[Ffmpeg-cvslog] CVS: ffmpeg/libavcodec avcodec.h, 1.393, 1.394ffv1.c, 1.32, 1.33 g726.c, 1.5, 1.6 h263.c, 1.279, 1.280 huffyuv.c, 1.61, 1.62 mpeg12.c, 1.235, 1.236 mpegvideo.c, 1.480, 1.481 snow.c, 1.60, 1.61

[Måns Rullgård]

The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> writes:

> M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>
>> "Robert Swain" <robert.swain at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> M?ns Rullg?rd <mru at mru.ath.cx> writes:
>>>
>>>> Rich Felker <dalias at aerifal.cx> writes:
>>>
>>>>> IMO the english word is unofficial, not inofficial.
>>>
>>>> That's not a matter of opinion.  Both are fine.  However, the
>>>> word English should be capitalized ;-)
>>> It would appear 'inofficial' and 'nonofficial' are valid according
>>> to http://www.dictionary.com but neither of those words exist in
>>> the Cambridge dictionary at http://dictionary.cambridge.org I am
>>> British and have never heard or read inofficial anywhere and would
>>> much prefer unofficial if I am to be anal. But what do I know? :)
>> Webster's Dictionary lists all three forms.  A google search also
>> turns up a fair number of matches for all of them, with unofficial in
>> the lead, followed by inofficial, and nonofficial coming in last.
>> I vote for leaving the code as is.  It's only been there for an hour
>> or two, but changing code to use a different synonym makes little
>> sense to me.
>
> I'd vote for changing it (if I had a vote) - I recognize "unofficial" as
> valid and common, and "non-official" as valid but not particularly
> common, but regardless of what dictionaries say (the more descriptivist
> dictionaries in particular) I don't think "inofficial" is a word.

What gives you the authority to say whether or not something is a
word?

> Certainly I wouldn't think of it as a possible candidate for how to
> express something, and if I saw it in a piece of documentation or
> fiction (those being the two things I review) I'd recommend changing it
> - it simply does not seem right to me.

If you have never seen a word, which is listed in common dictionaries,
it would seem more indicative of limited reading on you part, than of
the dictionary being flawed.

Anyway, I did some dictionary reading.  Websters's Dictionary, 1913
edition (copyright expired), lists only inofficial as a separate
entry, but allows for un- to be prefixed to any adjective. 

The same dictionary, under the entry for un-, says this:

  In- is prefixed mostly to words of Latin origin, or else to words
  formed by Latin suffixes; un- is of much wider application, and is
  attached at will to almost any adjective, or participle used
  adjectively, or adverb, from which it may be desired to form a
  corresponding negative adjective or adverb, and is also, but less
  freely, prefixed to nouns.

It also happens that the word "official" is of Latin origin, so in-
and un- would seem equally correct.

The prefix non- has the same meaning, strictly speaking, but seems to
be more commonly used with a slightly different class of words, as in
nonmetallic (unmetallic has a bad ring in my ears).

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru at inprovide.com