Two alternative spellings "cypher" and "cipher" (hereafter "c*pher") appear commonly in articles on topics in cryptography, along with various derivatives (c*phertext, enc*pher, dec*pher...). Should we prefer one spelling over the other? Should both be used freely? What about in certain contexts? This issue has come up several times before. See Talk:Cryptography at cypher v cipher and the links contained therein to some (but surely not all) of the prior discussions.
User:Matt Crypto advocates the following:
We should use "cipher" in preference to "cypher" in articles on modern cryptography. "Modern cryptography" refers to the ideas, algorithms and theory developed in the open academic community since the 1970s, originating with the DES algorithm and public key cryptography. Rationale: in modern cryptographic literature, "cipher" is used, and "cypher" is almost never seen. Wikipedia should reflect this trend.
Does it matter? Probably not a great deal, but it seems quite jarring to use a spelling that is different to the one preferred in practice. Other than this aesthetic point, using "cypher" might also suggest to a reader that the article's writers are unfamiliar with the scholarly literature.
Google phrase | Cipher | Cypher | Ratio |
---|---|---|---|
c*pher | 816,000 | 490,000 | 1.67 |
c*pher encryption | 177,000 | 22,000 | 8.05 |
c*pher cryptography | 88,600 | 5,600 | 15.8 |
c*phertext | 137,000 | 7,210 | 19.00 |
dec*pher | 929,000 | 13,300 | 69.85 |
"block c*pher" | 49,000 | 660 | 74.24 |
Apropos the inclusion of dictionaries and such in the next section, it should be noted that all I've personally looked at cite cypher as at least a variant, thus adding authority (of a kind) to the cypher side of question. ww 19:01, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
Please add books.
Please add books.
I welcome discussion and debate on this question. — Matt 11:39, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
I should like to note, that as a British student of mathematics, 'cipher' looks very awkward and I should be very surprised to see British professors using 'cipher' over 'cypher'. In the interest of international harmony, I would not bother to change the spelling, but it does irritate me to see 'cypher' corrected, when it is indeed already correct.
I don't doubt that British professors favour 'cipher' over 'cypher' when publishing to an international audience, especially given the strength of feeling that is apparently displayed on this matter. Nonetheless, 'cipher' does look awkward to a British reader compared with 'cypher'.
As Matt notes above, this is a teapot tempest, but fascinating to those interested in this language and its thoroughly odd orthography. There is a mini history of the language, with some speculation on how things written got so peculiar, at user talk:Fredrik at cypher vs cipher. In addition the prior discussion contains some historical material (see Talk:Cryptography at cypher vs cipher and the links from there).
But the problem is, at base, not historical in a significant sense. It is hard to distinguish clearly for discussion purposes, but I'll try. Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist, November 26, 1857 - February 22, 1913) first distinguished clearly between language use and language theory/description. His distinction has become universal among linguists and is relevant to this discussion. In dictionaries, the related terms are descriptive (Saussurian) and prescriptive (non-Saussurian).
Languages, for reasons no one, to my knowledge, has been able to explain satisfactorily, differ in the degree of standardization on which they insist among their users. (NB: I am reifying shamelessly here, for wording economy, in using language in this manner, and readers should take care as a consequence.) For instance, some languages are resistant to import of vocabulary from others (eg, historical French, apparently; the modern situation is so overlaid with political and cultural baggage as to obscure much) while English has, seemingly, always been willing to accept new words with little difficulty. Why this should be so is, as I note, obscure.
Writing, being more formal, less spontaneous, and so on is not quite the same circumstance. The Saussurian position is less clearly applicable to written expression; but not, apparently, inapplicable either. In the particular case of English, its spelling has been, since before Hastings (ie, 1066CE) extremely variable. Whether a vice or a virtue (a vice in my view), it has not merely been a function of ignorance. The most learned writers of whom we retain record have been as wild and woolley as we can imagine the near illiterate to have always been, and insofar as we have samples, as they were (and are). Shakespeare is an example. Whoever the writer actually was, his spelling (in quartos, handwriting, and folios) was highly variable. To this day, entire communities, speaking and writing the same English language, differ on the spelling_of_English question. Matt gives the example of colour v color. Part of this is political/cultural (perhaps mostly American, and perhaps primarily Noah Webster who included virtuous republican spelling reform among his briefs in his American dictionaries). But the persistence of such differences cannot be entirely Noah's fault. He's been dead for 150+ years. Actual vocabulary also differs between BE and AE. In GB, cars have boots and bonnets and one goes to the 1st floor in a lift. In AE, cars have trunks and hoods (even British ones) and one is already on the 1st floor when one enters a building -- elevators are needed only for 2nd and higher floors.
There being more Americans than British, a majority vote of English speakers/writers would dispense with all BE differences (spelling, unique vocabulary, etc). That English doesn't (quite) operate on majority vote in such cases is, it would seem, an aspect of Saussurian use rather than theory as English' modus operandi.
Accordingly, I would respect the way that English does it, and leave the spelling alone in this case. I have suggested that articles be internally consistent on cy v ci, but that wholesale changes not be made to conform to 'conventional' use. English doesn't work that way. German and others might, but might is still spelled very oddly in English, though it rhymes with knight and both were spelled as pronounced once upon a time (Chaucer's time or before!).
I think this spelling difference is a grace note, an opportunity for bemusement (at English, the speller's nightmare), and should be made visible to our Reader, not concealed behind a veil of (in English) artificial convention.
Comments? Observations?
(I made some interlineated comments here, and in so doing confused the software. Please be assured that Securiger's original posting was very neatly formatted and sequentially numbered. My reactions have deranged the software so that it can no longer count by whole numbers. ww)
My thoughts:
At the moment, and off the top of my head, things stand as follows in re: WP crypto editors' positions. Please feel free to correct any misinterpretations or misconstruals here. In no order whatsoever as this was written.
ww -- use yt exclusively in writings on the subject, use yt preferentially in WP where possible. Regard the whole TT with bemusement, mostly at the oddities of English. A grace note, mostly harmless. Unwilling to alter anything whatsoever in forestalling anticipation of irrelevant (ie, disapproving) judgements by others about his (or anyone's) familiarity with the scholarly literature or the content of the subject -- including spelling. For other reasons perhaps, but not that one.
user:Jdcc -- prefers cypher, regularly loses battles with editors of his writing who insist on cipher
user:Heron -- prefers cipher, but does not want to be prescriptive against cypher [Agreed. However, having read more about this subject, I am now even more biased against cypher. From what I can see by using Google - and I mean from reading the words, not just counting the instances - cypher seems to be used mainly by non-mathematicians, including mystics and historians. I'm not saying that any of these groups is absolutely right or wrong, but we should prefer cipher in the context of modern cryptography, and allow either form in other contexts. -- Heron 16:21, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
user:jdforrester -- does not want to be prescriptive against either [edit: I'll live with cipher, though I normally use cypher (will have to remember to behave on Wiki ;-)); as Pete says (below), it's "no big loss". James F. (talk) 21:02, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
user:imran -- prefers cipher, has suggested standardization, has ended up at non prescriptive either way.
user:wmahan -- has no strong feelings either way, wants things spelled correctly, but recognizes this constellation of alternatives
user:Spellbott -- similar to wmahan
User:Matt Crypto -- prefers cipher, but does not want to be prescriptive except as WP style prescribes. Is concerned for standardization on one or the other to avoid incorrect conclusions about WP article crypto authority/sophistication.
ciphergoth -- I prefer cipher (unsurprisingly given my nick!). I have a couple of publications in the field. Pretty much all the papers I've read use "cipher"; using "cypher" would just make Wikipedia look unprofessional and ill-informed. Let the lit-crit people have "cypher".
[Only familiar with cryptography through one undergrad course, so not expecting this opinion to carry as much weight as experts... but you did ask at the pump :)] It seems like that the proposal to allow mixed spelling is perhaps inspired partly by the decision to allow mixed spellings in general to cope with Brit/American (and others) differences. I think you shouldn't follow that lead too much... standards are prefered where possible... they just aren't possible when you are talking about all articles. In this smaller we are talking about a smaller subset of articles, overseen by a single project, and so it would be possible to enforce an "i" only policy, if an overwhelming (80%? 90%?) proportion of interested parties wanted to. Because in actual fact this is a tiny issue, I imagine those in the minority would acquiesce to that on the grounds of "no big loss". Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
NealMcB 18:50, 2004 May 26 (UTC) I think cipher is the clearly favored choice in educated usage. I think usage of computers to scan and process text (including search engines, word processors, etc) causes consistency to be increasingly helpful and important. So I think wikipedians would be producing a better product if they would stick to just cipher. I don't know enough about wp etiquette and politics on such topics to know the best way to achieve this result.
I vote no 'y' variant except where context specifically calls for it. See discussion above. Securiger 04:00, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Denni I prefer "cipher" but see so much pathetic spelling that I don't care either way, as long as it's not "sihper" (though I have a secret longing to spell cryptography with an 'i').
Birkett Not heavily involved in the wikipedia, but I went on a bit of a rampage changing cypher -> cipher without much regard to other people's views on the issue, then discovered that people really didn't like me doing that and reverted all my changes. Fair enough I guess, should have read this first :-) Sorry to whoever it was that I offended. Really do prefer cipher though, cypher looks kinda archaic to me.
Elonka - I prefer "cipher" in my own writings. As far as wikipedia goes, I won't specifically edit a page *just* to change "cypher" to "cipher", because I do agree that it is an acceptable variant. However, if I am doing other copy-editing on a page, I may change the variants that I run across. The reason for this is that when I am proofreading, I tend to read things both in detail (stream?) and large chunks at a time (block, heh). And the "cypher" spelling tends to jump out at me in blocks, perhaps distracting me from other typos that may be in close proximity. So if I change the attention-drawing words to "cipher", I am more likely to catch other errors that might otherwise escape my notice.
(Yet again there is software derangement caused by interlineated comments. Matt, like Securiger above, had produced a perfectly formatted and numbered, series of points. Should we be sending this software (the editing module?) back to grammar school? ww)
ww — I get the impression that we don't so much disagree on facts but on what we should do about them. I think we should first clarify what we agree on, since we should be working towards consensus. Do you agree with the following? ...
(Please add your own suggestions as to what we might agree on) — Matt 09:04, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
"If a word or phrase is generally regarded as correct, then prefer it to an alternative that is often regarded as incorrect." — Wikipedia Manual of Style.
ww — OK, it's good that we agree on some of the above facts. We disagree on whether it matters. Regarding using "cypher", you say, "it's a grace note", "mostly harmless", "an opportunity for bemusement". However, I, and a couple of other editors, think that using "cipher" would improve the articles; for example, User:Securiger says, "In a cryptographic context, the variant spelling is mainly, but certainly not exclusively, associated with novices and gives an impression of lack of professionalism." This is not some great debate about whether "cypher" is "incorrect" in some absolute sense, but a discussion about how we can improve Wikipedia articles. The question is whether "cipher" is a better spelling for Wikipedia articles.
Because of this, would you be willing to go along with using "cipher" in modern cryptography articles? Deducing from your own statements, this change would be "mostly harmless" from your point of view, but would be an improvement in some other editors' opinions.
By the way, I appreciate (and share) your objection to attempts to prescribe what is correct and what is incorrect usage (believe it or not!). You say "I think [we] should follow the language, not try like Cnut to command it."; I agree. My argument is simply that in this case and in this particular context people use "cipher" — overwhelmingly. Therefore, we should follow the way the language is used, and use "cipher".
Two alternative spellings "cypher" and "cipher" (hereafter "c*pher") appear commonly in articles on topics in cryptography, along with various derivatives (c*phertext, enc*pher, dec*pher...). Should we prefer one spelling over the other? Should both be used freely? What about in certain contexts? This issue has come up several times before. See Talk:Cryptography at cypher v cipher and the links contained therein to some (but surely not all) of the prior discussions.
User:Matt Crypto advocates the following:
We should use "cipher" in preference to "cypher" in articles on modern cryptography. "Modern cryptography" refers to the ideas, algorithms and theory developed in the open academic community since the 1970s, originating with the DES algorithm and public key cryptography. Rationale: in modern cryptographic literature, "cipher" is used, and "cypher" is almost never seen. Wikipedia should reflect this trend.
Does it matter? Probably not a great deal, but it seems quite jarring to use a spelling that is different to the one preferred in practice. Other than this aesthetic point, using "cypher" might also suggest to a reader that the article's writers are unfamiliar with the scholarly literature.
Google phrase | Cipher | Cypher | Ratio |
---|---|---|---|
c*pher | 816,000 | 490,000 | 1.67 |
c*pher encryption | 177,000 | 22,000 | 8.05 |
c*pher cryptography | 88,600 | 5,600 | 15.8 |
c*phertext | 137,000 | 7,210 | 19.00 |
dec*pher | 929,000 | 13,300 | 69.85 |
"block c*pher" | 49,000 | 660 | 74.24 |
Apropos the inclusion of dictionaries and such in the next section, it should be noted that all I've personally looked at cite cypher as at least a variant, thus adding authority (of a kind) to the cypher side of question. ww 19:01, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
Please add books.
Please add books.
I welcome discussion and debate on this question. — Matt 11:39, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
I should like to note, that as a British student of mathematics, 'cipher' looks very awkward and I should be very surprised to see British professors using 'cipher' over 'cypher'. In the interest of international harmony, I would not bother to change the spelling, but it does irritate me to see 'cypher' corrected, when it is indeed already correct.
I don't doubt that British professors favour 'cipher' over 'cypher' when publishing to an international audience, especially given the strength of feeling that is apparently displayed on this matter. Nonetheless, 'cipher' does look awkward to a British reader compared with 'cypher'.
As Matt notes above, this is a teapot tempest, but fascinating to those interested in this language and its thoroughly odd orthography. There is a mini history of the language, with some speculation on how things written got so peculiar, at user talk:Fredrik at cypher vs cipher. In addition the prior discussion contains some historical material (see Talk:Cryptography at cypher vs cipher and the links from there).
But the problem is, at base, not historical in a significant sense. It is hard to distinguish clearly for discussion purposes, but I'll try. Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist, November 26, 1857 - February 22, 1913) first distinguished clearly between language use and language theory/description. His distinction has become universal among linguists and is relevant to this discussion. In dictionaries, the related terms are descriptive (Saussurian) and prescriptive (non-Saussurian).
Languages, for reasons no one, to my knowledge, has been able to explain satisfactorily, differ in the degree of standardization on which they insist among their users. (NB: I am reifying shamelessly here, for wording economy, in using language in this manner, and readers should take care as a consequence.) For instance, some languages are resistant to import of vocabulary from others (eg, historical French, apparently; the modern situation is so overlaid with political and cultural baggage as to obscure much) while English has, seemingly, always been willing to accept new words with little difficulty. Why this should be so is, as I note, obscure.
Writing, being more formal, less spontaneous, and so on is not quite the same circumstance. The Saussurian position is less clearly applicable to written expression; but not, apparently, inapplicable either. In the particular case of English, its spelling has been, since before Hastings (ie, 1066CE) extremely variable. Whether a vice or a virtue (a vice in my view), it has not merely been a function of ignorance. The most learned writers of whom we retain record have been as wild and woolley as we can imagine the near illiterate to have always been, and insofar as we have samples, as they were (and are). Shakespeare is an example. Whoever the writer actually was, his spelling (in quartos, handwriting, and folios) was highly variable. To this day, entire communities, speaking and writing the same English language, differ on the spelling_of_English question. Matt gives the example of colour v color. Part of this is political/cultural (perhaps mostly American, and perhaps primarily Noah Webster who included virtuous republican spelling reform among his briefs in his American dictionaries). But the persistence of such differences cannot be entirely Noah's fault. He's been dead for 150+ years. Actual vocabulary also differs between BE and AE. In GB, cars have boots and bonnets and one goes to the 1st floor in a lift. In AE, cars have trunks and hoods (even British ones) and one is already on the 1st floor when one enters a building -- elevators are needed only for 2nd and higher floors.
There being more Americans than British, a majority vote of English speakers/writers would dispense with all BE differences (spelling, unique vocabulary, etc). That English doesn't (quite) operate on majority vote in such cases is, it would seem, an aspect of Saussurian use rather than theory as English' modus operandi.
Accordingly, I would respect the way that English does it, and leave the spelling alone in this case. I have suggested that articles be internally consistent on cy v ci, but that wholesale changes not be made to conform to 'conventional' use. English doesn't work that way. German and others might, but might is still spelled very oddly in English, though it rhymes with knight and both were spelled as pronounced once upon a time (Chaucer's time or before!).
I think this spelling difference is a grace note, an opportunity for bemusement (at English, the speller's nightmare), and should be made visible to our Reader, not concealed behind a veil of (in English) artificial convention.
Comments? Observations?
(I made some interlineated comments here, and in so doing confused the software. Please be assured that Securiger's original posting was very neatly formatted and sequentially numbered. My reactions have deranged the software so that it can no longer count by whole numbers. ww)
My thoughts:
At the moment, and off the top of my head, things stand as follows in re: WP crypto editors' positions. Please feel free to correct any misinterpretations or misconstruals here. In no order whatsoever as this was written.
ww -- use yt exclusively in writings on the subject, use yt preferentially in WP where possible. Regard the whole TT with bemusement, mostly at the oddities of English. A grace note, mostly harmless. Unwilling to alter anything whatsoever in forestalling anticipation of irrelevant (ie, disapproving) judgements by others about his (or anyone's) familiarity with the scholarly literature or the content of the subject -- including spelling. For other reasons perhaps, but not that one.
user:Jdcc -- prefers cypher, regularly loses battles with editors of his writing who insist on cipher
user:Heron -- prefers cipher, but does not want to be prescriptive against cypher [Agreed. However, having read more about this subject, I am now even more biased against cypher. From what I can see by using Google - and I mean from reading the words, not just counting the instances - cypher seems to be used mainly by non-mathematicians, including mystics and historians. I'm not saying that any of these groups is absolutely right or wrong, but we should prefer cipher in the context of modern cryptography, and allow either form in other contexts. -- Heron 16:21, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
user:jdforrester -- does not want to be prescriptive against either [edit: I'll live with cipher, though I normally use cypher (will have to remember to behave on Wiki ;-)); as Pete says (below), it's "no big loss". James F. (talk) 21:02, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
user:imran -- prefers cipher, has suggested standardization, has ended up at non prescriptive either way.
user:wmahan -- has no strong feelings either way, wants things spelled correctly, but recognizes this constellation of alternatives
user:Spellbott -- similar to wmahan
User:Matt Crypto -- prefers cipher, but does not want to be prescriptive except as WP style prescribes. Is concerned for standardization on one or the other to avoid incorrect conclusions about WP article crypto authority/sophistication.
ciphergoth -- I prefer cipher (unsurprisingly given my nick!). I have a couple of publications in the field. Pretty much all the papers I've read use "cipher"; using "cypher" would just make Wikipedia look unprofessional and ill-informed. Let the lit-crit people have "cypher".
[Only familiar with cryptography through one undergrad course, so not expecting this opinion to carry as much weight as experts... but you did ask at the pump :)] It seems like that the proposal to allow mixed spelling is perhaps inspired partly by the decision to allow mixed spellings in general to cope with Brit/American (and others) differences. I think you shouldn't follow that lead too much... standards are prefered where possible... they just aren't possible when you are talking about all articles. In this smaller we are talking about a smaller subset of articles, overseen by a single project, and so it would be possible to enforce an "i" only policy, if an overwhelming (80%? 90%?) proportion of interested parties wanted to. Because in actual fact this is a tiny issue, I imagine those in the minority would acquiesce to that on the grounds of "no big loss". Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
NealMcB 18:50, 2004 May 26 (UTC) I think cipher is the clearly favored choice in educated usage. I think usage of computers to scan and process text (including search engines, word processors, etc) causes consistency to be increasingly helpful and important. So I think wikipedians would be producing a better product if they would stick to just cipher. I don't know enough about wp etiquette and politics on such topics to know the best way to achieve this result.
I vote no 'y' variant except where context specifically calls for it. See discussion above. Securiger 04:00, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Denni I prefer "cipher" but see so much pathetic spelling that I don't care either way, as long as it's not "sihper" (though I have a secret longing to spell cryptography with an 'i').
Birkett Not heavily involved in the wikipedia, but I went on a bit of a rampage changing cypher -> cipher without much regard to other people's views on the issue, then discovered that people really didn't like me doing that and reverted all my changes. Fair enough I guess, should have read this first :-) Sorry to whoever it was that I offended. Really do prefer cipher though, cypher looks kinda archaic to me.
Elonka - I prefer "cipher" in my own writings. As far as wikipedia goes, I won't specifically edit a page *just* to change "cypher" to "cipher", because I do agree that it is an acceptable variant. However, if I am doing other copy-editing on a page, I may change the variants that I run across. The reason for this is that when I am proofreading, I tend to read things both in detail (stream?) and large chunks at a time (block, heh). And the "cypher" spelling tends to jump out at me in blocks, perhaps distracting me from other typos that may be in close proximity. So if I change the attention-drawing words to "cipher", I am more likely to catch other errors that might otherwise escape my notice.
(Yet again there is software derangement caused by interlineated comments. Matt, like Securiger above, had produced a perfectly formatted and numbered, series of points. Should we be sending this software (the editing module?) back to grammar school? ww)
ww — I get the impression that we don't so much disagree on facts but on what we should do about them. I think we should first clarify what we agree on, since we should be working towards consensus. Do you agree with the following? ...
(Please add your own suggestions as to what we might agree on) — Matt 09:04, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
"If a word or phrase is generally regarded as correct, then prefer it to an alternative that is often regarded as incorrect." — Wikipedia Manual of Style.
ww — OK, it's good that we agree on some of the above facts. We disagree on whether it matters. Regarding using "cypher", you say, "it's a grace note", "mostly harmless", "an opportunity for bemusement". However, I, and a couple of other editors, think that using "cipher" would improve the articles; for example, User:Securiger says, "In a cryptographic context, the variant spelling is mainly, but certainly not exclusively, associated with novices and gives an impression of lack of professionalism." This is not some great debate about whether "cypher" is "incorrect" in some absolute sense, but a discussion about how we can improve Wikipedia articles. The question is whether "cipher" is a better spelling for Wikipedia articles.
Because of this, would you be willing to go along with using "cipher" in modern cryptography articles? Deducing from your own statements, this change would be "mostly harmless" from your point of view, but would be an improvement in some other editors' opinions.
By the way, I appreciate (and share) your objection to attempts to prescribe what is correct and what is incorrect usage (believe it or not!). You say "I think [we] should follow the language, not try like Cnut to command it."; I agree. My argument is simply that in this case and in this particular context people use "cipher" — overwhelmingly. Therefore, we should follow the way the language is used, and use "cipher".