Potato tomato.

English is a language, not an engineering discipline; to expect consistency in something that is derived from at least 4 different languages is a wild goose chase.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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MintJulep,

It's pronounced potato tomato.

Andrew H.
www.MotoTribology.com

No, sorry, you're wrong, it's pronounced potato tomato.

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Can we take a vote?

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

> Potato tomato

Haha, I like it.

Constructability seems natural to me for engineering contexts and is featured prominently in wiki on constructability

Constructible / constructibility seems to be in common use by the mathematicians as shown here

So I get the feeling constructability is a practical review of challenges that will be encountered during construction....
whereas constructible / constructibility is a theoretical concept related to whether it is even possible to construct something.
But I see on the interwebs there doesn't seem any agreement on definitions... so I guess that means it's impossible to be wrong (?)

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(2B)+(2B)' ?

I like it with an 'a'. It refers to ability to be constructed.

As far as I am aware, there are no hard-and-fast rules for "-able" vs "-ible". The following web site tries to set out some "rules", but it is pretty apparent that there are almost as many exceptions to every rule as there are conformances:

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Commonly-Confuse...

They do say that:
"there are generally no indications in the base word’s spelling to indicate when “-ible” is correct, except for one: base words ending in “-uct” will (almost) always take “-ible” rather than “-able.”
so I'll go with "constructible".

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

> "there are generally no indications in the base word’s spelling to indicate when “-ible” is correct, except for one: base words ending in “-uct” will (almost) always take “-ible” rather than “-able.”

Let's look at other words ending in *uctible/*uctable

• Deductible sounds very natural to me (I'd never spell it deductable). But the concept of deductibility is also a go/no-go thing (just like the mathematical uses of constructible) rather than an evaluation of the practical difficulty of doing something (like constructable).
• Indestructible. Hmmm I guess we could make the argument that's also a go/no-go, although not as strongly as deductible.
• I can't think of many other *uctable words

I realize at our plant we have a formal process which we always call "constructability review" (it's described in a procedure, that's the way the procedure spells it, so that's naturally the way everyone at our plant spells it). So my personal perceptions are undoubtedly affected by seeing it spelled that way so many times over the decades I've worked there.

But I think we're not the only ones. I think it is much more common for others to spell constructability review with an a, based on poking around google:

• If you google the two words constructibility review (with an i), google will suggest constructability review (with an a)
• If you accept their suggestion constructability review with an a, the vast majority are spelled with an a.
• If you insist on searching constructability review with an i you'll get more with an i up fron but intermixed with a...and the a's win by a landslide as you go back further into the results on the 2nd and 3rd page (google could only find a handful spelled with an i, and so google put them all on the first page)

=====================================
(2B)+(2B)' ?

thanks, 'pete...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

I guess it's the difference between Scribble and Scrabble...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

"there are no hard-and-fast rules for "-able" vs "-ible". " ... I thought there was. I thought it mattered about whether the original word had a greek or latin root (but I keep forgetting which way around it is !!??). I'll check my Fowler's "Modern English Usage" (well, "modern" is a relative term, I think it was written in the 50s or 60s).

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

> I thought it mattered about whether the original word had a greek or latin root (but I keep forgetting which way around it is !!??

I hadn't heard that, but googling led to this:

Quote (englishclub.com)

https://www.englishclub.com/spelling/rules-ible-ab...
The -ible ending is for [some but not all] words of Latin origin. There are about 180 words ending in -ible. No new words are being created with -ible endings

The -able ending is for:

• some Latin words, for example: dependable
• non-Latin words, for example: affordable, renewable, washable
• new (modern) words, for example: networkable, windsurfable

Rule of thumb.

This rule can help you decide the correct spelling. It works most (but not all!) of the time. Remember, if you are not sure about a word, it is probably best to use a dictionary. Here is the rule:

• If you remove -able from a word, you are left with a complete word (renewable, renew).
• If you remove -ible from a word, you are not left with a complete word (sensible, sens). But note that accessible, contemptible, digestible, flexible and suggestible are among the exceptions to this rule.

Like everything in our quirky English language, it's complicated.

Can we draw a conclusion about constructable/ible from the latin/non-latin origin?

• IF our word of interest were not of latin origin THEN we could draw a definitive conclusion that it ends in able.
• Unfortunately construct is a word of latin origin (constructus)....con (together... same root word as consolidate) struct (pile/assemble...same root word as structure)
• For words of latin origin we can't draw a conclusion from above.... some are able and some are ible
• So the answer is no.

Can we draw a conclusion about constructable/ible from the thumbrule?

• The thumbule suggests since we can remove the able/ible and end up with a complete word, it should be able.
• But the thumbrule says there are exceptions.
• So again the answer is no.

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(2B)+(2B)' ?

according to Fowler ...

it's much more complicated !!

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

• https://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=c4205f01-4a5e-437d-9e91-2

English is always complicated, and there are always exceptions to rules. But I do like that rule of thumb.

Which one would it be in the national spelling bee?

According to Webster, both are correct, although the "i" variant is less common.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/constru...