R devel - Apr 2003 - British or American spelling?

I was curious to read the following in the "Guidelines for Rd files"
at
http://developer.r-project.org/Rds.html:

     "For consistency, aim to use British (rather than American) spelling.
      (NB: British spelling often uses -ize as in `capitalize'. The view of 
spell -b
      of British spelling is a flawed American one. There are English/Scottish
      differences too.)"

because R seems to use American spellings throughout, e.g., "color"
instead
of "colour".

What is the current R-devel view on this?

Gordon

>>>>> Gordon Smyth writes:
> I was curious to read the following in the "Guidelines for Rd
files" at
> http://developer.r-project.org/Rds.html:
>      "For consistency, aim to use British (rather than American)
>      spelling.  (NB: British spelling often uses -ize as in
>      `capitalize'. The view of > spell -b of British spelling is a
>      flawed American one. There are English/Scottish differences
>      too.)"
> because R seems to use American spellings throughout, e.g.,
"color"
> instead of "colour".
> What is the current R-devel view on this?
I don't think it is 'throughout' but rather a mixture of both, for
both
R and packages on CRAN, and I don't think we can force the exclusive
use of British spelling.  

Actually, this is one of the main motivations for having functionality
for fuzzy matching in R.

-k

At 10:05 PM 27/04/2003, Kurt Hornik wrote:
> >>>>> Gordon Smyth writes:
>
> > I was curious to read the following in the "Guidelines for Rd
files" at
> > http://developer.r-project.org/Rds.html:
>
> >      "For consistency, aim to use British (rather than American)
> >      spelling.  (NB: British spelling often uses -ize as in
> >      `capitalize'. The view of > spell -b of British spelling
is a
> >      flawed American one. There are English/Scottish differences
> >      too.)"
>
> > because R seems to use American spellings throughout, e.g.,
"color"
> > instead of "colour".
>
> > What is the current R-devel view on this?
>
>I don't think it is 'throughout' but rather a mixture of both,
for both
>R and packages on CRAN, and I don't think we can force the exclusive
>use of British spelling.
Thanks for that. I was considering going through my Rd files and making 
changes in line with the recommendation, but now I will leave as is.

Even though I live in a British spelling country, it makes sense to me to 
use American spellings for publically available programs and associated 
documentation.
>Actually, this is one of the main motivations for having functionality
>for fuzzy matching in R.
>
>-k
Cheers
Gordon