Talk:humorously
Latest comment: 14 years ago by DCDuring
Why exactly is the spelling 'humourously' considered obsolete? — This comment was unsigned.
- "Obsolete" is supposed to be used here to mean that it would not longer be understood. "Archaic" means that it is used to be intentionally old-fashioned, but would be understood. "Dated" is used especially when we have information about when a term was in fashion and when it fell out of fashion. None of these quite fit this spelling.
- The facts are that
- this spelling was formerly more common than it is now.
- was never common in the US.
- occurs but once in BNC, compared to 45 occurrences for "humorously"
- occurs about 1/20 as often in current Google news as "humorously", mostly in non-US publications
- HTH DCDuring TALK 17:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)