[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

My own experience in getting fiction published is that when I submit something to a US publisher, they expect consistent use of AE, and it appears simple courtesy for someone who submits something to a publisher in Britain to consistently use BE.

Fiction ≠ science.
Most of the scientists who publish aren't native speakers, so their English has other, much more obvious shortcomings.

Originally Posted by red rocket 

That does not seem to follow. It may be the case in the field of mathematical physics, but you cannot extrapolate from that.

It's also like that in mathematics and physics. (Mathematical physicists belong to both communities.) I've gotten to know plenty of people in both fields and read lots of papers from both (I'm a physicist `by birth' and a mathematician by accident).

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Unless it were one of your own articles, or you knew the author personally, you wouldn’t necessarily find out about it, would you?

My PhD supervisor was editor-in-chief at fairly well-known journal in our community and he still is an editor in several. I have also helped a friend publish a book at de Gruyter. I have never heard a paper to be rejected, because the `wrong' English (e. g. AE instead of BE or vice versa) was used. Other than consistency, there was never really a requirement other than the text to be `legible.' I've heard of a few cases when papers were initially rejected because of bad English, but not because the author preferred to write `colour' instead of `color.'

If a journal has a specific policy on that, and not all do, then someone from the journal proof reads the whole thing and changes spellings if necessary, although in our profession, you should tell them to keep their hands off the equations (They sometimes change all carefully chosen bracket sizes, delete parts of formulas or add to them -- without properly understanding the equations in question.)

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Assuming that the number of articles submitted exceeds the number that the journal will publish, there is always going to a pressure on reviewers to find fault with an article.

And they will find fault with the article if they want to, but a journal in natural sciences will never, ever reject an article on the grounds of differences in spelling or grammar. Never, ever. I've seen articles rejected for all sorts of reasons (non-sense, even soap opera), but if the referee or editor doesn't want to publish your paper, (s)he wouldn't pin it on typos. That's the weakest form of criticism there is.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Proved and proven are not always interchangeable.

"He proved it was true."
"It was proven to be true."

The first case is a present participle, not a past particle. The present participle has always been `proved.'

[Simon]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Do you worry about consistency?

Absolutely. Which is why before publication a copy editor will change spellings if the journal has a clear preference for AE over BE or vice versa. But it is not something I as an author or reviewer worry about. Papers are rejected because they aren't scientifically sound, because they're incomplete or incomprehensible, never because of spelling.

If we'd actually reject papers because of spelling pretty much every paper from China would be thrown out. And I'm not talking BE vs. AE, I'm talking about real spelling mistakes. Would I like the authors to exercise more diligence? Sure. Would I reject an otherwise good paper because of that? No.

I find this whole AE vs. BE debate silly. There simply is no such thing as universal standard English. IMHO people should chose one, stick to it, and try to use it properly.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

The first case is a present participle, not a past particle. The present participle has always been `proved.'

No, the first one is a simple past tense. The present participle of ‘prove’ is ‘proving’.

[OreoCookie]

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