Friday May 13, 2005
British Spellings
You know, sometimes I find it entertaining to read British texts—simply because it’s a novelty to read such words as “favourite”, “colour”, “pyjamas”, “defence”, “organise”, and “draught”. It’s cool to read, but I think I’d be annoyed if I had to actually write that way. For one thing, it usually involves making the word longer, and in some instances the British spelling complicates matters.
Take the proofreading I’m doing right now at work, for example. I have the word “analyses”. Now, in American English the forms are “analysis” for singular noun, “analyzed” for a past tense verb, and “analyses” for plural noun, and “analyzes” for present tense verb. In British English you have “analysis” for singular noun, “analysed” for your past tense verb, “analyses” for the plural form, and “analysed” for the past tense verb. You still following me? Now, depending on how it was used, it could be v. (or “very” if you’re not British) difficult to discern whether or not someone was referring to multiple analyses or whether they were saying that something analyzes something else.
One thing is clear. American spellings are far superior. See, it must be true, I found a webpage that supports my claim. ;)
Of course I mean no offense (offence) to those who use these spellings. It’s just an observation I had because I can’t blanketly utilize (utilise) the “replace all” command with the word “analyses” when trying to convert everything to American spellings.
Admittedly neither version is entirely easy to read from a purely phonetic standpoint, but perhaps my British readers (or those non-native speakers who were taught British spellings) can answer the spelling quandry. Is keeping the longer spellings a matter of pride/tradition/differentiation from the Americans or something else? Do you ever find you prefer the American spellings? Do you even notice or care?
Posted at 3:51 PM |
I think we shud adopt the American way and spell things as they sound cuz that wud save us alot of time.
1 | Posted by: Bad Mitten! on May 13, 2005 @ 9:21 PMI have been thought to use the Britisch Spelling but I suppose by spending time onto the Internet and speaking alot with friends from around the globe I guess I have gotten a mix from both with lots of errors. :P
2 | Posted by: Sofie on May 15, 2005 @ 2:25 AMComing from a Brittish Colony but working in the computer industry I have learnt to spell colour, programme and many other words two different ways.
However if I have my history right the American spelling is “closer” to the original English, prior to all the French influences. All those OU’s (colour, parlour, etc) can be blamed on them.
3 | Posted by: Splinter on May 16, 2005 @ 3:49 AMHmm, that would make sense. So we should just blame the French then! ;)
Although, have you ever seen English writings before standardized spellings?! Good grief.
4 | Posted by: Jennifer
on May 16, 2005 @ 9:54 AM
