Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 7

= August 7 =

Difference in use
Worshiper and Worshipper  with double p. --Marvellous Spider-Man (talk) 13:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, as used by American publications such as the London Evening Standard. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:31, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * And this CNN article uses the version with the double "p". Both variants have the same meaning - the single "p" is more common in the USA and the double "p" more common in the UK.  See wikt:worship. Tevildo (talk) 16:18, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * A search in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English shows that world-wide, "worshipper" occurs 1193 times while "worshiper" occurs only 332 times (3.6 to 1).  In the US, the ratio is 126 to 90 (1.4 to 1), and in Great Britain it is 256 to 27 (9.5 to 1).  So the double-p single-p form is much more common in the US although both forms occur in both places.  They are merely variant spellings and don't have any difference in meaning.  CodeTalker (talk) 16:44, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If I might ask a supplementary question - the numbers all seem remarkably low. I find it hard to believe that, in the past - 25? - years, fewer than 1200 people have written the word "worshipper" or "kitten" (1198).  What sources does it use, and how does the site determine the frequencies? Tevildo (talk) 23:05, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It might be interesting to get a breakdown of the use in Canada and Australia.  Both countries follow British spelling conventions.   Also, how accurate is this Corpus?   Does it allow, for example, for an American using his own spelling conventions in a British publication? 86.149.13.44 (talk) 17:18, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You can check for yourself by typing "worshipper|worshiper" in the search box. It says Canada is 48 to 16 (3.0 to 1) and Australia is 42 to 12 (3.5 to 1).  I haven't found any detailed description of how they identify the source country for their citations, although I know at least one professional linguist who uses it regularly, so it can't be too bad.  CodeTalker (talk) 17:25, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In New Zealand at least, the US version with single 'p' is more common than it ought to be because some newspapers, and especially the New Zealand Herald, print news items from US sources verbatim in what appears to be an automated process. I wouldn't mind betting that this influences the statistic for the UK, Canada, and Australia too. New Zealand otherwise follows the double-p version, and the double-l in 'travelling'. Akld guy (talk) 20:24, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In Oz too. You won't find any shops down here labelled (or even labeled) "Jeweler".  Unfortunately, you will find a few "confectionary"s, and even some "stationary"s.  Our national shame on full display.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:54, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't beat yourself up - I bet we've been using greengrocer's apostrophes in Britain since before Australia discovered. Alansplodge (talk) 12:18, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

In reply to in Canada all the major newspapers now use Canadian spellings even on American wire service articles. I assume they have an automated process that changes "center" to "centre" and so forth. This changed in the 1990s; see Canadian English. --Mathew5000 (talk) 02:27, 9 August 2016 (UTC)