Talk:lense

Mis-spelling or alternative?

• [e.g.]

See WP talk page for more discussion. Rich Farmbrough

Umm, maybe it's a UK English thing, I've always read and written it "Lense" (through GCSE, A level and first year of university physics). Conrad.Irwin 07:52, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Though according to all my friends, they've always spelt it lens - I'm very confused. The note "presumably a back-formation of the plural lenses" does that come from anywhere, or is it merely presumed (in which case it should be deleted). Conrad.Irwin 20:11, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

• I too am a brit who has always written it lense and never been picked up for misspelling it, but google tells me the internet is awash with camera buffs who consider it a misspelling. I changed the article to reflect these facts.

RFV discussion: January–April 2016

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lense

Alt spelling of lens. (I am not challenging the separate "misspelling of lens" sense!) Not in Chambers. Equinox ◑ 01:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how citations satisfying CFI (i.e., uses rather than mentions) could allow us to distinguish between a misspelling and an alternative spelling. Are you looking for mentions from dictionaries/usage guides? Or what kind of citations do you have in mind that would attest this sense? —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 01:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, tricky. However, for my part I'd trust more "reputable" publications over, say, vanity-published books that contain other dubious spellings (or contain lens spelled both ways, suggesting a typo). Equinox ◑ 01:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The person who first added it did include a link to a dictionary: [1]. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 01:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Also given as an alternate spelling in Webster's Third New International Dictionary. One Google hit turned up a diagram from the 1801 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica with the title "Lense Grinding". Used several times in this article about amateur photography, from 1893. P Aculeius (talk) 04:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

In the first nine pages of google books:intitle:dictionary "lense", the only two dictionaries which use the spelling are the 1816 Encyclopaedia Perthensis; or, Universal Dictionary (which uses lense once and lens once) and Ferdinand Kittel's 1894 Kannada-English Dictionary (which uses only lense as the singular of lenses; its only use of lens is in the taxonomic name Cicer lens).
The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style says lense is found "fairly often" as a misspelling in American English, and Talk:lense suggests it is also found among Brits, so it doesn't appear to be limited to any particular side of the pond.
Robert Hartwell Fiske's Dictionary of Unendurable English calls it a misspelling. At a minimum, the "alternative form of" sense needs a "proscribed" tag. I think it might be easier to combine the two senses into one saying "(now proscribed or a misspelling) Alternative form of lens", similar to rediculous (see its talk page). - -sche (discuss) 04:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I quite like having separate obsolete spelling and misspelling definitions in cases like this. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:42, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It's listed as an alternative spelling in modern dictionaries, and clearly still in widespread use, even if it's not the favoured use. So it would be inappropriate to describe it as a misspelling, obsolete, or proscribed; while in many cases it may be a simple misspelling, it is impossible to establish definitively whether many particular uses are accidental or deliberate. So "alternate spelling of" seems like the best description. P Aculeius (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

A usage note also would not hurt, warning that it may be taken nowadays as a misspelling Leasnam (talk) 21:26, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Kept; some sources have been linked above which use only this spelling, including one [translation] dictionary. Of course, other sources use both lens and lense, i.e. occurences of lense in them seem to be due to error rather than intentional. The snese is labelled "proscribed" and a usage note explains that many authorities see it as a misspelling even when it is used intentionally. - -sche (discuss) 03:10, 11 April 2016 (UTC)