On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, David Silberstein wrote: #full of snarky asides and humorous lexographic anecdotes, e.g. #2. A part, number, 'livraison' (of a work published by #instalments)[1]) #[1] And might I note that it is vaguely worrisome when the #venerable OED has a misspelling... Ah, yes, the snarky aside. This one is in error. instalment(2) ... b. fig. A part of something produced or supplied in advance of the remainder; one of several parts supplied or produced at different times. [from OED Online] The spelling with a single "l" is standard British orthography. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel