The Rural Voice, 1983-06, Page 45But how do you spell it?
The next time someone asks us why it
takes so much time to publish a 72 -page
magazine once a month, 1 am going to
tell them the story of the soybean (or soy
bean, soyabean or soya -bean).
Now if there is one thing Sheila and I
try to do, it's to be consistent with our
spelling and punctuation. So when one
of our readers informed us that we had
been misspelling the word 'soybean', we
were very grateful. This very knowledge-
able reader told us that 'soybean'
contains no "a" between soy and bean.
We had held frequent discussions about
the word that goes with this precious
little bean and thought our problems
were now solved.
Not so. When an advertiser sends us
an ad and it clearly contains the word
'soyabean', we are reluctant to change
the spelling, especially if we have
checked back with the advertiser and he
wants to spell the word with an "a" in the
middle.
And then, the word frequently pops up
in press releases or articles on chemicals
and fertilizers and usually it is spelled
differently in every instance.
Finally we decided to check with the
experts so we called the OMAF office in
Clinton and they checked their "Field
Crop Recommendations" No. 296 and
informed us that our reader was indeed
correct, the right way to spell 'soybean' is
soybean. I did point out to the OMAF
staff that they have a display down in
their boardroom and beside one package
is a white card that says "soy beans"
(two words). In spite of this, we all
decided to go with 'soybean' (one word).
So the next time I visited one of our
advertisers, I informed them that from
now on we would be spelling 'soybean'
without the "a" in the middle. Having
received this information quite calmly,
our advertiser went to the files and pulled
out a very official looking document
which was headed up "Monthly State-
ment to be furnished to the Ontario
Soya -Bean Growers' Marketing Board".
At this point my dream of consistency
went up in smoke. If the marketing board
BRANDY POINT FARMS
Hybrid Gilts - York x Landrace
Open or Bred
Also, R.O.P. Tested and Health Approved
PUREBRED LANDRACE, YORK & CROSSBRED BOARS
Willy & Kurt Keller, R.R. 1, Mitchell 519-348-9753. or 348-8043
PG. 44 THE RURAL VOICE, JUNE 1983
Yorkshires
& Spots
R.O.P. Tested
R.R.2 Monkton
519-347-2259
responsible for this little bean calls itself
the Ontario Soya -Bean Growers' Market-
ing Board and they are so registered with
the Farm Products Marketing Act. who
are we to argue.
But still I was not satisfied, so I
cautiously approached the subject with
another advertiser who always uses an
"a" in his soyabean ads and he asked me
what Webster's Dictionary says. I sheep-
ishly admitted that I had not checked that
source and immediately dived for my
unabridged Webster's only to discover
that I was no further ahead.
Webster's says:
Soybean, n., the seed of the soja
max. It is cultivated in China,
Japan, and India, also extensively
in the U.S. and yields flour, oil
and other commercial products,
Also called soya bean.
Soybean or soya bean oil: the oil
extracted from the soy bean and
used as a food, etc. Its semi -dry-
ing or drying quality makes it
important in the manufacture of
paints, Iinoleums, soaps, etc. It
is also known as bean oil and
soja bean oil.
Now we have five possible spel-
lings:
(1) soybean (2) soy bean (3) soya
bean (4) soya -bean and (5) soja
bean.
I doubt if the last spelling is much
used in North America, so we may be
down to four choices, except that the
advertiser who suggested I refer to the
dictionary has opted for soyabean (all
one word) which brings us back up to five
possibilities.
If any reader would like to advise us
further, we are quite open to sugges-
tions. In the meantime, each writer or
advertiser is going to have to choose for
himself what spelling he wants to use.
At least, this small tempest around
one little word should help explain why it
takes four to five weeks to put out a
72 -page magazine.
Beverley Brown