GNU bug report logs - #1476
23.0.60; spelling of (un)writeable should be (un)writable

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From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: "'Lawrence Mitchell'" <wence <at> gmx.li>, <1476 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>,
        <emacs-pretest-bug <at> gnu.org>
Cc: <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Subject: bug#1476: 23.0.60; spelling of (un)writeable should be (un)writable
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 05:43:19 -0800

> > Emacs manual, node Directory Variables.
> > Please change "unwriteable" to "unwritable".
> 
> > Not very important, since this is just an invented name in 
> > an example, but it can lead users to think that's the spelling
> > and thus to look for such a term in the future.  Googling shows
> > that similar bugs have been logged for Scheme, Python, man
> > pages, and elsewhere.
> 
> FWIW the OED says both are fine: writable, a. Also writeable.

English has no equivalent of l'Academie Francaise, and that includes the OED.

It's about general usage, in practice. Whether "both are fine" is really beside
the point. There are lots of English expressions that are fine or that are used
in some contexts by some people, but which if used generally will get you stares
of incomprehensibility most of the time.

"writeable" is relatively little used, which means that users who go looking for
matches for "writeable" will generally be handicapped wrt what they find.

Please see the bugs I referenced for other software, or google for yourself, to
see how others are handling this. Again, maybe everyone in the world is wrong,
but it's about helping users find what they need.

Google, BTW, is smart enough to return "writable" hits for a "writeable" query,
but grep, Emacs search, etc. are less forgiving.

Again though, not the most important bug.

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