Extendible porn

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 15, 2010, at 12:47 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote in reply to
Wilson Gray:

> From the OED: 1. Capable of being extended or stretched out; capable
> of being enlarged in length, area, or duration, or in range or scope
> of meaning or operation; = EXTENSIBLE.
>
> Your version [presumably "extensible"] gets 20 times the raw version
> on Google, though, so I'll be more careful the next time I use this
> word (which is fairly frequently as I often work on manufacturing
> documents).

i'd be wary of depending on raw google hits (it's possible, for
instance, that "extensible" gets a lot of hits because of tech uses --
as in XML for "eXtensible Markup Language"), and in any case this is
one of those situations where we'd want to set aside informal writing
and writing in specialized contexts, which is impossible to do on
google.

COCA shows modest numbers for all three spelling variants in written
texts:
   the S variant "extensible": 51 (*very* heavily from academic
sources);
   the D variants:
     "extendable": 33 (mostly from magazines);
     "extendible" 17 (largely from magazines and academic sources)

(it's entirely possible that some people see a subtle meaning/nuance/
whatever difference between the S variant and the D variant.)

i'd conclude that all three variants are acceptable in serious
writing, though some people might find the S variant "more serious" or
"fancier", and either prefer it or disprefer it on those grounds.

(i'd object in general -- as i have on Language Log in the past -- to
using a kind of "majority vote" approach to choosing variants, in
which only the most frequent variant is deemed correct -- One Right
Way! -- and all less frequent variants are disapproved.)

> On Mar 15, 2010, at 12:07 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> Exten_s_ible porn or extend_a_ble porn

well, this is Wilson's personal judgment, but other sources have no
problem with "extendible".  both NOAD2 and AHD4, for instance, list
all three variants, without differentiation.  and OED2 has all three
-- and in fact treats "extendable" as a spelling variant of
"extendible" (thus reflecting the etymology, based on Latin extend-ere
'to extend', with participle stem extens-; the Latin conjugation for
the verb would predict -ible (with I) rather than -able, so
"extendable" (with A) is an anglicization of the spelling).

in the historical sweepstakes, "extendible" wins by a landslide.
OED2's earliest cite is from 1477, with the "extendable" variant not
appearing until 1654 (except in specialized legal uses, where
"extendable" is attested in 1622 and 1626, and "extendible" not until
1818).  OED2 has cites for "extensible" from 1611 on, well after
"extendible".  (not that i'm recommending originalism in choosing
variants -- just pointing out that if you think "extendible" arose
historically from a blending of, or "confusion" between, "extendable"
and "extensible", you're wrong.  that doesn't exclude the possibility
that some current speakers, confronted with "extensible" and
"extendable", might have blended the two to get "extendible" -- but of
course "extendible" could just be a continuation of the older variant,
now being overshadowed to some degree by the other two.)

arnold

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