Computerized Maintenance Management or Computerised Maintainance Management?
A wee touch of computerized maintenance humour (or should that be maintainance humor?)
(Skip this and go to the Serious CMMS Pages)
One of the problems about writing copy on computerized maintenance management systems internationally is the different ways that people spell specific words in our industry. Many of you will already know that the English language took two separate paths when the Pilgrim fathers landed in north America. The American writer, Bill Bryson, addresses this subject in his excellent book, "Made in America".
"Why did the Americans save such good old English words as skedaddle and chitterlings and chore, but not fortnight or heath? Why did they keep the irregular British pronunciations in words like colonel and hearth, but go down our own way in with lieutenant and schedule and clerk? Why in short is American English the way it is?"
My own theory is that this really has nothing to do with differences in the cultures of America or the UK per se. At the time of the colonisation (colonization) communication between the two nations was primitive so, then as now, language continued to evolve but it did so separately, at least until the introduction of modern media and communications in the 20th century. Since then it has begun to once again merge into a single language. It is not uncommon to see people from the UK using American spelling and who cares? We know what they mean!
One of the idiosyncrasies is the Americanisation (Americanization) of the S to Z in words. Should we refer to computerised maintenance management systems or computerized maintenance management systems? But wait - it doesn't end there. What about the word maintenance? The word maintain is a verb and many people understandably misspell the noun as maintainance. So, in our subject we now have the following options ...
- Computerised maintenance management software (Correct)
- Computerized maintenance management software
- Computerised maintainance management software
- Computerized maintainance management software
Wait a minute, we're not finished, because we are not just talking about computerised maintenance management or should that be computerized maintenance management or perhaps ... ? We are also talking about preventive maintenance software or should that be preventative maintenance software? Both the terms preventive maintenance and preventative maintainance are in common use. OK, where does that leave us?
- Computerised maintenance management software for preventive maintainance
- Computerized maintenance management software for preventive maintenance
- Computerised maintainance management software for preventive maintenance
- Computerized maintenance management software for preventative maintainance
- Computerized maintainance blah, blah, blah, blah ....
OK! I won't bore you any further but then you don't have to write the copy! Let's just say that computerized maintenance management software should be at the centre of any good maintainance department's organisation, or should that be center ... or organization or ...?
Contact us if you have anything (preferably witty) to add to this dialogue (or dialog!)
