polysci or polisci

is there some reason this group is polysci and not polisci?

Just use this as a place for polyhedron science, that would a far better use of bandwidth.

Apparently a sufficient number of poli sci students and professors have chosen a nickname that would suggest an inability to spell the the name of their specialty for such a long time that either way is now considered correct.

Meanwhile the struggle between orthopedists and orthopaedists continues unabated.

He has a point.

Polysci reads "poly" - many - "sci" - sciences.
Polisci reads "poli" - political - "sci" sciences.

It's called a typo. It happnes.

Actually, when I took polysci in college a couple years back, it was called polysci.

*shrug*

I think it's a common English gaffe, honestly. It's not like the professors and administrators I've dealt with haven't had their share of really glaring errors. This is fairly subtle by comparison.

Remember to show your working...

Actually, I think it's called "a play on words" or "pun". Relating polisci to a world of polygons.

Honestly, when I first saw the forum listed I parsed it "Polysczi" and thought it was a Polish-language forum.

But it's not. More like a Tower of Babel...

I discussed this with Pathfinder over email yesterday, worried that I misspelled it in a previous email to him and was the reason it was spelled so here. Although it appears that "polisci" is the more prominent abbreviation, the abbreviation "polysci" also seems to be in use. As linguists would say, "polisci" is used 80% and "polysci" is used 20%. In the end Pathfinder said it was how he had seen it in college and was comfortable with that spelling. That's good enough for me.

~Ulrika~

As mentioned earlier, it's probably a typo. It happens to all of us, for example:



While that last one isn't a typo, it is very confusing, but hey.. it happens.

There in plenty of room to spell out the entire phrase, why use the abbreviation at all?


would be perfectly clear. There could be folks who don't recognize the abbreviation who would benefit by having it spelled out, especially those for whom English is a second language or who never attended college and have never seen the phrase.

Juro, I did not say or imply "poly" was considered an error nowadays, as your response seems to suggest I was saying. I did check to see if it was considered a correct abbreviation nowadays, and it is. Quite possibly the original error occurred long ago and was actually done by a clerk or secretary at a college creating course catalogs, registrations, schedules, etc. Given that both spellings produce the same pronunciation , and that the clerical staff at colleges and universities has to deal with a constant stream of big words and phrases that must be manhandled into fitting into tiny spaces on forms it is likely that the error occurred independently on many occasions. Once printed it would sort of become the de facto correct abbreviation because that is how it was spelled on the course selection form or in the course syllabus.

At any rate, there is no reason to abbrevitate the name in this location, and not abbreviating it would unquestionably make it easier to interpret, so why not just spell out what one means clearly in the forum title?

I second this vote. Let's change the name of the forum to "SL Political Science".

~Ulrika~

I thought exactly the same, for a second. But then i realised that it would be a bit wierd. So i clicked it and learned it was about politics.

I agree with SuezanneC and Ulrika that it should be changed to, SL Political Science.

You mean this forum isn't about forlorn, talking pets?

Nope, it's about swine getting pilot's licenses. [/SARCASM]

so anyone think a linden will say anything relevant?

posting in this thread to register my indignation against vertices

I mentioned in another post that when I went to Maryland Polysci was poultry sciences. Polisci as most of us know it, was Government and Politics.

It should be Polisci.