I always thought discreet was just a different way of spelling discrete, used by the same type of person who'd write wierd instead of weird, but apparently discreet and discrete are "supposed to" mean different things, a "discrete quantity" vs "discreet packaging".

I reject this notion and will continue to spell either sense as discrete. Both are from Old French discret, both are pronounced the same, both were spelled the same in Middle English, and discretion is still spelled the same for either meaning, so there is absolutely no reason why discrete and discreet should be spelled differently, other than to personally confuse me. There are enough people who confuse the two spellings as to make the written distinction between discrete and discreet absolutely useless.

Yes, I'm going to intentionally misspell a word because it annoys me. You should do the same for any words that you dislike the spellings of. Who's gonna stop us‽

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    They are discrete words, and you can discreetly erode that reality by discreetly misspelling them into a single discrete word at your own discretion.