[SERVER-53230] Spelling correction Cancelation => Cancellation Created: 04/Dec/20  Updated: 29/Oct/23  Resolved: 25/Mar/21

Status: Closed
Project: Core Server
Component/s: Internal Code
Affects Version/s: None
Fix Version/s: 5.0.0-rc0

Type: Bug Priority: Major - P3
Reporter: Billy Donahue Assignee: Tyler Seip (Inactive)
Resolution: Fixed Votes: 1
Labels: None
Remaining Estimate: Not Specified
Time Spent: Not Specified
Original Estimate: Not Specified

Attachments: PNG File cancellation.png    
Backwards Compatibility: Fully Compatible
Operating System: ALL
Sprint: Service Arch 2021-03-22, Service Arch 2021-04-05
Participants:
Story Points: 2

 Description   

No user-facing code needs this misspelling to persist.
We can just replace it without controversy.

There's an ErrorCategory called isCancelationError, but error categories are internal names. They don't leave the server as strings.



 Comments   
Comment by Tyler Seip (Inactive) [ 25/Mar/21 ]

Merged the rename, closing ticket.

Comment by Githook User [ 23/Mar/21 ]

Author:

{'name': 'Tyler Seip', 'email': 'Tyler.Seip@mongodb.com', 'username': 'tseip-mongo'}

Message: SERVER-53230: Rename cancelation -> cancellation everywhere
Branch: master
https://github.com/mongodb/mongo/commit/8c463d0aa0cce19073210d274dcbb04c156dc802

Comment by Billy Donahue [ 23/Mar/21 ]

The best kind of correct.

Comment by Gregory Noma [ 23/Mar/21 ]

Fair enough, I'm perfectly happy to accept "cancellation" as the definitive correct way to write the word, and that seems reasonable to me.

Just because I think it's interesting to point out, the Grammarly article does state

However, while cancelation is rarely used (and technically correct), cancellation is by far the more widely-used spelling, no matter where you are.

but I guess even "technically correct" is a big vague without going into more detail of what exactly is meant by that.

Comment by Billy Donahue [ 23/Mar/21 ]

This happens whenever there's a misspelled or misused word.

You can find a dictionary entry pointing to it. This doesn't really redeem the spelling error.

Yes, it really is a misspelling.

M-W is philosophically aligned as a resource to understand written English as it's encountered. So you can use it to decode words you might see while reading. But this doesn't really help you choose words while writing. They give you hints like "variant" or "less commonly" that are meant to be warnings that it's incorrect to write it.

It doesn't take a stand on correctness. So all kinds of stuff gets put in there. This was a total nerdfight among lexicographers with Webster's 3E in 1961. It was a proxy conflict for the culture wars of the era. (A book about the conflict https://www.amazon.com/Story-Websters-Third-Controversial-Dictionary/dp/0521558697 )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster%27s_Third_New_International_Dictionary

Your grammarly link was about "Cancelled", not "Cancellation". "Cancelation" isn't subject to the same US-vs-UK allowance and is always wrong.

But really I think it's important to step back a bit. We can all show off our knowledge of dictionaries and etymology or ngrams. But we need to decide what's right for the codebase. We need to have predictable spelling that matches industry practice in a software context. And for that purpose we should stick with "Cancellation".

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.threading.cancellationtoken?view=net-5.0

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/CancellationException.html

https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio-task.html#shielding-from-cancellation

Comment by Gregory Noma [ 23/Mar/21 ]

I don't have an issue with the change, just pointing out that it's not so much a strict misspelling as it is just an uncommon usage.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cancellation
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/canceled-vs-cancelled/

Comment by Bruce Lucas (Inactive) [ 04/Dec/20 ]

Interestingly, "cancelation" enjoyed a brief surge around 1940.

Comment by Billy Donahue [ 04/Dec/20 ]

This is trivially easy to do with grep and sed.
I'm just going to do it and get it out of the way.

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