[Foundation-l] Vandalism and small wikis

[Ray Saintonge]

geni wrote:

>On 11/29/06, Darko Bulatovic <mail at itam.ws> wrote:
>  
>
>>geni wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Not so much. there are a number of different forms of English and yet
>>>it is accepted that there is only one language. In some areas "thou"
>>>still exists. In others colour is spelled color. What standisation
>>>there is is often not goverment mandated.
>>>      
>>>
>>---  in mayor cases  Academies( or similar institutions) are working on
>>language standardisation. So that are working under Goverment policy on
>>educational and science level. Freedom in that filed is also regulated
>>on Goverment level, so in any case it is political meter. On that level
>>I was talking about.
>>    
>>
>Historically things have been somewhat different.
>  
>
>>Please check this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(spelling)
>>
>>Part of text: This table gives the accepted spellings (following
>>*government *guidelines and major dictionaries).
>>    
>>
>Governments at the present time are one of the few groups to produce
>enough material to need to create manuals of style. that does not mean
>they are required for standardisation of language
>
Governments also need style manuals for official publications, but these 
do not have the force of law for non-governmental operations.  Our 
schools never make reference to any kind of official spelling or grammar 
when teaching children.  English, more than any other language is based 
on history, custom and usage.  There is such a thing as poor language 
skills for native speakers, but one feature that makes it very difficult 
for the health of other languages is the easy acceptance by English of 
ways of speaking drawn from other languages.