposed patch to fix use of "canceled" in user-visible text. Fixes Mozilla and Firefox.
Attachment #146719 - Flags: superreview?(scc)
Attachment #146719 - Flags: review?(neil.parkwaycc.co.uk)
Previous patch missed out .properties files. I have now included these in the
patch (an extra 6 occurrences).
Attachment #146719 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #146722 - Flags: superreview?(bryner)
Attachment #146722 - Flags: review?(neil.parkwaycc.co.uk)
Attachment #146722 - Flags: review?(neil.parkwaycc.co.uk) → review+
"Canceled" is the preferred U.S. spelling. All American dictionaries include
"canceled", but not all of them include "cancelled".

$ grep '^cancel' /usr/share/dict/words
cancel
canceled
canceling
cancellation
cancellations
cancels
Note that changing this without having a clear guideline somewhere as to the
"right" spelling in the Mozilla codebase will only lead to new inconsistencies
getting checked in later....

Also note that you want to remove review requests on obsolete patches, usually.
Found the option in google to restrict results to US sites: 2,690,000 for
"cancelled", 849,000 for "canceled" - so "cancelled" would still appear to be
the dominant usage. comment 7 is a good point, but not sure who is empowered to
make such decisions, drivers?
Attachment #146719 - Flags: superreview?(scc)
Attachment #146719 - Flags: review?(neil.parkwaycc.co.uk)
(In reply to comment #7)
> Note that changing this without having a clear guideline somewhere as to the
> "right" spelling in the Mozilla codebase will only lead to new inconsistencies
> getting checked in later....

True enough. 
Is there any specific place in the coding guidelines where this should go?
Attachment #146722 - Flags: superreview?(bryner) → superreview+
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
Bruce comment #8:
> ... not sure who is empowered to make such decisions, drivers?

is this point already approved, per neil's review+?
Well I'm British, so I'm biased :-)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > Note that changing this without having a clear guideline somewhere as to the
> > "right" spelling in the Mozilla codebase will only lead to new inconsistencies
> > getting checked in later....
> 
> True enough. 
> Is there any specific place in the coding guidelines where this should go?

See rule 2 in the following link.

http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/rules/verbspell.html

or maybe someone should seek out a real, bona fide, spelling bee champion or
something.  (In reply to comment #9)
Assignee: mozilla → nobody
Product: SeaMonkey → Core
QA Contact: general → general
Whiteboard: bugday0420
Blocks: 506041
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/search?string=canceled
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/search?string=cancelled

What should we do here? I'd create a patch, you just need to make a decision what to change.
After reading through the posts here, it appears to me that "Cancelled" is what we should use. Not only is it used in almost all English dialects, but it also appears to be the most used in the US.

(It should probably be added to the built-in US dictionary as well.)
Blocks: 577266
No longer blocks: 506041
Severity: trivial → S4
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