On Thursday 31 August 2006 04:42, Charles Curley wrote: > > I had always thought fuze (as detonator) a Briticism, so I looked it > up in my copy of Mencken's The American Language (1982, as updated > with new material by Raven McDavid). According to Mencken, in both > senses it is a Briticism. > > Further, he says that American spelling is gaining ground even in > Britain, and that even the Overdose of English Dictionary prefers some > American spellings to English, e.g. ax to axe. He cites the (British) > Authors' and Printers' Dictionary (1956) as preferring jail and jailer > over gaol and gaoler, and fuse to fuze. > > In a footnote, he refers to the Dictionary of U.S. Army Terms > (Washington, 1943) as preferring fuze for a detonating device. > > That lead me to look it up in the Overdose Of English Dictionary > (1971), which accepts both spellings for both the detonator and > bringing together, but doesn't mention the electrical device at > all. It includes a 1644 use of fuse in the former sense. > > On spell checking this email, I found that the aspell dictionary > doesn't accept fuze as sufficiently American. > > Is everyone now thoroughly muddled? Good. Yup - it sounds to me like one of those words that no-one wants to own :-) Rather like the instrument that we call the French Horn. I think the French call it a German Horn, and no doubt the Germans have a different name for it. Anne
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