#sorry about the ise instead of ize

[kyndaris]

The Spelling Game

When learning English, one would assume there would be a single correct way to spell words. Most times, you would be right. Unfortunately, because of a rift between the United States of America and the United Kingdom back in the 18th century, the fact that the spelling of specific words was variable during that time, as well as the cost of printing, many in the Western world were left with Webster’s attempt at reforming English for the American people and the actual proper way to spell them in British-English. 

It also didn’t help that after rising to power, many of the words that were spelt the American way infiltrated the global conscience. In many countries, including Australia, American-English and British-English were interchangeable. Oft times, it was much easier to spell it the American way. One such example that springs immediately to mind is ‘jail’ rather than ‘gaol.’ But honestly, ‘gaol?’ Sorry British-English. It just looks needlessly complex. 

When it comes to my short stories, I’ve been pretty particular. While most of my stories have been written in British-English, because I grew up in Australia, there have been a few select ones that I have purposely corrected to American-English. Why, you may ask? To sell the illusion that the character is actually from the United States. It also means not using phrases like, “Yeah, no,” or “G’day mate. Chucked a sickie yesterday cause the traffic was chockablock.” 

After all, if the setting is in the United States of America, with a protagonist that grew up there, it feels a little weird that they would spell things like ‘colour’ with a ‘u.’ There have also been many a time that I had to remind myself that ‘aluminium’ is not a thing in the States. Nor is a garbage bin called a ‘garbage bin’, but rather a ‘trash can.’ Tomato sauce, at least in the Australian context, is meant to be ketchup. And don’t get me started on car parks versus parking lots. 

I bring this up solely because one of my old childhood friends was reading one of my short stories and remarked on the spelling. It was a CHOICE! And NOT because I can’t spell. Thank you very much.

In fact, I find it very irritating when many websites, such as Tumblr, Wordpress and even FictionPress try to tell me that I’ve spelt something incorrectly. Just because the site algorithms are based on American-English does not invalidate my alternate words. Armour. Travelling. Enrolment. Oesophagus. Grey. Metre.

I see your red squiggly line but I refute it! REFUTE IT, I SAY!! It’s not wrong. Just the correct way of spelling words that we commonly use. Okay. Well, one might not use oesophagus much in normal conversation, but I thought it a good way to highlight one of the many differences between American English and what is considered the norm in most English-speaking countries. 

Given that I grew up in Australia, I’ve been exposed to both ways of spelling English words. The books I read were sometimes written by American authors and sometimes by those in the United Kingdom, Australia or Canada. Most of the time, I barely stumbled when I came across a new word.

Still, I’m very appreciate that more novels that I’ve picked up, and even a few video games, are catering to proper British-English. In fact, Bravely Default 2 is one of the more recent games that has things spelt properly. ‘Honour’ instead of ‘honor!’ I have been almost giddy with excitement. to see ‘U’s when there had been no ‘U’s before. Imagine my surprise when Ubisoft also offered UK-English as well as American-English!

Of course, for someone that loves the written word, it’s pretty much a given that I can vacillate between the two (even if I prefer British-English). When English is your second language, however, it’s much harder to wrap one’s head around. So, for all you people out there learning English, you should know that British-English is much better and vastly superior to American-English. Sometimes there’s an additional ‘o’ in front of an ‘e.’ Occasionally you’ll have an ‘r’ before an ‘e.’ But most importantly, if things end with ‘-ize’ in American English, you should definitely change it back to ‘-ise.’ To do so is to make it proper. 

To cut a long story short, this post simply came around because someone asked me why I tried to spell things the ‘American’ way. So, of course, I decided to rant about it on the internet. Truly, nothing is sacrosanct. There are no depths that I will not plumb for a topic to talk about in the interim between my video game impressions. 

On a side note, I am currently playing Bravely Default 2 and while the gameplay is quite enjoyable, the narrative is a little bare bones and the world simply not as engaging as I would have hoped. Let it be known that I have many thoughts about this and will be delving into it when I finally finish the game. Hopefully it won’t be too long, but lest we forget, I tend to try and do most everything in a single playthrough. There is no telling when I will finish though www.howlongtobeat.com tells me otherwise.

Oh, and before I forget, ‘z’ is pronounced ‘zed.’ Don’t let the alphabet song confuse you. They just wanted an easy way to rhyme with ‘me.’ So they bastardised the pronunciation of the last letter. DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!

ZED! ZED! ZED! ZED! ZED!