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American spelling vs. British spelling


Fantastic Name

American spelling or British spelling?  

185 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is it?

    • I prefer American spelling.
      23
    • I mostly prefer American spelling, with some exceptions.
      31
    • I prefer both equally.
      26
    • I mostly prefer British spelling, with some exceptions.
      27
    • I prefer British spelling.
      72
    • Something completely different. (Please explain!)
      6
  2. 2. Answer this ridiculously long question!

    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm American.
      40
    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm British.
      0
    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm Canadian.
      0
    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm Australian.
      0
    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm from another English-speaking country.
      0
    • I prefer or mostly prefer American spelling, and I'm from a different country.
      10
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm American.
      13
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm British.
      39
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm Canadian.
      9
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm Australian.
      12
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm from another English-speaking country.
      6
    • I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm from a different country.
      19
    • I'm neutral, and I'm American.
      17
    • I'm neutral, and I'm British.
      4
    • I'm neutral, and I'm Canadian.
      2
    • I'm neutral, and I'm Australian.
      1
    • I'm neutral, and I'm from another English-speaking country.
      0
    • I'm neutral, and I'm from a different country.
      9
    • Something completely different. (Please explain!)
      4

This poll is closed to new votes


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Fantastic Name

Pretty self-explanatory. Do you prefer American spelling, British spelling, or something in-between? (I know there are other English spelling conventions out there, but I chose not to include them for brevity.)

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I very much prefer British spelling, and I am American.

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The one that uses fewer letters is the one I'll always support.

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Grumpy Alien

I’m very neutral and I’m American. I wouldn’t normally put frivolous Us in my words but I have a British phone that underlines them in red without so I just add them in, nbd. I think Zs often make more sense phonetically but an S looks softer. I’ve always used grey, not gray. Grey is obviously better. The rest of the words are basically the same either way and I don’t care about them.

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I'm Canadian, and I generally use British spelling for words like colour, honour, etc. But I do use Z's for words like realize and cozy.

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British and British. I have no idea why America hates u so much but I never could, u is special.

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I don't mind most of the spellings either way. I won't add extra u's to things where it isn't needed but I like "threatre" and "centre" used as specific place names. I'll say I prefer American spelling just because of the z/s and i/y differences; I'll never get used to seeing "tyre" or "realise".

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I'm American but I did an international baccalaureate diploma in high school, wherein all of my written assignments were submitted with British spelling. My senior extended essay was on colour theory. 

 

I finally manged to break the habit, and then I met my British partner, and slowly the u's have come creeping back. =(

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Grumpy Alien
9 minutes ago, Cimmerian said:

I don't mind most of the spellings either way. I won't add extra u's to things where it isn't needed but I like "threatre" and "centre" used as specific place names. I'll say I prefer American spelling just because of the z/s and i/y differences; I'll never get used to seeing "tyre" or "realise".

Exactly same, really.

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Grumpy Alien

What’s really annoying is when I’ve typed something like tire or realize... okay my phone accepted those... but something LIKE those words and my phone is like no I don’t understand this gibberish, please change it. And then I don’t remember right away how the British actually spell it. Of course if I see it, I know oh yes tyre is just British for tire - very obvious. But when I’m typing and not thinking about that, I just get confused as to why a common word I know I spelled/spelt correctly is being flagged as nonsense. Color! Color is a good example even though I wouldn’t type it without the U here. My phone doesn’t suggest colour but does highlight it in red. It thinks I should change it to: Colors, col-or, or Conor. *slow blink*

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10 minutes ago, Chimeric said:

I met my British partner, and slowly the u's have come creeping back.

I'm calling that a win.  

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I prefer the American spelling, but mostly because I'm used to it.

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13 minutes ago, Graceful said:

What’s really annoying is when I’ve typed something like tire or realize... okay my phone accepted those... but something LIKE those words and my phone is like no I don’t understand this gibberish, please change it. And then I don’t remember right away how the British actually spell it. Of course if I see it, I know oh yes tyre is just British for tire - very obvious. But when I’m typing and not thinking about that, I just get confused as to why a common word I know I spelled/spelt correctly is being flagged as nonsense. Color! Color is a good example even though I wouldn’t type it without the U here. My phone doesn’t suggest colour but does highlight it in red. It thinks I should change it to: Colors, col-or, or Conor. *slow blink*

I swear AVEN glitches and does that to me sometimes too; for a while it didn't seem to like "color". I end up using an online dictionary to confirm the more rarely used word I'm trying to use is a word because it gets underlined and acts like it's never the correct spelling. x_x

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I'm Canadian and I prefer British spelling. Words like 'color' or 'humor' look strange to me.

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MissMidnight

I prefer whatever I type it to be lol. If i write favourite then I have a u in it, if I write color most of the time I forget the u lol I dont really mind which way it goes as long as people understand what im saying. 

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American mostly because that’s what I grew up with. But I interchange gray and grey mostly depending on my mood/situation (by that I mean whichever I think looks best) 

I prefer Zs in things though. Except there was one word (and I really wish I could remember it) that was Z or S depending where you are and I really liked how the S looked.

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FerlynnGoldbeard

I'm from Chicago, so I prefer mostly American spelling since that's what I'm used to. The few exceptions are words like Grey and Gray. I know someone named "Gray" so to me, Gray has always been a name, and grey has been a color. People in the United States use both pretty interchangeable though.

 

Another thing is that I prefer to pronounce my Z's as Zed and not Zee when talking about the alphabet (which is more because of speaking french than english) which gets me a lot of funny looks.

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Vicky Angel

ok long answer coming

 

I am British, living in Canada.  I grew up with British spelling, but some words were taught to us with American spelling like Mom, instead of Mum.   Living in Canada, they want you to use Canadian spelling, which is a combination of British, and American spelling.   All the computers, at home, at school, are preset to American spelling.  

 

So In short, I hate spelling because when I try to write colour, it always autocorrects to color.  

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I don't really have a preference either way, but...

 

When I was married to my second husband, he was in the Air Force (American).  We were stationed at RAF Mildenhall for 4 years.  The day we got there, we had to go through an orientation about the area, and we were handed a 'dictionary' that was about 100 pages long.  It had the different terms and spellings in it that were absolutely fascinating!  

 

I loved listening to the radio and hearing British newscasters talk about an accident (for example) and about how "horrific" it was.  The word "horrific" to British newscasters was as common as the word "germane" is to California lawyers.  Also, one did not go to THE hospital or THE university.  They went to hospital or to university, without the word 'the' preceding it.  And the one time a British woman flipped me off, I thought she was giving me the American "victory" sign....:lol:

 

 

 

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I'm Australian, and use British spelling, as that's what's used here.

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2 hours ago, vega57 said:

I loved listening to the radio and hearing British newscasters talk about an accident (for example) and about how "horrific" it was.  The word "horrific" to British newscasters was as common as the word "germane" is to California lawyers.  Also, one did not go to THE hospital or THE university.  They went to hospital or to university, without the word 'the' preceding it.  And the one time a British woman flipped me off, I thought she was giving me the American "victory" sign....:lol:

Oh I forgot about the tendency to leave out "the" for places like that! :D That one's always befuddled me, but I'd love someone to explain why those don't get a "the" but almost everything else does.

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I am French, and schools here teach British spellings in English lessons and that is what I was brought up with. However, I prefer American spellings because they more closely reflect the phonetic sounds of the word in question. For example, the phonetics of the word center are more accurately reflected when it is spelled this way rather than if it is spelled centre; the same is true for color rather than colour. 

 

I do have to admit that when I write English, I do sometimes get American and British mixed up and often I don't even remember which is which. For example, fulfillment versus fulfilment; I can never remember which one is American and which is British. 

 

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I prefer or mostly prefer British spelling, and I'm from another English-speaking country

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Grumpy Alien
10 hours ago, Ortac said:

I do have to admit that when I write English, I do sometimes get American and British mixed up and often I don't even remember which is which. For example, fulfillment versus fulfilment; I can never remember which one is American and which is British. 

 

I even do that as an American with less common words. I couldn’t tell you which spelling is which in this case. I would probably spell it with one L but two looks more correct to me.

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You'd think the Irish would rebel against British spelling. (mostly just being a bit tongue-in-cheeky)

 

American spelling is an attempt to simplify spelling somewhat and to make it just a little more phonetic (as Ortac mentioned). I know some people think we lost something by doing that, and there are probably cases where you can lose things like the connection to root words and word origins and maybe even clarity or word distinctions (although, word distinctions are often obvious in context) and some word play and puns. But there are also cases where it seems pretty obvious to me you gain more than you lose by simplifying spelling (such as spelling center or plow or jail) - then again, it could seem obvious to me because I am an American and learned English and spelling that way, as my native tongue. That said, there are occasional words where the British spelling makes more sense to me.

 

Language is fascinating!

 

Anyone listen to the podcast, Lexicon Valley?

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Grumpy Alien

It’s really the similar but distinct words that mean the same thing that get me. I’d never heard the word instinctive until people laughed at me for saying instinctual. Neither of side believed the other word was in fact a word, as they are pretty exclusive to their respective countries. But they are used interchangeably!

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American that prefers American spelling. Nothing against British spelling though, I can read it just fine. It's just that after seeing American spelling my whole life it's what I'm used to and use automatically.

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