Little Miss Teen had a dilema last week. Seems that she spelled the word "colour" well, "colour" and the worlds meanest science teacher marked her wrong. But of course Little Miss Teen is right; "colour" IS spelled "colour" in Canada, Great Britain and other countries in the commonwealth. It's just not spelled that way here; in the good old US of A. But that doesn't mean that it's right to mark her wrong on it. Especially when dictionary.com considers both right. In fact there's a line in a song about "just because I'm wrong doesn't make you right." It's not about right or wrong; it's about educating a teacher to be aware of different spellings of words.
Wikpedia has a lengthy and complicated article on why and how there are differences in American and British spellings. Let's see if I can simplify it (Pause, scan the article, 1 hour later still scanning....... Nope, can't simplify it) . Turns out that the English language is not defined by just one dictionary (who knew?). British English uses "Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. American English uses "Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language." Not easy to pick out why and how there are differences but here are a few examples of them.
Other than the "U" thing which I'll get to in a minute, turns out there are a few other differences that I've never considered before. There are obvious ones like "mummy' vs "mommy" and aeoroplane vs airplane. Less noticable ones like moustache vs mustache, speciality vs specialty and aluminium vs aluminum. Those ones I would have to recognize by sight to figure out how I spell them. My favorite is carburettor vs carburetor. I've NEVER spelled that word one way or the other mainly because I have NO idea what it does and only a vauge idea of what it is. Do you need to know the meaning of a word to use it? Apparently not because lots of people use lots of words they have no clue of the meaning. Isn't that right Little Miss Teen?
So here's the scoop on the "our " vs "or" thing as not so eloquently put by Wickpedia: Most words ending in an unstressed -our in the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and Australia (e.g., colour, flavour, honour, neighbour, rumour, labour) end in -or in the United States (e.g., color, flavor, honor, neighbor, rumor, labor). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: contour, velour, paramour, troubadour, are spelled thus the same everywhere. Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.............
Interesting note here on Commonwealth usage: Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie Provinces, though they are rarer in Eastern Canada.[26] In Australia, -or terminations enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions,[26] usually in local and regional newspapers, though -our is almost universal. New Zealand English, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English, follows British usage.
So basically Little Miss Teen's science teacher, in our house we spell "colour" with a "u" because that's the way I did it and that's the way my British mother did it before me. (Someobody cue the "Tradition" song from Fiddler on the Roof.") The fact that my dad is from a Canadian Prairie Province and probably spells "color" with an "o" will not be held against him. The point is that it's really no big deal (although somewhat of a deal if I'm blogging about it).
Besides, think of it, life without "U." You wouldn't be able to go to *niversity. And on a rainy day yo* wo*ldn't be able to r*n to those *undergrad classes with the cover of an *mbrella. Yo* wo*ld have to go *ndergro*nd. There yo* might just meet a s*bway attendant wearing a *niform. If yo*r team was in the bottom of the *nderwater polo standings you wo*ldn't be able to cheer for the or *nderdog. And if yo* co*ldn't cheer, yo* most certainly co*ldn't chew g*m. It wo*ld be *gly I tell yo* j*st *gly and it wo*ld make yo* very *nhappy. So *nhappy in fact yo* may j*st sit aro*nd in yo*r *nderwear thinking of yo*r *ncle B*bba who once gave yo* a toy *nicorn and that made yo* tr*st him a lot. B*t of co*rse yo* wo*ldn't be able to tell him that yo* loved him witho*t the lonely letter *. Boo hoo!
Cassie:
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, standardisation of English spellings is a fairly modern thing. :) Middle English allowed for phonetic spellings and multiple accepted spellings of the same word/proper noun, and this carried over in the early Modern English. When standardisation began to be more accepted, the separation between English spoken in American and English spoken in the UK (and elsewhere) was significant enough for there to be marked differences. Such as, the use of Z in standardized in American English and the use of S in standardised in British English. Much of it is based on the more accepted phonetic spelling of the word. The 'ou' vs 'o' variation is very likely a light diphthong that existed in the British pronunciation that may have died out in the American pronunciation with the mellowing of the British accent in post-colonial America.
We ran into a similar problem when we moved here as Connor had learned American spellings initially and he would get those marked wrong on the spelling tests. His teachers were very gentle in their reminder that he was in a British curriculum now, and thus had to learn the proper British spellings. It sucked, but to help things along, I changed all our word processing and spell check programs (programmes) on our computers to British English to start. :) And, I started using a lot of the British standard spellings myself.
I was born and raised in Detroit, so my tests included both American spelling and Canadian spellings for words like neighbor/neighbour. That helped! :D