Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Sync or Synch

I had to bust out of the office today to a nearby coffee shop because of a frustration born from the mixed use of 'sync' and 'synch' at work, specifically used in the short form "we should sync[h]'. This has grinded my gears, for a while, but its never driven me to espresso before. Yet I still need to know if its me that is sick or if this really is a world destroying issue.

CONSULT THE INTERWEBS

Even before the mighty Google itself, we naturally turn to search stack overflow for a thorough discussion on it. And of course, like the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It", someone has covered this in depth already. And so continues my love / hate relationship with this family of sites!


And there is more - less bile about the issue than I'd like, but some simmering anger I am sure:


This leads to the comment:

[...] because the H in Synchronise no longer serves a purpose at all (the ch digraph being converted into a sound that can be represented solely by C), Sync would be more correct that Synch would if you're following the rules established in the English language.

YES. This is completely how I feel about it. Also, the author also used the British spelling of synchronise which endears me even more to him (we'll over look the poor capitalization). 

PAVLOV'S DIALOGUE

Every time I receive an email from now on that uses the abbreviation synch, I plan to reply to the author (and just them) with some negative news about our stock price in an effort to subconsciously change their behavior, starting with a Scot who really should know better about these things!