Restaurateur by any spelling, whether with an ``n'' or without, is not a favorite word of keepers of the language, according to a survey. But if they have to use the word for keeper of a restaurant, they'll take it without the ``n,'' said respondents to the 12th English language usage survey by the Indiana University School of Journalism. ``Many in the survey found it stuffy no matter how it is spelled, though its use is patently expanding in this country,'' Professor Richard L. Tobin wrote in the survey released this week. The 10-question survey was mailed to 100 newspaper copy editors and 50 magazine editors in the United States and Canada and got a 60 percent return, Tobin said. ``The consensus throughout this year's survey was mighty close to unanimous in almost every example, which just goes to show that copyreaders know what they're doing and do it like the sterling language-usage guardians they are put there to be,'' the survey said. Nearly all editors agree ``percent'' should be one word and not two. Most editors agreed the region Deep South should be uppercase. Most copydesks caught the misuse of ``tremblor'' instead of ``temblor,'' in a line from a Maryland newspaper reporting a Palm Springs earthquake. Most changed ``forego'' to ``forgo'' in the sentence: ``The university decided to forego the traditional faculty banquet because of the financial situation.'' Copydesks were asked whether ``gibe'' or ``jibe'' was correct in the following sentence: ``Three suspects were taken to police headquarters but detectives announced later that their stories didn't gibe.'' The verdict was almost unanimous that ``jibe'' was correct. ``Complacent'' was correctly preferred over ``complaisant'' in an item saying a soccer team had become ``complaisant'' after four straight victories. Most Canadians agree a person of Scottish descent is ``Scotch'' rather than ``Scot,'' which is preferred in the homeland. ``Several respondents in our survey said they'd given up trying to substitute `Scot' for `Scotch,' and anyway it really didn't matter all that much,'' the survey said. Editors chose ``theretofore'' over ``hitherto'' in the sentence: ``In 1864, President Lincoln spent the hitherto unheard of sum of $3,000,000 on naval construction.'' Almost no one chose ``peddle'' over ``pedal'' in the final question, which came from a Florida sports page: ``When you're riding a bicycle you use the brake and the peddle with caution on today's highways.''
