Re: file system vs. filesystem

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Sat, Nov 18, 2000 at 08:03:17PM +0100 or thereabouts, Rebecca J. Walter wrote:
> i for one say e-mail as it is a kind of abbreviation (electronic mail). 

You say it? You pronouce the hyphen?

> also where am i supposed to find it on that page 

He did say: "search for filesystem": most browsers have a "search this
document for this phrase" capability. Here's the relevant bit: 

     * Readers (and copy editors) are occasionally surprised by my use of
       compound words, instead of using either the open or hyphenated
       form. That is, I write filesystem instead of either file system or
       file-system. The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges this trend
       (Section 6.38). Don Knuth has a wonderul paragraph about why
       we should write email instead of e-mail and just accept the fact
       now that it will become a compound word.

There is a link from the mention of Knuth to here: 
http://www.kohala.com/start/papers.others/knuth.email.html

That has a section at the bottom called "A note on email versus
e-mail" (and specifically, note the comment about British and
American usage of it. British English _still_ uses many more
hyphenated words than American English: so if we drop the hyphen,
then it must be worth doing, because we like our hyphens normally!)

> and who is he and what authorizes him to do it?

Alas, he is now deceased :( His is still a _very_ well-known name
in the UNIX and networking worlds. I gather most students meet at least 
one of his books in their coursework. He is a very well-respected
figure. Looking up "W Richard Stevens obituary" or "biography" on
Google or something will tell you more, I expect. Knuth is an even 
better authority on the appearance of words: he once set out to write 
a book about compilers and had to stop and write himself a decent tool f
or document processing and presenting. It's called TeX :) 

> i still say 1 word looks bad.

I have been saying "dialog box" looks bad since I got involved with the
GDP (I think it should be dialogue box :)) and I have just had to put up
with the fact that most people think I'm nuts. I don't think there's
a single thing we have ever agreed on which made every single person
happy. Most of it's a compromise. 

It also occurs to me that we're going about this the wrong way. Instead
of just voting on every single word and getting a completely inconsistent
set of guidelines, can't we just find a style manual we like and stick 
to it? There's this Chicago thing, and didn't Sun just offer us theirs,
too? 

For reference: I had a poke about in the manuals that come on my (RH 7.0)
Linux distro. 'man mkfs' refers to "file system"; 'man fstab' refers
to "filesystem" except in one place where it refers to "file system".
There are at least two different sets of man pages floating about for
some commands, because there are different implementations of the same
command. So if you're running something different, your man pages may
have different totals of one word or two words :)

Some friends on a different IRC channel started playing with different
searches and search engines and found that generally "file system"
returns more results, but that is because it is matching more things
which are irrelevant. "filesystem" returns relevant hits.

Frankly, I think there are better things to worry about, but my vote
goes with "filesystem" despite the fact that every time I announce a
preference I give that choice the kiss of death and everyone else
votes the other way. Such is democracy. With one word, it's very clear 
you are talking about the sort of filesystem that gets created with mkfs 
or mounted or something; it's faster to type; and if Stevens and Knuth 
both say it, it _must_ be right!

Telsa ("now, about mouse button one...")