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Comment by uberman | Hacker News Reader

Writing is creative and typically produces a final product that is subjective. However there are components of writing such as spelling that are not subjective.

It seems reasonable to me to say that he is a popular writer and subjectively good and that he is an objectively good speller.

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> there are components of writing such as spelling that are not subjective

I'm not sure this is the case, at least not in English.

Which is correct: "color" or "colour"? They are both correct, of course, but for different dialects of English (en-US vs. en-UK)

Another example that I recently came across that is not dialect/localization dependent: what is the word for "able to be parsed"? Is it "parseable" (with an "e") or "parsable" (sans "e")?

While I've found some sources assert that "parsable" is correct - and I believe it is - others claim that they're both correct or that "parseable" is the correct form.

Suppose I'm working on optimizing a database. I add an index to the the columns `bar` and `baz` of the `foo` table. Have I added two "indexes" or two "indices"? While some sources say that "indexes" is an acceptable way to pluralize the word in English, they seem to all agree that "indices" is also correct. See: https://grammarist.com/usage/indexes-indices/

To make it more complicated, the link above states:

> [...] "indices" is generally preferred in mathematical, financial, and technical contexts, while "indexes" is relatively common in general usage.

Databases are certainly technical contexts... but I've never seen "indices" used in documentation:

    https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/indexes.html
    https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/invisible-indexes.html
    https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/20/admin/managing-indexes.html#GUID-AAE78F92-0ADF-4FB1-9949-DC7F2B6363BE

So... which is correct? :)

For an objective measure we expect/demand a measurement standard. There are standards that would say one way or the other is the only way, while there are other more relaxed standards that say either is acceptable. If you know the standard measure you can objectively say if "color" is correct or not.

For example, if we accept Merriam-Webster as our standard measure then in each case both spellings of color/colour and indexes/indices are acceptable. One might be preferred over the other but both are objectively correct.

We would then conclude that an author writing for a US audience (per the standard measure of Merriam-Webster) would not have erred in using colour (or color).

counterpoint: intentional misspelling to convey a specific dialect or affect.

i.e., the subjective quality of the work is enhanced by intentional introduction of "inaccurate" or low-objective-quality spelling.

If we would otherwise say that someone is a good speller, but recognize for some artistic reason an author is intentionally misspelling some words then have they actually made an error?

Does the ability to do something intentionally wrong for artistic reasons reveal that you are objectively less skilled at a task or more skilled?

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