Is it "two weeks' notice" or "two weeks notice"?

This came up recently. Is it "two weeks' notice" or "two weeks notice"?

According to the University of South Australia site the apostrophe is included, but according to the Australian Government's style guide it isn't included.

I consider this to be the situation where our language is evolving and the apostrophe is no longer needed. Interestingly Microsoft's grammar checker suggests the apostrophe should be included. If the language has evolved then the suggestion by Microsoft's grammar checker is now wrong and misleading people. I've seen quite a few examples of where the spellcheckers suggest incorrect words so this isn't a total surprise.

What do you think?

Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

President Obama misspells respect. Notice the laughter from the audience.

We all make mistakes when spelling, even the president of the United States of America. In referring to Aretha Franklin's famous song, President Obama spelt respect as RSPECT. If you think people don't notice incorrect spelling, perhaps think again. The audience laughs at the fumble by the president. In this case the people are laughing at the president and not with the president.

You can view the video here.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

Is it driver's licence or drivers licence. McDonald's Amore terms and conditions uses American spelling.

The question of driver's licence or drivers licence comes up often. If you check the internet you'll find government sites using both. VicRoads even has both versions used on its site, but to be fair, the one I found is for a link to the Magistrates' Court.

In the following image, which is from the McDonald's Amore competition terms and conditions, you'll see McDonald's is using the American spelling of license instead of licence. That is clearly an error. However, they also use Australian driver's license, whereas they should be using Australian drivers licence.

In this usage the phrase drivers licence is a generic term which is a descriptive plural noun and not a possessive. Another common example is visitors book. It is driver's licence when referring to a particular person's licence. Personally I find this quite confusing and understand how this makes the language more difficult.

The American spelling is never valid in Australia. The use of driver's licence where drivers licence should have been used however is a very easy mistake to make.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

What is the meaning of WTS I've noticed appearing on online noticeboards where people buy and sell items.

I find the use of acronyms can be confusing to newcomers to a service. The advantage of the acronyms however is they can be placed at the start of the subject for a post and then people can quickly decide whether or not they are interested in reading the post. The common acronyms I've identified are:
WTS - Want to Sell

FS - For Sale

WTB - Want to Buy

WTH - Want to Hire
Hopefully this will make things clearer for people using the online sites. 

Kelvin Eldridge 
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.

Crossword dictionary. Would anyone be interested if I developed a web app to help solve crosswords?

I like to write fairly simple calculators and make them available online for others to use. If you visit www.justlocal.com.au/apps you'll see that I've been quite busy writing calculators to do a variety of tasks. In essence, I use these dictionaries myself, so for me they serve a purpose and if others use them too, that's great also.

I envisage the crossword dictionary solver would enable you to enter the number of letters and then enter the letters you already know. If the list of matching words is under a certain number then the list will display.

Before putting too much time into developing a crossword dictionary solver using the preferred Australian English spelling, I thought i'd ask you my readers. Let me know if it would help you by leaving a short comment against this blog post. Thank you in advance for your feedback.  

Kelvin Eldridge 

www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

Is it curb or kerb?

Now here's an interesting headline that had me wondering what the heck it was trying to say.

The word 'curb' in the headline is an incorrect spelling of the word in a UK publication. The headline should read, 'Prez Obama kicks Healthcare.gov contractor to the kerb for web disaster'.

This news item appeared in The Register site which is a UK site. I couldn't help wonder how come this particular spelling error appeared, when other words such as 'programme' were correct for the UK. (Program is the preferred Australian English spelling.) That made me wonder where the author was located. It turns out the author is based in the States. For the States this is the correct spelling.

The words 'curb' and 'kerb' to me fascinating in that both spelling variations are correct in Australia and America, but we use the opposite spelling in Australia as they do in America.

Perhaps this is also a lesson for Australian organisations and individuals wishing to outsource their written work to people overseas. There are many differences in the English language that have developed over time in different regions. Some differences are very obvious, but some can be quite subtle.

Kelvin Eldridge

www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

Assisting Australians with the preferred Australian English spelling.

Are you using the preferred Australian English spelling?

I recently received an email which prompted me to write a quiz where people could check ten words to see if they're using the preferred Australian English spelling. You can find the quiz at http://www.australian-dictionary.com.au/preferredspellingquiz/.

What I find interesting when people try the quiz is their expression when they feel rather proud they have all the words spelt correctly to find out they only have six or seven spelt according to the preferred Australian English spelling.

Give the quiz a go and check if you're using the preferred Australian English spelling. Thank you Alex for contacting me and sharing your thoughts.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.