I can't believe some people actually think that "extravert" could be the spelling error!
"Extrovert" IS the spelling mistake. It's just that it's so common in English that some dicos have accepted it as an alternate spelling. That doesn't make it any less wrong initially.
It's obvious with a modicum of Latin knowledge. The prefixes for introvert and extravert are "intro-" and "extra-" respectively. There is no "extro-" prefix.
Case in point, French is closer to Latin and use the correct "extraverti" and "introverti" words for the two concepts. There is no alternate spelling here.
"Extravert" was the correct form in English for a long time. "Extrovert" is a bastardized derivation. There is no discussion.
Some dictionaries? My laptop's copy of the Oxford English dictionary has both "extrovert" and "extravert" as alternate spellings.
"Extrovert" is also the primary spelling used in the Merriam-Webster English dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extrovert
So far as I know, those are the two main English-language dictionaries.
So what's the etiquette here for adding in the tropes? The episode has aired in the UK, but do we hold off until it's aired in the US as well?
Hide / Show Replies
Can we settle "extravert" vs. "extrovert" and not have an edit war over something so trivial? The latter is by far more common and listed in all the dictionaries, and the former, if listed at all, is given as a secondary or alternate spelling. I checked several online sources before making the change to "extroverted", as well as a real printed-on-dead-trees dictionary I own (which did not even list "extravert".)
An interesting article which argues for the "extra" form: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-difference-between-extraversion-and-extroversion/
I am not convinced, however. Even in that article, Jung's original use of "extra" was in German, not English. There is no requirement for English to follow German, or Latin, for that matter. "Extrovert" is the common form of the word, and English is a consensus language, with no central authority decreeing what is canon.
I will not make further "corrections" if some troper feels strongly enough about it to change it once again. I do think, however, that "extrovert" is what common English has settled on.
Hide / Show Replies