[Vwoolf] "principle" in place of "principal"

[Stuart N. Clarke]

The 2 words are quite different, but I admit that I have to concentrate when typing them to make sure I’ve chosen the right one!  I don’t think they have (yet?) become interchangeable.

Unlike “imply” and “infer”: in the Antipodes, even in scientific papers, the words are used interchangeably, although I was surprised to find the use as early as 1931, e.g.:

M. H. C., ‘The Scheme of Things’, NZ Evening Post, Vol. CXII, No. 112 (7 November 1931), 9: ‘“Oxbridge” … plainly infers [sic] Oxford’; http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=EP19311107.2.40.1

Stuart

From: Sunjoo Lee 
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 10:38 AM
To: woolf list 
Subject: [Vwoolf] "principle" in place of "principal"

Hi, everyone,  



I have been a bit bugged by seeing "principle" when the word has to be "principal." 

I saw that happening in doctoral dissertations and (in a few cases) articles from well-known journals, or even books from good publishers. 



And this afternoon, from Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Indiana UP, 1997), I found: 



"Thus the knowledge of beings in general (Metaphysica Generalis) and the knowledge of its principle divisions (Metaphysica Specialis) become a "science established on the basis of mere reason."" (6). 



And now I wonder, has "principle" been accepted as an alternate spelling of "principal"? Only I haven't been aware of it? 

Dictionaries I use don't have such information. Has anyone else wondered about this? 





Sunjoo 

     



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