Peter's new avatar

Another Google hit gave 'screenshot' as the past tense. It's certainly less cumbersome than 'screenshotted'.

 

The "icky" feeling you get with screenshotted is probably because "shot" is already past tense (of "shoot"); which would suggest to your brain that "screenshot" doesn't require a second past tense marker in the "-ed".

Almost like saying something like "went-ed".

 

I don’t tend to refer much to American dictionaries as British English and American English can be quite different in terms of usage, meanings and spellings.

The OED, its entry updated in March 2022, lists screenshot only as a noun. It says that it first appeared (as a computer term) as two separate words in 1983, and as a single word in 1985. No doubt screenshot will eventually be accepted as a verb by the OED, but it isn’t yet.

 

Many definitions of "screenshotted" are given if you Google. Including an Urban Dictionary take on the word.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

All sorts of spellings appear in old registers, and without any consistency between registers and clerks, and these can't really be used as examples of "authentic" spelling.

 

I have refrained from commenting apart from finding the word 'screenshotted' an awful word and amazed that anyone would use same, when they could have made clear of the past tense by merely rephrasing (e.g.) ..."I used a screenshot".

However on the subject of lingua franca how about lingua anglais and the word connexion which is regarded as an alternative (and therefore correct) English spelling of connection. I recall being picked up for typing the word as connection when working in a clerical role in the RAF... by a Group Captain no less. If you think it brave to challenge Peter on his choice of words it pales into insignificance at my bravery at telling a very senior officer that connexion was NOT a correct spelling. He insisted it was correct and (albeit reluctantly) agreed my version as a 'secondary' spelling form. However, he wanted it to be spelled as connexion and I was to remember it in future. I think at the time I put it down to him being a Scot, but am sure that had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, I spent time afterwards speaking with lesser mortals (Sergeants, Corporals et al) and they all agreed on the spelling as Connection.

In all later years I have only come across one other who spelled it with an 'x' and she was Canadian and told me she thought that was how the 'Brits' spelled the word...unlike the 'Yanks' who spell it connection.

 

You might find it difficult to find many 18th century registers which actually give occupations. In the course of this morning's research I have so far looked in only one register (out of a dozen or more) which gave occupations, for a brief period in the middle of the 18th century, and the spelling used there was either labourer or lab:

If you look in the OED you will see that the 'our' version dates back to at least the 1300s and is the older spelling. Words like error were also previously spelt errour. It is actually something of a myth that American spellings often have older derivations and are thus more authentic.

 

I'm afraid I'm at a loss to understand why you consider spellings standardised by Webster in 18th century America as more 'authentic' than those used consistently - and standardised - in England from much earlier times. While spellings varied enormously between individuals and in different regions in the early modern period, there is no evidence that the our spelling of words like labour and colour (for example) ever dropped out of use in England, or that it was in some way reintroduced by the Victorians.

What did happen from the Victorian era onwards is that people started to consider that spelling mattered, and thus to adopt existing standardised spellings as the correct version.

An economical use of text in older documents was achieved by using colons, superscripts, runes and contraction marks, not by by simplifying the spellings.

 

Looking at 18th century PCC wills indexed at TNA, doing a keyword search on laborer gets 11 results, whereas searching on labourer gets 698. Between 1500 and 1599 there are 18 results for laborer and only 11 for labourer, but overall there are significantly more wills using the spelling labourer.

(A random check of the actual wills suggests the spelling given in the index accurately reflects the original.)

 

Perhaps Peter would be kind enough to give some examples of these.

 

Yawn.

 

They started to standardise the spelling when Caxton invented the printing press in 1476. It was completely adhoc and in some ways they then corrupted the spelling to make it look "better". For example the English term "dettis" became "debts" to make it look more Latin-esque. But it has been a work in progress since. People also added 'e's where some didn't exist as well... What makes pronunciation so difficult is that they had pretty much standardised the spelling prior to the last shift in phonological sounds, so they no longer match what is written.

The USA is an unique case, some of the spellings it uses are new-ish - such as removing all the "-our" spellings in words such as colour/color and labour/labor, however the British version has removed some of them too, such as "doctour". American English has even preserved some older words that British English has dispensed with.

As the Guardian article highlights - in the end the only truth of English is that if there is a rule, it can be bent, and in some cases, completely broken.

If you're really interested in the tug of war between American English and UK English, then I recommended the The Prodigal Tongue by Lynne Murphy. There are some small snippets on the website if you don't want to read the actual book.

 

Just a simple example for "dating" purposes, following Bob's post: the 1953 edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (3 volumes) had an entry of the form:

Connection: see Connexion

I don't recall when the spellings were "reversed"; possibly the late 60's.