Author Topic: RM whinges -- 10-Letter Spoiler 21 Nov 2012  (Read 1908 times)

rogue_mother

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RM whinges -- 10-Letter Spoiler 21 Nov 2012
« on: November 22, 2012, 12:11:35 AM »
I am frustrated by a couple of inconsistencies in today's 10-letter puzzle. Metered is common, but metred is not. On the other hand, mitred is common but mitered is not. ???????
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Morbius

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Re: RM whinges -- 10-Letter Spoiler 21 Nov 2012
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2012, 06:54:16 PM »
Ditto, RM!  The logic (or apparent lack of it) is hard to fathom. 

Gaye Christine

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Re: RM whinges -- 10-Letter Spoiler 21 Nov 2012
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2012, 05:52:49 PM »
My take is that metered is common (as in measured on a meter, eg gas meter) but metred is not (only use I can think would be referring to what metre a poem is set in, not in the sense of the distance, that would not make sense). 

Perhaps mitred is common because only the US uses miter??? Really don't know on that one.


Alan W

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Re: RM whinges -- 10-Letter Spoiler 21 Nov 2012
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2016, 01:54:57 PM »
In the post where I set out my intentions for Bulk change from common to rare, I proposed to make both metered and mitred rare.

Reading Gaye Christine's comment, I think metered should remain common. The spelling meter is used in both America and Britain for a measuring device, and the word metered is in quite common use, especially in "metered parking", but also for metered water, etc. The metre spelling is not used in the US, but even in Britain and other places where it is used for the metric unit of length and in connection with poetry, the word metred is very rarely used. (I found no example in the British National Corpus.)

As for mitred and mitered, they do have the same meaning, one in the US and one in Britain, so they should be treated the same way. This is not the rarest of words, and many people would be familiar with it as describing a type of joint in woodworking. But probably many others would not know the word, and when in doubt I usually go for rare, so I have made mitred rare to bring it into line with mitered.
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