Author Topic: Racoon/raccoon  (Read 838 times)

Morbius

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Racoon/raccoon
« on: December 01, 2020, 09:33:44 PM »
Racoon appeared as a common word in yesterday's 10 letter puzzle.  I got it this time after missing it in an earlier puzzle.  Dictionaries list it as a variant spelling of raccoon (which I presume is also common in Chi).  It seems odd to me that a variant spelling would be classified as common.  I've only ever seen it written as raccoon.  As a general principle, I think most variant spellings should be classified as rare.  Of course, there are no raccoons in my part of the world, so maybe racoon is a common variant elsewhere.     

TRex

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Re: Racoon/raccoon
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2020, 08:49:24 AM »
Ngram Viewer strongly supports the preference for raccoon in both American and Great Britain Englishes.

mkenuk

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Re: Racoon/raccoon
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2020, 11:24:29 AM »
Why can't it be like cocoon and have only one spelling?

TRex

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Re: Racoon/raccoon
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2020, 11:48:44 AM »
Why can't it be like cocoon and have only one spelling?

Because it is English?!

Alan W

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Re: Racoon/raccoon
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2020, 11:35:26 AM »
The multi-region corpus GloWbE confirms that the double-C spelling is for more frequent in the main English-speaking countries.



Racoon will be treated as rare from now on.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites