Aliasing hippogriff -> hippogryph

Reason: Hippogryphs are rare. Tag confusion makes pictures of them even harder to track down. I recommend aliasing to 'hippogryph' rather than the other way around to be consistent with the 'gryphon' spelling.

I'll do it in a bit if nobody has other opinions on it.

Wait, what's the difference?

From my own point of view, it should be the other way around. I see the reason for consistency with "gryphon," but the "-griff" spelling was popularized by the Harry Potter novels, and definitely what I'd type in if searching for such a creature.

Also, it looks like "hippogriff" is an accepted spelling- regardless of Rowling's novels- AND "griffin" as well as "griffon" are accepted spellings of "gryphon."

Edit: In fact, it looks like Merriam-Webster defines "gryphon" as a variant of "griffin," rather than the other way around.

RedOctober said:
Wait, what's the difference?

From my own point of view, it should be the other way around. I see the reason for consistency with "gryphon," but the "-griff" spelling was popularized by the Harry Potter novels, and definitely what I'd type in if searching for such a creature.

Also, it looks like "hippogriff" is an accepted spelling- regardless of Rowling's novels- AND "griffin" as well as "griffon" are accepted spellings of "gryphon."

Edit: In fact, it looks like Merriam-Webster defines "gryphon" as a variant of "griffin," rather than the other way around.

Tag aliases don't stop you from searching for the old tag. In fact, they redirect such searches to the new tag. If you go into the system and search for 'rhino', you'll get all the 'rhinoceros' images as well, thanks to a tag alias.

I spell both with a double F and use "griffin." I never understood why there were multiple spellings of the same word, and it puzzles me why people use the other spellings.

I prefer "hippogriff" due to Harry Potter and "griffin" probably because of Family Guy but I may have used it before the series.

Tag aliases don't stop you from searching for the old tag. In fact, they redirect such searches to the new tag. If you go into the system and search for 'rhino', you'll get all the 'rhinoceros' images as well, thanks to a tag alias.

Isn't that the point of an alias?

hg3300 said:
I spell both with a double F and use "griffin." I never understood why there were multiple spellings of the same word, and it puzzles me why people use the other spellings.

You're expecting natural language to be logical.

Snowy said:
You're expecting natural language to be logical.

well it ought to be.

31h253 said:
Tag aliases don't stop you from searching for the old tag. In fact, they redirect such searches to the new tag. If you go into the system and search for 'rhino', you'll get all the 'rhinoceros' images as well, thanks to a tag alias.

I know how tag aliases work. My point is that since to me, hippogriff would be the obvious search and hippogryph the niche search term, that's the one that should be aliased to the more widely-used term.

hg3300 said:
I never understood why there were multiple spellings of the same word, and it puzzles me why people use the other spellings.

"Gryphon" comes from the Greek spelling, Γρυφων. That is, gamma rho upsilon (which has become the Latin "y") phi omega nu. Gryphon.

This still needs to be done. Rather than make a new thread, I'd rather bring my old one back to life. The same arguments apply.

EDIT: Oh, and I think hippogryph should implicate gryphon, treating hippogryph as a subtype of gryphon.

hg3300 said:
I never understood why there were multiple spellings of the same word, and it puzzles me why people use the other spellings.

It's a culture thing.

itsapainfulworld said:
It's a culture thing.

I've always used gryphon, because of where I was brought up. but yeah, language is an evolving construct of the human capacity.. We aren't logical, the way we speak won't be as well.. especially the hosh posh that is the English language. We have more words than china :p but that's from the constant conquering the anglo-saxon race endured during the dark ages...

Meh, je prefere francais

Aurali said:
I've always used gryphon, because of where I was brought up. but yeah, language is an evolving construct of the human capacity.. We aren't logical, the way we speak won't be as well.. especially the hosh posh that is the English language. We have more words than china :p but that's from the constant conquering the anglo-saxon race endured during the dark ages...

Meh, je prefere francais

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

According to the quote site I ruthlessly stole that from, that's from James Nicoll.

Topic at hand- I think for consistency's sake we should stick with one wording. If the word for Lion-Bird monster has different spelling than the word for Horse-Bird monster, I think that's fine.

My computer's spellcheck recognizes "griffin" as a word, but not "gryphon". Just sayin'.

RedOctober said:
Wait, what's the difference?

From my own point of view, it should be the other way around.

Edit: In fact, it looks like Merriam-Webster defines "gryphon" as a variant of "griffin," rather than the other way around.

Red has a point about this;

Most sources (most prominently here , and here) do seem to treat 'hippogryph' as a variant of hippogriff, rather than the converse. With 'hippogryph' being noted as the older, 17th century version

Other than deciding on which wiki page gets preferred over the other, and aestheticism, aliasing one to the other shouldn't really make a difference with respect to tagging

( Personally, I prefer hippogriff & griffon, since it corresponds more closely to other languages , with the exception of Czech & Greek

But hippogryph looks prettier :3)

I'd still prefer hippogryph. I'd still prefer either one be done than neither. It doesn't matter that much whether the 'official' term is hippogriff or hippogryph. Could someone just implement the alias already?

I'm arbitrarily picking "hippogryph" to be the post-alias tag. Enjoy.

null0010 said:
I'm arbitrarily picking "hippogryph" to be the post-alias tag. Enjoy.

null is now my friend.

Aurali said:
null is now my friend.

Hooray!

null0010 said:
Hooray!

Aw, I always miss out