Talk:Feces
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I was about to correct the spelling as a misspelling when I saw that this is a known issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
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![]() | This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The argument seems to be that because feces is spelt that way in US English that is OK.
The etymology is from Latin faeces "sediment, dregs", which, to me, means that feces is a mis-spelling fallen into common US usage.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Timp21337 (talk • contribs) 12:49, December 9, 2014
- It seems that many English readers find the alternate spellings to be jarring. So, Wikipedia has found compromises and built policies to avoid edit warring over spelling - see WP:ENGVAR.--Mojo Hand (talk) 14:45, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
- It would be a misspelling, if we were using Latin. We aren't. We use one national variety of English in each article, as explained in WP:ENGVAR. As the subject does not have strong ties to any one country (everybody poops), we go with the variety first established in the article. In this case, that's American English. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:23, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
- And to add to what SummerPhD already explained, the idea of a "misspelling fallen into common US usage" is not correct. It is not a mistake that American English chooses "e" instead of "ae" or "oe" in many words of Latin origin that are now "naturalized citizens" of English. It's an intentional choice. Read more at articles on, for example, phonemic orthography, spelling reform, æ, and œ. Although English orthography does not have regular spelling to the extent that Spanish or German have it, English-language spelling reform has effected a few changes over the centuries, such as this one, although they are not all adopted in every region. To sum up, the "it hurts" in the heading of this section reflects discomfort born of misapprehension. Once the misapprehension is cleared up, the pain subsides. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:31, 28 March 2015 (UTC)