It's "gauge," not "guage"

[sblock]

Am I the only one who noticed that the printed label on the vintage string box currently for sale on Ebay, at this site: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI...m=390476653298 has the word "gauge" spelled incorrectly on its label (as "guage", sic)?! It makes me wonder if this label is faked, or if Gibson really printed a series of string boxes with this word spelled wrong. And, if genuine, does that make the box worth more or less?

[MikeEdgerton]

The fake market for those vintage string boxes is really hot right now. I understand there is a guy making them by hand in his basement.

I would assume it was a typo when it was printed.

[Charley wild]

Could have been written by a banjo player, I suppose.

[allenhopkins]

Or it could be the same guy who keeps posting about his "Rouge" RM-75 mandolin...

[Ray(T)]

Or are they made of aluminium (pronounced aluminum)?

[Mike Bunting]

Or it could be the same guy who keeps posting about his "Rouge" RM-75 mandolin...

Maybe he is "lysdexic"

[Elliot Luber]

Hey a misprint could be worth more. It works for stamps. Lol.

[John Flynn]

Maybe he is "lysdexic"

He can get help from Mothers Against Dyslexia (DAM)

[Mike Bunting]

He can get help from Mothers Against Dyslexia (DAM)

Brilliant!!

[JEStanek]

The look beige.
Jamie

[Jim Garber]

There was a time when Gibson printed prob a ton of those with mispellings. We here at the Cafe noted it starting on this post on this thread about vintage string packages. Scroll down to a few more posts and there is a 1910 package with gauge spelled correctly followed by a 1920s one with it spelled incorrectly.

[John McCoy]

FWIW: It may not be a misspelling. I remember when I was about 12 or so I had seen both 'guage' and 'gauge' and got curious about it. So I asked my father, who knew a lot about things measured in gu/a/uges, being an engineer and having been an ordnance officer in WWII. He told me that when he started studying engineering both spellings were found in textbooks and that for a while at that time at least, both were considered correct; but by the time I asked him only 'gauge' was accepted.

[brunello97]

No disrespect to your father, John, but this sounds like an urban myth or an apocryphal story at best. No reference to 'g-u-age' in the Oxford English Dictionary or elsewhere except as a misspelling of either 'gauge' or 'gage'.

No spell check in the '10s and '20s. Looking through our engineering library one finds a lot of references to 'gua'ge but they all turn out to be misspellings in the digital records. Locating other sources for the same title invariably has the correct spelling. Maybe your father, if he is still with us, can offer some specific references to check.

Funny things happen with language. Where I grew up people "axed" each other questions. Considered perfectly correct speech.

Mick

[G7MOF]

Could have been written by a banjo player, I suppose.

Don't you mean Buanjo?

[Bernie Daniel]

This is an engaging thread.

[Astro]

Man, this is another "collectors" thing thats just hard for me to understand. 40 bucks? For an old string box? Really?

Yeah this would be an easy scam.

I've got some 100 year old socks if anyones interested.

Looks to be abuot a size tin.

[Denny Gies]

Post a picture of your socks, Astro, and I might be in.

[Bernie Daniel]

Man, this is another "collectors" thing thats just hard for me to understand. 40 bucks? For an old string box? Really?

Yeah this would be an easy scam.

I've got some 100 year old socks if anyones interested.

Looks to be abuot a size tin.

Cleaning out the basement last summer I came across a box of EXLAX from the '60's -- I'd have put it on eBay except it looks like some mice got into it -- wonder how they fared with it?

[journeybear]

... when he started studying engineering both spellings were found in textbooks and that for a while at that time at least, both were considered correct; but by the time I asked him only 'gauge' was accepted.

Language is a funny thing, and the English language is one of the funniest. Silent letters abound, and one wonders why they exist, other than as they relate to word origins or custom. Often in words beginning with "gu?" (where ? is another vowel) the "u" is not pronounced, though typically words beginning with "gua" the "u" is pronounced, with a "w" sound, as in guava, guar gum, guano, and guacamole. Of course, given this language's inconsistencies, there is no guarantee this will always be the case. Still, the absence of that sound in "gauge" should be a hint, clue, or tip-off. Though why this is that way, guys and girls, is anyone's guess. There seems to be no overarching guideline, nothing that helps one guard against such gaffes, and whoever is guillty of generating this goofiness should be put on the guillotine to atone for his guileful guerilla attacks on our already beleaguered language - if he already hasn't been. He probably was a guitarist, and never gave it a second thought. I would gladly give a guilder, or even a guinea, to anyone who can explain this.

[G7MOF]

Guys! words that use ough (pronounced "O" "UF" "OF") Ph (Pronounced "F") whilst GH (Also pronounced "F") originate from Latin words.
Sorry to spoil the fun with technicalities

[Pete Jenner]

I would gladly give a guilder, or even a guinea, to anyone who can explain this.

Courtesy of oxforddictionaries.com:

Origin:
Middle English (denoting a standard measure): from Old French gauge (noun), gauger (verb), variant of Old Northern French jauge (noun), jauger (verb), of unknown origin.

Please send Guineas not Guilders.

[journeybear]

Sorry, but "this" referred to the lack of an overarching guideline, the inconsistency of this aspect of the language, not the etymology of this one word (which my Webster's Collegiate explained adequately). But perhaps your interest and effort is worth a guilder. I did notice there seems to be a tendency for "gua" words with a pronounced "u" to come from Spanish, and for "gua" words with an unpronounced "u" to come from French, but there is no guarantee this is consistently true. Still a lot of guesswork involved in this.

[shortymack]

I would gladly give a guilder, or even a guinea, to anyone who can explain this.

Maybe ask Bret Favre. His nomenclature possesses the biggest mystery ever in the English language.

[Pete Jenner]

Sorry, but "this" referred to the lack of an overarching guideline, ...

The lack of an overarching guideline can largely be explained by the evolution and cobbled together nature of the language combined with the enormous amount of time it took to formalise spelling. While English dictionaries were produced as far back as 1604, spelling varied greatly from one to another depending on regional dialectic influences and was often a matter of opinion.

A definitive English Dictionary (Oxford English Dictionary) formalising modern English spelling, wasn't completed until 1928. It was the culmination of a 44 year project. In America however Noah Webster had published the first edition of his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. IMO Webster's haste resulted in the often phonetic spellings that are hallmarks of American English.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Dyslexics of the world "UNTIE"!