From: Alan Cox Subject: Re: [PATCH] ext3: Fix typos in messages and comments (journalled -> journaled) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:27:11 +0100 Message-ID: <20080430212711.168bdcc0@core> References: <12095679813226-git-send-email-jack@suse.cz> <12095679812375-git-send-email-jack@suse.cz> <12095679812452-git-send-email-jack@suse.cz> <1209567981639-git-send-email-jack@suse.cz> <20080430104330.66c44d4f.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Jan Kara , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org To: Andrew Morton Return-path: Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:55145 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1760899AbYD3Ue6 (ORCPT ); Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:34:58 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20080430104330.66c44d4f.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:43:30 -0700 Andrew Morton wrote: > On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:06:15 +0200 > Jan Kara wrote: > > > - "EXT3-fs: Cannot change journalled " > > + "EXT3-fs: Cannot change journaled " > > hrm, who said? This has come up several times before so I thought it might be time to finally dig to the bottom of the pile and end it forever. I put on my library hat and went for a dig: the verb is in fact "to journalize", which according to the OED means "enter (notes or information) in a journal" Journal itself is strictly a noun. Thus in English it would be correct for a file system to have a journal (from the latin diurnalis if anyone cares) but it would appear that it is a journalizing file system. The American dictionaries appear to agree with this viewpoint. If we regard "journalizing" as incorrect then the natural way to end the word would be -lled for British English and -led would certainly sound and feel wrong. Indeed the search for the OED turns journalled into journal when guessing near words but refuses to consider journaled. Our existing policy is not to mess with US v UK v AU v CA v .. spelling and that is probably wise. A search of the ACM literature finds "journalized", "journalled" and "journaled" are all in use for this operation. I would submit the correct patch is to change the words to journalizing and journalized. That would put Linux in agreement with the dictionary, avoid US v UK meaning differences and not pose a problem linguistically as all forms are currently in use. Alan