From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Paul Eggert Subject: Re: [tz] "time zone" vs "timezone" in documentation Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2018 12:54:03 -0700 Message-ID: References: <2892e775-1503-ac52-4401-785bef9b1284@cs.ucla.edu> <20180619013049.4097-1-eggert@cs.ucla.edu> <9838498d-0dc2-b51f-08af-fb447196cce5@gmail.com> <26ec9696-f120-15e7-9d9f-9a66eefce9a0@cs.ucla.edu> <26348.1529693539@jinx.noi.kre.to> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <26348.1529693539@jinx.noi.kre.to> Content-Language: en-US List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tz-bounces@iana.org Sender: "tz" To: Robert Elz Cc: linux-man@vger.kernel.org, Time Zone Mailing List , "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" List-Id: linux-man@vger.kernel.org On 06/22/2018 11:52 AM, Robert Elz wrote: > Whether timezone, timestamp, or filesystem have reached that state yet > or not isn't clear - personally, I think they have Yes, I also think they're words in reasonably common use. The question is whether they're the preferred spelling, and whether their connotations differ from those of the corresponding two-word phrases. In my Google-based survey, I found that "timestamp" and "time stamp" are within shouting distance in the New York Times (about 164 vs 295 hits overall). In contrast, the Times almost invariably uses "time zone": I found thousands of instances of "time zone" but just one instance of "timezone" (other than in proper names or blogs) and it was originally printed "time-" at the end of one line and "zone changes" at the start of the next, so it was possibly the old-fashioned "time-zone" or a disambiguating hyphen placed between the nouns "time" and "zone", before the noun "changes" (for the full context, see and look for the scanned image). Of course this is just one newspaper, but it's a major one and it's clear that the New York Time style frowns on "timezone" whereas it permits either "timestamp" or "time stamp". I expect that similar results would be found in other reliable sources. Overall, my impression is that "time zone" is by far the common spelling for the common notion of the regions that you see on maps, whereas "timezone" is primarily used in computer-related material, where its interpretation is often the one I'm suggesting.