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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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 Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:07 pm Post subject: The Canadian Spelling Debate |
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I don't understand the Canadians who insist that we use British spelling. They say that catalog should be spelled catalogue and color should be spelled colour.
Why? We don't speak British English or even remotely sound like a Brit. There's no logic in the notion that we should use British spelling. It would make much more sense to have American spelling as the official spelling in Canada. After all, we are North AMERICANS. Any Canadians using British spelling should move to England.  |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Another piece of brilliance. Truly fascinating. |
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Tiberious aka Sparkles
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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Some debate.  |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| It would make much more sense to have American spelling as the official spelling in Canada. |
This might cause a certain portion of the population to have a nervous breakdown. |
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ajgeddes
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Location: Yongsan
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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Canadians don't use British spelling, nor do we use American spelling. We use Canadian spelling, meaning that we use a combination of the two. Take a look at this website.
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm
Also, how does how people speak have to do with spelling in English? Do you think colour is pronounced differently from color? |
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| ajgeddes wrote: |
Canadians don't use British spelling, nor do we use American spelling. We use Canadian spelling, meaning that we use a combination of the two. Take a look at this website.
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm
Also, how does how people speak have to do with spelling in English? Do you think colour is pronounced differently from color? |
What I am saying is that the Canadian & North West American accents are pretty much the same. We also use the same language too (We say subway, not tube. We say elevator, not lift, we say french fries, not chips, we say suspenders, not braces...). Despite all this, you'll find some people using British spelling.
Why? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: Re: The Canadian Spelling Debate |
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| Dev wrote: |
I don't understand the Canadians who insist that we use British spelling. They say that catalog should be spelled catalogue and color should be spelled colour.
Why? We don't speak British English or even remotely sound like a Brit. There's no logic in the notion that we should use British spelling. It would make much more sense to have American spelling as the official spelling in Canada. After all, we are North AMERICANS. Any Canadians using British spelling should move to England. |
Many Canadians are patriotic spellers. They'll spell color as colour but then spell the American fashion without thinking, like catalog instead of catalogue.
Google on "colour +catalog" or "colour +theater" vs "colour +catalogue" or "colour +theatre".
Spelling nationalism seems, to me, most petty.
Before I18N made it much easier to write software that localizes, I heard a FoaF story about this one Canadian developer in the USA who bent over backwards to Canadianize (oh dear there's another one) the dialog (oh dear there's another one) boxes. These days most development kits use a "token" method for dialog boxes. You don't actually code the text onto the dialog box. It's represented by a place holder and depending on the regional settings, it drops in the correct, rationalized (oh dear there's another one) text. But before, that was a lot of work. This guy did it. Just to... to... prove what?
CP style, before nationalism reared its head, used to employ the American spellings. The theory being wire copy crossing the border was much easier to edit and drop in. Of course with computers and find/replace, it's pretty easy to change all the colors to colours. Papers would get no end of grief from the spelling nationalists when they used color over colour.
Anyway, I take an old CP style attitude. The market is south of the border. Let's make it easy for them.
(Of course I do bridle at the notion that American publishers of Harry Potter Americanize all the British spellings and terms like motorbike vs motorcycle.) |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Color is just as odd to me as colour is to Americans. See it as one of the quirky proofs that cultural differences do exist between Canadians and Americans. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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If "spelling nationalism" is such a problem, then why do the Americans do it?
It's a retarded issue. We spell one way, and other people spell another way. Get over it. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Why is it that it seems Koreans and Americans are the only people in the world who are almost entirely unaware that there is more than one way to spell certain words? |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Come on, we changed to the metric system, what, 25 years ago, and we still use the Imperial system for many things. It's not easy to just up and change things at all, and for something like that, nobody except Dev cares enough. There is no reason good enough to change it. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Come on, we changed to the metric system, what, 25 years ago, and we still use the Imperial system for many things. It's not easy to just up and change things at all, and for something like that, nobody except Dev cares enough. There is no reason good enough to change it. |
It's interesting how only the Quebecois use metric - were they using it before the change (I think it happened in 1973). It was only after moving to Korea that I learned to remember my height and weight in metric. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:05 am Post subject: |
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The metric system began in France, and so the Quebecois would have been early adopters. A Quebecois prime minister forced it on the rest of the country, and not without resistence.
Canada has had one foot in Europe and another in the US for a long time, for better or worse. My college English profs told me to use either British or American spellings as I wished, but to be consistent. I think the slow tendency is toward American spellings, with a few exceptions; Canadians still like to say 'fish and chips', and advertisements rarely use 'E-Z' because of the 'zed' pronunciation. This is not something to get excited about.
Ken:> |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:27 am Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
This is not something to get excited about.
Ken:> |
Well said. But some people do get rather passionate about it. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:19 am Post subject: |
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| I've always used color, behavior, catalog on my way to the lift to get up to the loo, and then had a packet of crisps with a few blokes. |
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