From marvelous Finale to this

Even in the Cambridge Dictionary it is initially listed with a single “l”.

MARVELLOUS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary here?
I’ve checked the book Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th ed., p. 944 presents as:
“mar-ve-lous (US mar-vel-ous)”
I geuinely don’t know what to say. (Keep in mind English isn’t my first language either)

not online it isn’t!?

Now I really must do something more useful than come back to see how this thread’s coming along…

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It’s a waste of my time but…

In British English it’s marvellous.

Use of marvellous and marvelous in British literature:

Use of marvellous and marvelous in American literature:

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This thread went from humoristic to awkward. I’ll make my way out.

“Webster was part of a movement that was happening both in England and in the US to standardize English spelling. Prior to this period in the early-mid 19th century, English spelling was rather fluid and people would frequently spell words however they wanted. Webster in the US and scholars at Oxford University both set out to standardize spelling of the language and both worked on their dictionaries with different philosophies for spelling, which is what contributed to many of the modern differences in spelling between the countries.”

So a lot of it simply boils down to reform and attempts to standardize in an era where spelling was otherwise essentially the Wild West. I believe the large influx of German immigrants to the US around this time likely influenced some of Webster’s choices of standardization, for whatever that’s worth historically.

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Here in America, we do not have an official language at the federal level; about 20 of our states don’t have an official language either. Three of our states have multiple official languages: SD, AK, and HI. The rest are English only, yet there is no nationally recognized, government sanctioned English grammar standard. So, misspelling and poor grammar abound here.

English may be standardised, but it lacks consistent spelling: though, thorough, thought, cough, know, no… What the…

It’s a nightmare having to learn the spelling of every word if you’re not a native speaker!

Oh, it’s about Dorico? I completely forgot! :joy:

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Here’s my favourite spelling of marvellous:

“Sir Lucius…That es þe meruelyousteste mane þat on molde lengez.”
Morte Arthure c 1440

There are also: meruaylous, marwolus, meruailous, mervellous.
(Source: Oxford English Dictionary).

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“I thought it would be rough to plough through the slough, though it was falling into the lough that left me thoroughly coughing and hiccoughing.”

Now read this alough… - oops.

P.S. How about we henceforth spell it Doughreecough?

(P.P.S. Although this might suggest that the famous Italian typographer may also have been an emissary of Vasili III or his son Ivan the Terrible, depending on the pronunciation.)

Hou tu pranownse Inglish…

…and probably Italian, too.
colore / color / colour

Then there’s the re-spelling of the word “fish” as “ghoti”.
See this Wikipedia article for more info: Ghoti - Wikipedia

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OT: for anyone actually interested in these American/British English differences, a new book just out yesterday:

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We’ve watched so many British TV series that we can barely spot the differences any more.

I work a lot in the UK and with UK colleagues, and whenever I give talks there, I always change my pronunciation and spelling to match UK English. I’ve gotten good at code switching and do so out of respect, and expected that since Dorico is made by a predominantly UK group, it would certainly minimise the American conventions. That said, I still would not be comfortable using British terms for note values, having thought of eighth notes, quarter notes, etc over nearly 60 years. That would be a bridge too far, so I do appreciate that both conventions live together well in Dorico’s documentation.

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And that is for me as a Dutchman also much easier! The American names!

Before I started with Dorico (a long time ago, I might add…) and started frequenting this forum, I had never, ever heard these terms before, even though I studied music in

The Netherlands.
Oh well, let the Brits have their splendid isolation… in musical terms, at least! In terms of Europe, I’d take them back in a New York minute! :wink:

B.

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Well, I do have this book …

… but I can never correctly remember the British note values either!

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I lost a spelling bee because the word on the list was spelled “tenament”. 5th grade…

C’mon, @FredGUnn — try to make at least a minimal effort, would ya?

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