Thae's a nice ideal, but if you need to get something working, nothing beats searching for the error message.
The original package maintainers could write instructional materials that start from the errors, but I suspect that's too hard. Without specific training, it'll always be easier for third parties to provide ad hoc than first parties to produce as part of release.
Canada seems to use a lot of traditional measures. Australians from the country seem to measure in feet and inches - not just peoples heights. And a foreigner might think an Australian asking for a pint of beer is asking for a measure of beer, although a pint is just the name of a size of glass (like a schooner or pot).
This makes perfect sense as long as people see no difference between sending birthday presents to their own grandchildren and sending birthday presents to other people's grandchildren.
tire vs tyre - apparently “tire” is older, but when pneumatic tyres became a thing, the spelling “tyre” caught on in England. So that's not an option.
kerb vs curb (n) - again, curb is older, but somehow a spelling error^W varient caught on in England. In this case, it is unfortunate since Scottish people allegedly pronounce “curb” but write “kerb” (they pronounce ur like u+r and er like e+r, not as a single sound). So this one is not just not an option, it's actively hostile to many British peoplee
-or vs -our: unless you will spell governour and use other like spellings, you have no historical leg to stand on so you might as well allow both variants.
program is the older spelling, programme is preferred by those who are jealous of the French.
I never understood the logic of swapping -re to -er in theatre, centre tho. I mean, why only -re but not -le? why don't Americans tickel and cuddel? Surely the logic is the same. So I think you can mount your high horse here.
> You have ignored the questioner’s question. Why?
First, I have not ignored the question. My answer to the question is right there is in my dissection and rephrasing of the question.
Second, the question as asked doesn’t make sense. Number scales are arbitrary; there is no ‘point’ for any one scale over another. Long, short, Chinese, Indian — so long as your interlocutor understands what you mean in the language and culture in which you’re speaking, neither has any more point than another.
Which is basically what my comment said, and plenty of people have thus far been able to interpret that without me needing to explain such.
Alternative pov that may help your snobbery: There is not yet an Australian English standard; it is just British. Therefore, Australians are free to create our own standard using parts of the existing standards or innovations of our own.
In particular, you are not propagating our own tradition by strictly adhering to so-called Australian spellings, which are really British spellings. On the contrary, you are declaring linguistic subordination. At this stage, the best option is tolerance of diversity, not snobbery.
If you look at an American book that has an edition produced by an Australia publisher, it may have American spellings, but most Australian editions (i.e. British editions, since their publishers claim Australia as a dependency) use British spelling.
A spelling reform could keep “mention” and still significantly improve the orthography were it to simply apply the rules more consistently. And when words are genuinely different, like “ask” or “of” it's not going to hurt to spell them differently.
a spelling reform cud[] keep “mention” and still significantly improov the orthography wer it to simply aply the rules more consistently. And when wurds ar genuinely different, like “ask/aask” or “uv/ov” it's not going to hurt to spell them differently.
[] although how to spell put/putt is an open question. here I have sided with northerners and decided to spell them the same.
... are you suggesting that every English dialect spell its words differently, so that we no longer have a written common language? That Americans spell "were" "wur" and Brits spell it "wuh", so that when I read a sentence written in a book I have to know or puzzle out the accent of the person who wrote it?
[As an aside, why did you drop the doubled "p" from "apply" but not the doubled "f" from "different" or the doubled "l" from "spell"?]
Fortunately it is not a claim in the text you quoted. If a change is necessary, it has already happened everywhere. So neither t-flapping nor th-fronting are necessary, but both are more likely than [t] > [k]. There is no specific reason that one of them advanced through one country and the other spread through another, even if there is a good reason the third change hasn't happened. Or equivalently with the abandonment of “reckon” vs the substitution of “autumn” for “fall”.
The original package maintainers could write instructional materials that start from the errors, but I suspect that's too hard. Without specific training, it'll always be easier for third parties to provide ad hoc than first parties to produce as part of release.