Fellow Canadians: what are your spelling preferences?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Traditional proper Canadian spelling is a mixture of British and American spelling. For example, it includes forms like “colour”, “centre”, or “defence” (British) but also forms like “tire”, “curb”, and “aluminum” (American). However, there are many Canadians who use typical American spellings, such as “color”, or who mix up the forms. In the Toronto area, I have seen numerous signs which include the forms “color” and “center”. There is even a mall called “Centerpoint” (since 1990; originally called Towne and Countrye Square).

I don’t remember what I did in school, but at least since university, I have deliberately written “color” and “center”. I do this simply because it’s more phonetic (I.E., one less English spelling quirk), and therefore I see these as forms to be preferred.

I write “defense” (not “defence”). On the other hand, I don’t remember having ever spelled “practice” as “practise”.

I vacillated between “gray” and “grey”. I eventually settled on “gray”, which I recently learned is apparently the American form.

On the other hand, I deliberately double the “l” in past forms, e.g. I write the past form of the verb “level” as “levelled”, not “leveled”. The reason for this is that I respect a certain consistency in spelling. Doubling this consonant is in line with a common, but not universal, pattern in spelling: in many words, if you have a consonant sandwiched between two vowels, the first vowel is pronounced like its name, not like its sound. So compare “pop” and “Pope”. That’s why the past of “pop” is “popped”. The doubled “p” cancels out the vowel-consonant-vowel effect.

I write -ize, not -ise (e.g. “jeopardize”, “realize”). As I understand, that is in line with Canadian spelling and the “Oxford” standard of British spelling.

If my writing were subjected to further scrutiny, it’s a question whether more American forms would be found in it.

Other Canadians: how do you spell? Do you take care to write in a strictly “Canadian” way or are there American forms in your writing? Those that prefer forms like “colour” or “centre”, do you consider those to be proper out of patriotism? Or simply out of consistency?

A final interesting note: “harbour” is the British and standard Canadian form. However, the Toronto Harbour Commission Building, built in 1917, has “TORONTO HARBOR COMMISSION” engraved on it. Moreover, I have seen “harbor” written in a 19th-century issue of the Canada Gazette (I think in an Act of Parliament).

2

Next thing you are going to tell me is that they renamed the SkyDome.

With U, grey, ize, *re are my general usements (I will claim “usement” as a Canadian word on behalf of King and Country).

3

I don’t have any use for the “u” we like to throw in color, etc. I am also confused why the spellcheck in my browser keeps flagging “defense” since I know that is the correct spelling. I wish there was a spellcheck dictionary for “Canadian who prefers American spelling”.

4

What’s the deal with Montrèal?

I was watching hockey at a bar and the NHL apparently wants to place a thingy above the “e” in Montreal. Doing a search, the MHL always uses é, but nobody else does.

5

I think I know how to say Montreal.

With the thingy over the e it’s makes me wanna say it differently. moan-trill perhaps.
It’s confusing in my brain.

6

First of all you have the “thingy” pointing the wrong way in your first sentence – that’s an accent grave (backwards pointing) when it should be an accent aigu, like this: é.

The NHL spells Montréal that way because that’s formally the correct spelling – it’s a French name. “Montreal” is just an anglicized version of the correct spelling.

The name comes from one of the city’s unique features, the “mountain” right in the center of the city (actually more of a large hill) that has lots of beautiful green space, parks, a cemetery, and an area that offers a spectacular view of the city from the top. Called Mount Royal in English (and there is in fact a predominantly English-speaking community within Montréal called the Town of Mount Royal) the proper French name is Mont Royal.

There are two competing explanations for how Mont Royal became “Montréal”. The preferred one is that “réal” was a common alternative spelling for “royal” in 16th century French. Another one is that the name comes from a 16th century map by an Italian cartographer in which the name of the mountain was rendered in Italian as “Monte Real”.

As to the OP, my spelling conforms to the Canadian/British style for “ou” words like colour, favour, harbour, etc. but generally to the American style for most everything else. I will write “centre” in formal writing but generally prefer “center” otherwise. There are some words like “gray” and “grey” where I admit I’m not very consistent. But I certainly agree with our American friends that there’s no such thing as “aluminium”! :wink:

The accent aigu doesn’t really change the pronunciation. The English pronunciation is much like it’s spelled, with the “e” and “a” enunciated separately (Mont-re-all). The French pronunciation is “Mon” as in “bon”, the “t” is silent, and the “-all” part is pronounced with a shorter “a” sound, as in “cat”.

7

Nice break down. Thx. Alot. Tryna breathe, now.

:smiling_face:

8

I tend to favour the British spellings regardng ou words, grey for the colour, but tire is tire. @DWMarch , you could set your dictionary to US spelling as a 80% solution.

9

Indeed. The idea that your car rides on something called “tyres” and may have parts made of “aluminium” is obviously a practical joke that the Brits are trying to play on gullible North Americans. If anyone doubts this, consider that they also want you to think that your car has both a “bonnet” and a “boot”. :smiley:

10

Just make sure that your tyres don’t run up on the kerb when you park.

I was a technical writer for many years, so I wrote to the style guide. (Hell, I wrote the style guide in a couple of cases.) If the customers were predominantly American, we’d use American spellings; if not, we’d use Canadian (colour, centre; but aluminum, realize, etc.). To this day, I can easily switch back and forth, as necessary.

On one or two occasions, when we had worldwide customers, we produced two versions: one for the Americans and one for the rest of the world. Once, the shipping department got a little confused and sent some manuals with British spelling to an American customer. Boy, did that customer complain about what they felt were spelling errors!

11

Heh, when I long-press the “e” on my phone, I get ten different e options. I knew it wasn’t ę but the rest all look the same to me.

12

Spoken like a true American/British/Canadian anglophone: “all those little squiggles look the same to me!” :grin:

13

No, the French name is Ville Mont Royal and it is no longer predominantly English speaking, as it was 56 years ago when I moved here (and still live here). As for Montreal when speaking English it is Mon-tree-all. In French the t is silent, the first syllable is a nasalized long o, and the last two roughly ray-ahl.

To return to the OP, I am originally American and tend to use American spelling like center and color. But I write checks in US$ and cheques in CA$, a convenient distinction.

Incidentally, my compact OED ridicules the spellings tyre and kerb, so I wonder if these are actually standard in the UK. Maybe a British doper can confirm.

When I first came here I called the last letter of the alphabet zee. Gradually, I adapted to zed. But by the time I retired my Sesame-Street generation students seemed to using zee a lot.

One of the real oddities is that Canadians don’t understand when I say 10 of 9 and ask if I mean 8:50 or 9:10. They say 10 till 9 for 8:50. I’ve learned to use that. It is common in the US anyway, but not in my dialect.

14

I use Canadian spelling when in Canada, American spelling when in the US. I insist that my students use Canadian spelling (well, the first option in the Oxford Canadian dictionary—technically, all American and British variants seem to be correct here).

Part of it is history, and part is resisting the pull of Americanization and just liking that there is a distinction from both the US & UK. (“Canadian Tire Centre”: not British (Tyre), but not American (Center) either).

On the other hand, even before moving to Canada I preferred “grey” and doubled the -L- in “traveller” etc., and I never know what to do with words like “rigo(u)rously”—I have to look it up every time.

(And if we’re dropping the U in “rigour” out of logic, we need to drop the O in “-ous”: rigorusly.)

15

I never understood this usage, you never hear it in Toronto.

16

Not surprising, but it was certainly majority anglophone when I lived in Montreal, but it’s been quite a few decades. At that time it was always Town of Mount Royal, though undoubtedly it was Ville Mont Royal to the French even then.

A related little controversy I remember from my time there was an English-language radio station railing about the fact that Mountain Street was renamed Rue de la Montagne, because allegedly the street had been named after Jacob Mountain, the first Anglican bishop of Quebec, so French-ifyng the name was totally inappropriate. It turns out this is almost certainly false, and the street was named after Mount Royal. But it was typical of the language battles that were just heating up at the time.

Which is basically what I said. I lived there for 20 years.

17

If I heard you say that, I’d be thinking, “Man, that Star Trek fan is drunk!”

I’m Canadian, do a lot of writing for my government job, and it’s just all over the place. The one that really caught me was “judgement”. I had no idea until I was in my 40s that the Americans don’t use an “e” there, when someone chastised me for bad spelling on a forum like this one, and I had to question my entire universe for a minute.

18

By English Montrealers, the pronunciation is “Mun-tree-all”, while outsiders tend to say “Mawn-tree-all”. To me - the Town of Mount Royal will always be “TMR” (there are many suburbs of Montreal that are multiple words, and locals simply use letters (NDG, DDO, RDP, etc.)).

To keep on topic - I always use (e.g.) “centre” - unless my audience is primarily in the USA…

19

“always … unless”; yeah, that captures the Canadian Spirit accurately!

20

The one that always confused me in British TV shows was “half seven” which I figures out after a while meant “half past seven” or seven-thirty.