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Memfis

British or American spelling?

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Which do you like more? Colour/defence/pressurise or color/defense/pressurize? I'm especially interested in responses from people whose native language isn't English, since I guess it's obvious that UK and US folks prefer what they're used to since birth (or not?).

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I like British English spellings. They feel fancier and they display more character compared to American spellings, which for me feels more practical.

But I'm accustomed to American English spellings. :) (Non-native.)

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I'm an American, but I use a bit of both, actually. Some words I just prefer a specific spelling, like theatre (British) over theater (American). Certain words like color seem wrong spelled in the British manner, but words like theatre seem wrong spelled in the American manner to me, so to each his own.

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I'm just more used to American English, except for a few words that are mostly fantasy-related (hello, spectre).

 

Oh, and aluminium is the correct spelling, the IUPAC agrees. (It's only Webster's activism that made aluminum the most prevalent spelling in American English, throughout the 19th century American scientists used aluminium.)

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Well, my native language isn't English, but I'm used to American spelling more, though not purposefully.

 

I used to use the British spelling originally when I was in school, but with time I ended up shifting to American unconsciously. I guess I like "armor", "color", "specter", "theater" and so on instead of their British spelling more.

 

1 hour ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

Certain words like color seem wrong spelled in the British manner, but words like theatre seem wrong spelled in the American manner to me

 

Same.

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I'm British English and I mostly prefer the British spellings, except that I prefer "-ize" spellings over "-ise" in various cases.

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Irish here, so I'm more used to the rightpondian spellings, which is a bit of a pain in the arse when software constantly berates me for incorrect spellings >.<

 

Even now, my browser thinks "arse" isn't a real word.

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Given that most spelling differences concern words taken from Romance Languages and Latin, any differences that do exist are so minuscule that they rarely become an issue.

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Non-native english speaker here. At school they taught us British English but on the internet you find a lot of American English, so I ended to use a mix of both and not in a consistent way. To me is enough if the others can understand what I say.

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In most cases I prefer the American spelling, being accustomed to it, being American.

A few exceptions I can think of:

  • I use "grey" instead of "gray"
  • I often will double an L to form past tense, e.g. "travelled" and cancelled."

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I think i speak american. But i sometimes use British English words. What @mun said about the two is my thought as well.

Edit: Also i'm non native

Edited by Catpho

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As non native english speaker, I use mixed english language. I just don't feel those subtle differences between british and american english. At school we learned more british english, but internet speaks more american way, so I just get accustomed to that. 

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Just now, Myst.Haruko said:

As non native english speaker, I use mixed english language. I just don't feel those subtle differences between british and american english. At school we learned more british english, but internet speaks more american way, so I just get accustomed to that. 

I've wondered what exactly that entails. Most Americans do not type as they speak (thank goodness) so I have to wonder if they're teaching some particular dialect.

 

I can't think of any that change fundamental concepts like grammar, except Appalachian English, which I grew up around. So it's difficult for me to see what's different about it from anything else.

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Being British, and having done an English Degree, naturally I use the Queen's English. You might say it is more... colourful. XD

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51 minutes ago, Csonicgo said:

I've wondered what exactly that entails. Most Americans do not type as they speak (thank goodness) so I have to wonder if they're teaching some particular dialect.

If you take reddit as an example, you can see lots of sloppy spelling (e.g. could/should of instead of could/should have) done by users that claim that they are from the USA. And some people type in a way that suggests that they type as they speak.

 

At school I, too, was taught BE. I've read most of the Terry Pratchett novels in BE, but the prevalence of AE spelling all over the internet has pushed my spelling into a bizarre mixture of both. I prefer -or to -our and -ized to -ised, but I think I mostly stay on the BE side of things for the rest.

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As non native english speaker with 14 years, i use more the american, but sometimes i speak some words from the british, finally it is not a big thing the diferrence or yes?

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I rather fancy the british variation of the english language. (wat)
In school we learn the british version but most of my english comes from the internet which mostly uses the american one so i tend to mix 'em up :D
 

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Slightly OT, because it's not strictly about spelling: There are some brilliant British words out there: e.g. arse (already mentioned by @scalliano), shag, snog and floggle toggle (yes, I know “The Navy Lark”).

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Though British, I find I prefer the American-English spellings for many words since they tend to be leaner and more phonetic. But I dislike '-ize' - it just looks vulgar.

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I never actually speak English, since i never need to, but my 'mental english' is British since i like it the most. There may be some words i spell with an American accent, but i can't remember any

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I've been living in the US for 5 years now so I find myself using either and switching depending on who I'm interacting with (colleagues? US English; parents? British English). All code I write is in American English.

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I'm a non native speaker.

 

When I was young, I was taught British English mostly. The thing is that I was taught colour, but the teachers also say color is correct and they will accept both colour and color. Therefore, most of the time, you can just spell however you want. In my opinion, Chinese education system didn't put English in a correct position, so most Chinese don't care about this (and I think this is one indirect reason that Chinese are usually not good at English).

 

Now, as I've been living in California for 4 years, I mostly spell them the American way I guess. Learning and using a foreign language still give me problem sometimes. In some edge cases, I can't construct my sentence correctly and may use a very weird way to express something.

 

Another thing is that I was taught practise is a verb, and practice is noun, and somehow I extend this to defense being a verb, defence being a noun etc. Is this actual a thing? If someone can tell me the answer of this, it's much appreciated.

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I'm American, will usually write with American English unless a specific context requires me to switch, or I just feel that it's more suited to a conversation, though that's rare -- I have conversations with Brits and we're both writing with our own dialects and confusion doesn't result.

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40 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

somehow I extend this to defense being a verb

Pretty sure the verb you want is defend.

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Im a non native english speaker and i learned english when i was very young, i mostly use an american spelling now (Or at least i think i do...), but for some time i had them mixed up. When i was growing up, i started to learn english using some european games and programs to learn the language (obviously they used british spelling and pronunciation), but as soon as i was done with those programs, i continued to learn english from movies and games where they mostly used american english (with some exceptions, such as the european version of XCOM). For quite some time i didn't knew the difference, and i used american terms such as cookies, while spelling some words in a more british way such as colour, or armour

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I'm an American, but UK English is certainly more preferable. It has a texture and life to it that US English, with it's (rather wasted and inconsistent) efforts to smooth out the "rough edges" does not.

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