Spelling

[Dennis Johnson]

At  8:57 PM 12/3/95 -0700, S. Brady wrote:
>Question for the week:
>
>        How is it that so many tuners can spell "inharmonicity" right but
>insist on spelling "temperament" wrong ("temperment")?
>        I think that's one word we should all spell right!
>        Sorry, it's an editor "thang." ;-)
>
>Steve Brady, RPT                "The most expert and rapid tuners are...
>
>University of Washington         possessed of a highly excitable,
>sbrady@u.washington.edu          nervous, and emotional temperament,
>                                 verging on the border of insanity at times."
>                                        -Daniel Spillane, The Tuner's Guide


_________________________________________________

Steve,

This is interesting. According to every source I've seen, including
Grove's, and the Harvard, Oxford, and Norton music dictionaries as well as
common usage in print by past authors including Jorgensen, Link, Barbour,
Boyle and Lindley, the word is spelled temperament. I agree that the "a"
seems out of place as our usage is rooted from tempering or tempered.
Perhaps a clue here lies in the the passage above that you remind us of
with each posting.  I'm sure you understand the curious irony implicit in
this statement because of course, Mr. Spillane was a technician himself.


Dennis Johnson
St. Oalf College