Incorrect spelling, explanation: while by is a preposition used in a variety of contexts, bye is generally only used as a farewell. The pronunciation may be the same, but if you really think about it, bye-election sounds more like a quirky farewell, while by-election is a kind of word, where you can really see the meaning just by looking at its structure.
Correct spelling, explanation: by-election is a word compounded from words by (meaning: through or beside), and election, which is a logical explanation of the meaning of the word. By is a preposition of many meanings, such as beside, so you can think of a by-election as a side election, which is not perfect but makes sense.
Definition of by-election:
noun
1. a type of additional election to fill any vacancies in a given position.
The by-election didn’t go well as there weren’t even enough eligible candidates.
Many people attended the debate before the by-election.
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The explanation given for using “by-election” over “bye-election” is a circular argument. If you only ever use “bye” to say goodbye, then that’s what “bye” means. But if you also use it in words like “bye-election” and “bye-law”, then the word “bye” also also has these other meanings. Bye-election doesn’t look anything at all like a quirky farewell. The criteria seems to be nothing more than directing us to how the Americans spell. We can look that up in Webster’s.
Thank you for the correction. I was doubtful of the right spelling for the election terminology “by-election to bye-election”. I had been using the one without the “e”, so I wanted to be sure of the right spelling when I saw in a document, the with the “e”.
It would be helpful to know which version of english these experts are basing their judgements on – lacking any other indication, the use of ‘.com’ suggests Merkin english.
I was just looking for this info for a while. After five hours of continuous googling, at last I found it in that search engine. I wonder what is the lack of Google strategy that don’t rank that type of informative web sites on top of the results. Generally the highest ranked websites are mostly trash.
Great website. A lot of useful spellings here. I’m sending it to some colleagues and also sharing to my Twitter. And obviously, thanks for your effort!