Poll: Do you prefer American English spelling or British English spelling?

Charlie-two-zero

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Dec 30, 2008
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my worst one is that I can't shake the word 'gaol'. I learned that variation as a kid and now even other "english" speakers hardly recognise it. Writing it that other way just seems wrong.

In everything else I use Australian English which is pretty much the same as Pommie English. Don't really know the differences between pommie and aussie, but with a british english dictionary installed in Writer and Firefox, I don't get many squiggles so...


and besides all that... Cockney is the BEST english. Or Pikey.
 

The Eaten Cake

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Nov 26, 2008
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For those who want a little history on the matter:

The spelling differences between British English and American English originate in the 1800s, when a manuscript was published (An American Dictionary of the English Language, giving us colors) which changed most of the standardised spellings set up by a manuscript written seventy years ago (Dictionary of the English Language, fighting for our colours). Before Dictionary of the English Language, however, neither spelling was standardised.

In other words, British English comes first. (My repository of knowledge is a book I got for Christmas, by the way.)
 

NeutralDrow

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Mar 23, 2009
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The Eaten Cake said:
For those who want a little history on the matter:

The spelling differences between British English and American English originate in the 1800s, when a manuscript was published (An American Dictionary of the English Language, giving us colors) which changed most of the standardised spellings set up by a manuscript written seventy years ago (Dictionary of the English Language, fighting for our colours). Before Dictionary of the English Language, however, neither spelling was standardised.

In other words, British English comes first. (My repository of knowledge is a book I got for Christmas, by the way.)
Coulda been worse. There were a ton of people who wanted to standardize all English words as phonetic transcriptions (Noah Webster, for one). Luckily, the majority of Americans realized that they'd rather not have an entire dialect that looked like Finnegan's Wake and just stuck with the standard American spelling they'd gotten used to.

Incidentally, after looking up the etymological history of "aluminum," that's the way I'll spell it from now on (my pronunciation won't change).
 

The Eaten Cake

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Nov 26, 2008
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NeutralDrow said:
Coulda been worse. There were a ton of people who wanted to standardize all English words as phonetic transcriptions (Noah Webster, for one). Luckily, the majority of Americans realized that they'd rather not have an entire dialect that looked like Finnegan's Wake and just stuck with the standard American spelling they'd gotten used to.

Incidentally, after looking up the etymological history of "aluminum," that's the way I'll spell it from now on (my pronunciation won't change).
Webster was the one who wrote An American Dictionary of the English Language, as it happens. As my book puts it, he is "single-handedly responsible for most differences between English and American spelling that survive to this day".

And I think I'll stick to "aluminium". Both spellings were invented in the same year, after all, and if I'm pronouncing it that way my spelling may as well be consistent.
 

chaser[phoenix]

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Oct 17, 2008
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I prefer correct spelling, be it in American or British style.
Unfortunately, that's hard to come by nowadays.

So I'll say British because Honour > Honor.
 

Singing Gremlin

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Jan 16, 2008
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Steve Dark said:
I speak English, eat Biscuits and wear Trousers, especially when I'm skiving off down the chippy with a fiver.

Saavy? ;)
I have decided that I love you. You may want to start running now. On topic, I mainly prefer British English, since I've been brought up with it and it just seems slightly more graceful, but I think sometimes the Yank way just works better. "Doughnut", really...
 

Matt314

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Apr 25, 2009
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I'm American.
First of all, I hate these excuses like "they messed with our language", "we had it first", etc. That is arrogant and condescending. In that you are saying that your language is perfect and it cannot possibly be improved. That is completely false.

Time for a real history lesson.
Prior to the American Revolution, the British were being very harsh towards us. Actions that clearly indicated that they thought of the colonies and its people as property that could be used for their own gain. They blocked the port of Boston for the actions of a few idiots. (Come on people there are idiotic extremists everywhere in the world.) Started quartering troops in homes during peacetime. All very hostile actions. The British screwed us over after we helped them gain all that land from France. So after we defeated them in the war, we set to make the language better. Since there were things in it that were really not needed. The British took their language from Germanic tribes and Roman legionnaires. So therefore, as the language was just something that the British themselves took from somewhere else, they had no claim over it. We had every right to change it.

So all these claims of "it was our language first" is just a load of crap. Completely bogus.

There are movements in America to change these spellings:
through to thru
though to tho
yeah to yea

And a few other similar ones. You British people will be happy to know that most of the American public is against this change. So it will never pull through.
 

dragonblade629

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Apr 16, 2009
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I'm American,
and I use a combination of both.
Which ever I find more natural, like "Aluminum" for "Aluminum" but "Sabre" for "Saber."
 

Sami2503

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Jun 28, 2009
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An american thought it was weird that i used stone and pounds for weight and celcius for temperature. So i asked him whether it was weird for him if i said I was 72 inches tall. he said yes.
I told him thats how weird it is for me to weigh myself in only pounds.
And for people thinking words such as 'aeroplane' and 'centre' are weird, its only because you haven't lived with it. And also we like to keep the root of the word in tact. I.e aero = greek for air.