I was reading oceanstarr's latest blog when I noticed she used the word "gray." I remember being taught that it was spelled "Grey" not "Gray." This isn't the first time I have seen it spelled with an a. I immediately googled "Gray or Grey." I read the first link on the list and found out that "Gray" is often used in US English, whereas "Grey" is used in UK English. That really didn't bother me too much, but as I read on, I was a little upset. In UK English you'll see "litre" and "metre" whereas US English spells them "liter" and "meter." Our country pretty much said, "Eff you, Metric System!" If we don't use it, why do we need our own spelling for it? Don't get me wrong, I know that we use it, but it was mostly rejected. I just think it's lame that we take words from others, and we change the spelling. We don't really have a reason for it. If we would just keep the spelling the same on all of the words that we took from others (which is probably all of them), our rules might actually make sense. Imagine if all of our rules for spelling didn't have exceptions. I could always be before E... Even after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh. It would be a perfect world.
Comments (10)
I always use grey. Apparently Xanga believes this is incorrect; I received a spelling error for it right after typing it. I also have a habit of randomly capitalizing words in the middle of my sentences and having to correct them.
lol I always have a little internal debate about which way to spell gray.
are ya serious?!
i say grey. and i just added it to my firefox dictionary. right there along with the word "firefox." which is only incorrect because i didn't capitalize it.
and this is remy, reading your blog through my other xanganator.
coloUrful.
a perfect world.... interesting. you are quite easy to please.
happy new year
you're ghey. not ghay.
I always use the U.K. spelling, but then I feel pretentious and embarrassed about it.
I think it has more to do with location and dialect. In the south, we use "y'all" like nobodies business, in the north it's typically "you guys." The point I'm trying to make is that location and history certainly affect dialect and I think the reason for the spelling of the UK english is because of heavy french influence. When I read things in UK english, I find myself pronouncing the words in french, because they have a french spelling. For instance, "metre" is the same in french as it is in UK english [same goes for colour].
It's the same in a lot of cultures. I've talked with my Vietnamese friends, and they are from the south of Vietnam, they say they can't understand people from the north.