Re: How did the Spelling Police miss this one?

[Herman Oosthuysen <Herman@WirelessNetworksInc.com>]

To many programmers, computer code 'is' religion.  That probably 
explains the migration of religious terms into computer speak.  Also, to 
outsiders, computers are magic, which is a close cousin of religion, so 
using the term 'canonize' in its full religious fervour, would be very 
apt...

It has been revealed to me by Google, that the Apache project uses 
'canonicalize', so the web Gods seem to be looking kindly upon this use 
of the term.

Being of Germanic descent though, 'canonicalize' appears to me, to be a 
'Germanism'.  I do not think it came to be in an act of bad faith, but 
came forth simply due to the culture of some users of the term. However, 
that doesn't mean that we should bless the use of 'automatize' instead 
of 'automate' and 'canonicalize' instead of 'canonize' in English, it 
being a sufficiently convoluted pagan language already.
;-)


Timothy Miller wrote:
> 
> 
> Steven Cole wrote:
> 
>>  
>>
>> Strictly speaking, you are probably right.  According to this:
>> http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=canonize
>> sense #2 would qualify "canonize".  I took the position that the only
>> person who could "canonize" anything is an elderly Polish fellow living
>> in Rome. But I've been wrong before.