A question of spelling or different meaning: What’s the difference between “thread gage” and “thread gauge”?
The eternal question for high precision machining companies is which spelling to use when referring to a metal device in the measurement of a screw thread’s pitch, form angle, and/or diameter, whether to render the term as “thread gage” or “thread gauge”.
Well, fortunately for fast typers, lovers of autocorrect, and the uninitiated, they refer to the same devices. “Thread gage” and “thread gauge” is actually a matter of English language history and preference more than anything. According to the USGS (US Geological Survey), one of its pioneering members, Frederick Haynes Newell is responsible for the popularization of “gage” as a favorable alternative to “gauge” when referring to steamflow gaging methods.
From an article entitled “Why does the USGS use the spelling "gage" instead of "gauge"?” on USGS.gov, “Newell is purported to be the person responsible for the adoption of the USGS spelling of “gage” instead of “gauge”.
It continues, “Around 1892, Newell reasoned that ‘gage’ was the proper Saxon spelling before the Norman influence added a 'u'. USGS historian Robert Follansbee speculated that Newell might have also been influenced by the adoption of ‘gage’ in the Standard Dictionary (the first dictionary produced by Funk and Wagnalls)”
So it’s likely that “gage” is a “purer” Germanic form of the word, with the “gauge” spelling not quite helping in the pronunciation of the word (like most French loanwords), but rather added due to Norman-French orthographic influence on the English language post-1066 A.D.
Thread Check is also partial to the idea of using “gage” as a noun for our products (although we have used both spellings interchangeably in the past), i.e. a thread gage, while leaving “gauge” to be the verbal form of the same root word, for example, to gauge the effect of the thread gages regarding staying within international measurement standard tolerances, we will continue to use the “gage” spelling when referring to our thread gages to avoid any confusion, plus we just like the way it looks!
But we’d love to hear your thoughts–what do you think? Should it be “thread gage” or “thread gauge”?