~ murine tears

murine - of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, the mouse, rat or (more generally) any mammal of the family Muridae. (Wiktionary).

In the English language, most living creatures [or groups thereof] have a particular adjective which refers to them. Hence murine for mice. Corvine for crows. Caprine or hircine for goats. (Hircine may also mean ‘libidinous; lustful; excessively and overweeningly desirous’). Pavonine for peacocks. Columbine for pigeons. Nestorine for the New Zealandish Kea ... and so on.

At the foot of my file of interesting words (my ‘onomasticon’ to use the appropriate [and sesquipedalian] word) I have a list of these adjectives which I add to as I encounter them. I’ve always had a fairly voracious interest in the English tongue and this is one of the ways it manifests. It’s also a useful tool when writing.

So, imagine my uneasiness when I encountered the following in a Priceline catalogue ...


Might they host tours of their production facility? I would be curious to see weeping mice, to learn what is done to make them cry - and in such numbers and to such an extent as to maintain a successful product on the open market.

~ australian sceptics kow-tow to USA

The sceptic movement seems to have gained a great deal of traction from the rise of the podcast. The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, probably the most popular ‘cast on the theme, is certainly my first choice among postcasts and I'm continually meeting people who concur.

The movement has its heartland in the US, that appears obvious, and in the US it is allowable, and indeed correct, to spell sceptic with a 'k'. But why has the burgeoning Australian movement embraced this spelling?

Is it like the Australian ‘Labor’ Party all over again. To quote Wikipedia, “the party was influenced by the United States labor movement and a prominent figure in the early history of the party, the North American-born King O'Malley, was successful in having the spelling "modernised"” [Other reasons are given, but they are minor.]

The Americans, through the pious hand of Noah Webster, performed a lot of English modernisation [rather in the tradition of Orwellian Newspeak]. Hence: color not colour, meter not metre, defense not defence. For good or ill, Webster’s attempt to change tongue to tung failed. Similarly, bred for bread, masheen for machine and blud for blood.

And it’s like disk all over again, though I have noticed that the original tide of US-inspired floppy 'disks' and hard 'disks' has ebbed somewhat over the years and that the correct spelling of disc can now often seen in relation to computers

The Australian Skeptics do it. The young Australian Skeptics do it. The Skeptic Zone, an Australian podcast, does it. These guys are supposed to be critical thinkers. They’re supposed to be accurate. Why are they making this mistake? Is there something I’m not seeing?

Sceptic ‘pre-dates the settlement of the US and follows the French sceptique and Latin scepticus’. Some writers, including Samuel Johnson in his dictionary, spelled sceptic with a 'k', but it never caught on, as it did with, say, ‘skeleton’. The Americans, perhaps via the intercession of Webster, used ‘skeptic’, which was closer to the ancient Greek.

To quote Wikipedia : Australians generally follow British usage (with the notable exception of the Australian Skeptics).

I would really like an answer to this question. I'd hate to think that our sceptic movement is working out of ignorance.