Right, so I have this irk with spelling nazi's on sites. Some words, yes, I can understand that they need to be spelt in a specific way. However, NOT ALL COUNTRIES USE AMERICAN SPELLING.

I use the standard Australian spelling, because I am in Australia! I have been taught to spell colour, favourite and several other words differently from American spelling. It is not because I can't spell for nuts, it is because WE HAVE A DIFFERENT SPELLING SYSTEM. Yes, it's stuffed up, but it is NOT my fault. And I plain out refuse to use American spelling because it screams out 'wrong wrong wrong' to my mind. If I spell 'color' in a university essay, I get one mark taken off for spelling it wrong.

Why should I have to change the spelling system I have been taught all my life because you believe that your country is the only one that uses the English language correctly?

:rawr: :angry: :rawr:

Good point. people often say my spelling is incorrect, becuase its a mix of scottish and english. and i'm like 'its a scottish word..' and they go 'no its not, CHANGE IT! *ban*'

I agree with you! -agrees-

Sites need to learn to accept both the British/Australian and the American way of spelliing.

I know, right? D: It infuriates me! If I'm spelling one word consistently ""wrong"", then shouldn't they put two and two together? Its not like I'm complaining about their "bad" spelling. =[

:p

Kick there arses!

Technically, if they're going to be playing nazi on the spelling front, even when it comes to different nationalities' spelling of certain words, then the American version is 'wrong' because English originated mostly from Britain, where 'colour' and 'favourite' have 'u's. I don't know why the US was so opposed to the letter 'u' but there you have it.

No offense to Americans or American spelling, spell it the way you were taught. But if anyone gets their knickers in a twist because people are spelling 'colour' the Canadian/British/Australian way and claiming its incorrect, they can drown in the history which proves otherwise.

know. i think america spell it color where in england its colour god, its so wierd..

DX finally!! YES!! I'm sick of 'color'!! I always spell it as "colour" and it bugs me when it's labelled wrong x.x We should have a "COLOUR RULES" riot :innocent:

Or not. But yes, i agree with you there. ^_^

Well, I was raised here in America, and always taught that it's spelled 'color'. But hey, we're just taking out a letter that seems pretty useless.
Now, if only we'd do that for the letter 'p' in raspberry. For whatever reason, the 'p' in raspberry bothers me...

But you're right, you shouldn't be forced to spell a certain way. Considering that both 'color' and 'colour' are widely accepted, I don't see why anyone should go Nazi on you. It's senseless and stupid.

Jeez, admins should realize that as long as it's valid English they should not bitch about it! The English gave Americans their friggin language...the original way of writing is coloUr and favoUrite. Really, it's the original version, why not accept it? Americans just decided to shorten those words because the u is silent.

I was taught British English at school when I started. I was taught that way for, say, 8 years. After that we've studied it in more free form allowing to spell things American and British. And my teacher said to it, when I asked her if it's ok to spell humor instead of humour, "As long as it's valid English and you are consistent, it doesn't matter." Meaning that if you write, don't go: "Colouring the bench with orange showed we had a sense of humor" but write: "Coloring the bench with orange showed we had a sense of humor" or "Colouring the bench with orange showed we had a sense of humour."

Really I think it shouldn't matter if you spell it British or American. Both ways are perfectly valid English.

Hmm. It is based on where you are from, i agree to that. I just don't see the harm in spelling it differently, if it holds the same meaning?

*thumbs up*

I don't care if someone uses the "wrong" spelling as long as they're consistent. However, what I don't like is when people use slang from different countries on board set in America (unless the character is from a different country).

I got told my app couldn't be accepted on a site until I fixed the spelling in my sample. I searched repeatedly, ran it through the British English dictionary on my old 90s word processor program because I know it's all correct. I asked other members, who said, "I don't know about errors... did you use a wrong word or miss one out or something?"

Eventually, I asked the admin to be more specific and tell me the words that were wrong because I couldn't find them. "You used the wrong version of 'practise', you needed 'practice'" they said. As I pointed out, 'practise' is valid in both terms of the word in British English. "Ohhhh, you're BRITISH! You could have said that instead of wasting our time!"

WTF? Surely if someone uses a lot of British spellings and no Americanisms, it's obvious the person isn't American?

Wow. thats bitchy!

i'm kinda a sucker. long as its spelled right, in any word and i cna read it, your accepted with me. :D

I really don't mind the occasional variation between versions of the English language. In fact, Meliora's application has an "Armoury" section instead of "Armory". I don't bother changing it just because I speak and write American English. It means the same thing, and it's easy for me to recognize the word. No big deal.

I don't think I knew that practise was the Brit/Aussie variation of practice, but I wouldn't have gone all spelling Nazi about that anyway.

Really, it's not like people are speaking a different language entirely. Things like colour/color and humour/humor are easy to read and understand. Now, if someone wrote cuhler or hewmur I might be a bit confused, but that's just silly. Even if I did point out every little spelling error, I would leave these things out unless I didn't recognize them as just another minor difference between versions of English. If someone pointed out that it was, then I would certainly thank them for teaching me something new and appologize for the inconvenience of reading my silly spelling correction.

I'm a little odd. I tend to mash the American and British spellings, depending on the word. And I don't mean that I run around spelling colour with a u sometimes, and sometimes not. What I mean is, I'll spell practice instead of practise, but will spell flavour with a u, humour with a u, colour with a u, favourite with a u, etc. Because it looks better to me. I do try, however, to stick to the British/Canadian/Australian/New Zealand way of spelling most words. I also happen to like certain British punctuation choices, such as the comma before and in lists and whatnot. I think it's stupid that someone would get so uptight about spelling. The best part is, I think a lot of them can't spell themselves, and don't always catch their own errors.

The language was invented here in England - that's why it's called 'English' not 'American'. (We imposed it on the Scots, Irish and Welsh who had their own languages before we did so. I'm sorry for that; not all of our history is nice, after all.)

Yes, I spell it 'colour' and 'recognise' and 'favourite'. They come from a language older than your country, so don't tell me I've got it wrong.

And Firefox, if I ever figure out how to get you to give me the correct, English spelling in your spell-check, I will in a flash.

(I get irritated by it as well; can you tell?!)

And, Elenlond, 'practice' is the noun: I need to do some piano practice today. 'Practise' is the verb: I need to practise on the piano today. Like advice/advise. At least, that's what I was always taught.

Not heard of multiculturalism, have you?

Lots of people in use the slang of multiple countries whether they're from there or not. I use British slang, Australian slang, American slang, Kiwi slang... Hell, sometimes I use Shakespearian slang.

I'm both American and an admin and to be completely honest, I think "colour" looks better than "color". It gives it a certain flair. <3
But I was taught that it wasn't spelled that way so it clicks in my mind for a moment that it's not right. n___n
Colour > Color

I do it similarly to Elenlond. As a Canadian, I was taught a mixture of both 'British' and 'American' ways of spelling. I spell words like 'recognize' with 'z's (we [usually] say zed instead of zee) and words like 'colour' with 'u's. I honestly don't care at all how other people spell things, when it's a simple case of variation.

If people criticize you for not spelling things 'their' way, then yes, they are ignorant and aren't really worth your time.

Those darned mosaics and melting pots!! ;)

I guess the only way I would be irked by that is if the board is set in a certain historical period. But if it's modern, and set in a place with a lot of multi-culturalism (like America), then who the heck cares?

You can actually download an add-on that gives you the British dictionary. :) I use it.

Even though I'm American lol.

I just don't like the way we spell things. I don't like it because I think it makes us even dumber. Honestly. Why do we have to be so damn different? We use a different measuring system, different math system, we even use different spelling. It's stupid.

So, yeah, when writing for leisure... I write with the British way, but if I'm writing a school paper... it's gotta be American because... yeah, we're dumb. :angry:

We do all these sorts of things because America wants to form it's own identity and feel like it's original, even though it's just a mix of every other culture. It's just an identity crisis sort of thing that America will never grow out of.

Really? I was never taught there was a difference - at least, if I had, I think I would have remembered that lesson; I remembered all of the other grammar lessons I was ever given (gotta remember them, too, since I want to be an editor). Maybe there's a difference because I'm in Canada with the mashing of British/American, as opposed to strictly having one or the other? I can see the difference in advice/advise. I've always spelt practice with the c and I've never been docked marks or told otherwise, even when it should have been practise. Interesting. *Shall keep that in mind for future reference*

Hahahaha I agree.
Metric system is so good! Uuuuuse iiiiit *lures americans*

I believe that it has gotten America in trouble a few times too. For example this:
They were sending a shuddle to space. They had to be very careful and calculate very carefully certain things so it wouldn't crash. Rest of the people working used metrics system. Then there were a couple of Americans amongst them...they had to put in some numbers but they accidentally inserted them in inches. Hence...the result of millions and millions of dollars....crashed.

Elenlond - it confuses me too! But I looked it up and apparently, in the UK, you can you 'practise' every time and can ignore 'practice' if you feel like it because it's not really wrong. So confusing!

But yeah... just had my spelling corrected for an error such as recognise/realise (see the s? Yep, that's how we spell it, stupid admin!).

Hi, just thought I'd throw in my two cents! I prefer British spelling most of the time, because I have a friend who consistently uses it, and I ended up finding myself spelling "colour" and "favour" without really meaning to. I don't recognize every word that appears misspelled to me as a British spelling, but if I say "hey, that's wrong," and the other person explains to me that it's British, or that it's another accepted form of the word, then I'm totally cool with that. Same goes for any other spellings from any other countries.

The only time I go all nazi is when it's HORRIBLY misspelled. Although there are a few certain tiny things that really bug me... like... if you re-read your post, you'd OBVIOUSLY see those things are wrong, you know?

I definitely think America should go to the Metric system, but I can't imagine how difficult the change would be. o.O

Ooh, no, even more confusion for me! I live in the UK and although I can work with the metric system, I struggle to visualise a metre, have no idea how far a kilometre is... I need feet, inches, pounds, miles etc. to function! Please don't suggest the rest of the world drops it too or my brain might melt :p

I would just like to say that I am American and I was raised with the spelling of COLOR, buuuuttt I can't stand the way that is. I know that the correct way to spell it is colour and favourite. I alway spell it that way. However, just like schools in other countries where you get marks off for spelling it color, here we get marks off for spelling it colour. Or at least in some schools you do. My teachers never marked off for that. It was a whatever thing. If you wanted to spell it with the 'u' you could if not that was fine. Both ways are correct. So, yeah...lol don't think that it's all American's that think that it's wrong to use a 'u' in words...

:D

I was taught metric, and prefer Imperial - at least as far as distance/lengths go. I still can't work the weights thing out.

And if anyone could point me in the direction of a British dictionary add-on for Firefox, I will be your friend for life. PM me, if links to that sort of thing aren't allowed here. Please? *offers cookies biscuits*

I accept all spellings, so long as they are correct spellings. My word processor has a nifty thing that lets me change what language I'm using, which means I can read through people's apps (because yes, I put all apps through word for spell checks, since I'm not the bestest of spellers) with the correct setting, and not see their proper British or whatever spelling as wrong.

Then again, I'm the crazy American girl who wants to spell things colour/favourite/rumour/honour because I've spent way too many years roleplaying with people in England. [points at Panda]. It was one of those weird things that stuck, because I started young, and half the people roleplaying where I started were from across the big pond. ><

But, yeah, some admins are silly.

As for weight/lengths/distances/heights/other crap. There are about ten million bagillion converters out there. Work great for money and temperature too. ><

Oh good heavens, must I be PC now? -_-

If it's not part of your character, don't use it. That's all I'm saying. Like the people from England who use British slang just because they're ignorant and think that everyone in America uses it or because they're stupid and are too "elite" to change it.