why is this not one way or the other?
addendum: wow, thanks everyone. I truly never knew it was a British vs. American spelling thing.
Gray is a color, while grey is a colour.
Gray is the color of aluminum, grey is the colour of aluminium
Fantastic!
grey - 🇬🇧 english (traditional)
gray - 🇺🇸 english (simplified)
This is correct, but for some reason in my head I think of gray as warm toned (like with yellow or brown undertones) and grey as cool toned (like with blue or purple undertones).
I have no idea why my brain has decided this is the way.
What?! It’s exactly the opposite, obviously!
You say this, and while I have never considered it in these terms before, it is obviously true to me.
I’m splitting hairs but I always read
grey - 🇨🇦 english (eh)
gray - 🇺🇸 english (simplified)
grey - 🇬🇧 english (traditional)
gr*y - 🇦🇺 english (explicit)
Fun fact: southern Americans speak English more traditionally than anyone else. The British have fucked up the pronunciation so hard at this point. Their spelling is typically more traditional though, yeah.
People say this a lot but it’s just not true
That doesn’t actually say that it isn’t the closest to a classical British accent. It only says it’s diverged from the modern one. Yeah, it isn’t the same as the classical British accent, but I believe it preserves more of the characteristics than other English accents have. They’ve all diverged, but some less than others.
IIRC, there’s an island that’s very isolated in the US who’s accent is as close as possible to a classic British accent, but it’s a population of maybe a few dozen people, if that even at this point.
No, it’s evolved unlike American that had to be simplified for the general population.
Due to brain damage
E is the European version, A is the American version. This sounds trite, but is true, and makes it simple to know which one to use
E is English. A is American.
Are you being like pedantic or just trying to make it more simple?
(Otherwise North America and specially the United States has the majority of English speakers in the world, so there is a realistic distinction between U.K. / European English and American English and both are equally correct evolutions of their English roots )
Edit: downvote all you want, but I was just asking for clarity
it’s a mnemonic to help people remember, not pedantry
English as in England, the country
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted either.
To answer your question it’s neither and both. I can appreciate it might seem pedantic from an American point of view, but not from ours. It’s our language, created here and named after us, it doesn’t require the British/European prefix. It is simply English.
American, Canadian and Australian English should have suffixes as simplified variations of the default.
Sadly because of learning materials and the media, a lot of mainland Europeans that learn English often learn American English mannerisms. I remember in college there was a girl everyone thought was American to begin with but she just happened to be Spanish.
This makes the Scottish very mad
I’m sorry.
But the Scottish want to claim something English as theirs? When did that start?
. . . Unless you’re in the majority of the English speaking world, which includes India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Of course, grey is the appropriate spelling for all of those but Canada, which uses both.
Canada, which uses both
græy /s
That looks awesome though
“Both” in Canada is Gray and Gris
That’s what Seal’s rose was on.
Canadas english is weird
Especially when it comes to measurements (weight, volume, mass, temperature)
What’s wrong with Canada’s weights and measures?
Everything is in SI units.
Unless you’re cooking, where heat is in Fahrenheit, solid measures are in cups teaspoons and tablespoons (but liquids are in litres and weights are in grams).
Or in construction, where you work in feet and yards. Or measuring a person’s height.
But while someone might be 6’ tall, their stride length will be in metres, as will their arm span.
So yeah; simple. It’s not like Canada has tons of people weighing in tonnes.
A “Pint” of beer served commercially in Canada must be 20 imperial (UK) ounces (aka ~568 mL), with a 2.5% margin of error permitted within the law, unlike a US pint (16 US fl oz ~473mL).
Just for fun, “Une pinte” of alcohol in French served commercially is “a quart” of alcohol in English which is double that value.
My in-laws in Quebec get weighed in pounds
No need to downvote this comment
Even canadians agree that we have a weird mix of different systems in play
Hey at least you’re not still measuring weight in stone. Nothing makes me roll my eyes quicker. Oh you’re ten stone? How neat im 2 boulder and 3 pebble.
Also depends if it’s someone’s last name… 😅
henry gray, the author of the iconic medical text.
albert grey, former governor general (ca). the grey cup (cfl championship game and trophy) takes its name from him.
Australia uses both, but grey is “correct”.
Canada, which uses both.
Is it Caneda then, or Cenada?
;-)
Americans spell it whatever way they want.
Yup. Their freedom bone twitches otherwise.
But in certain circumstances, the Europeans will still use it with an a. Specifically, when referring to the color of a horse.
Wasn’t aware of that
It is spelled grey in correct English. In the USA, they like spelling it gray.
All language is made up. There is no ‘correct’.
Standardisation of language is not pointless. Shared standards serve concrete functions:
- When 8 billion people write “colour” the same way, you don’t pause to decode variants
- Technical manuals, legal documents, medical instructions need precision: ambiguity costs lives
- Cross-generational understanding: Shakespeare’s English is already hard without adding modern variation to the mix
- Standardized spelling keeps homophones distinct (their/there/they’re)
Standardisation of language isn’t about one version being inherently right. It’s about shared agreement that enables function at scale.
And it’s agreed that both Grey and Gray are acceptable variants, and they will be right up until they aren’t for one arbitrary reason or another.
Here to give you a boost away from the downvotes.
Lawsuits are won and lost over grammar and spellings. Constitutional crisis happen over the question: is the text to be understood in the time period of writing or reading (because the meaning of words shifts over time)
shakespeare spelled it “color” multiple times
Case in point for his English being hard to understand
Buddy we got the spelling from you before you decided to deep throat the French and copy their phonics and corrupt your own spellings.
I’m not British.
Also, grey in French is gris so I’m not sure how that is relevant
No we don’t. Grey is the only way.
Gray is the correct spelling 🦅🇺🇸🎆🎸🤼♂️🍖
Ironic coming from someone with wombat in their name 🇦🇺
I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t actually feel very 🦅🇺🇸🎆🎸🤼♂️🍖
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In all the languages that have the letter æ , exactly none of them use it for that colour.
I know it’s an American vs other English speaking countries thing, but as an American I can honestly never remember which one we are. I always used to look it up, but now I just shoot from the hip and assume I’m right, which feels the most American way to approach it.
I think that’s what most Americans do. I don’t think I’ve thought about how to spell it in decades. I just spell it both ways depending on the day.
When I was in high school, a girl passed me a note:
Are you g
ray?Never forgot the spelling ;)
Yes
I know that this is “no stupid questions” but it boggles the mind that people post in forums when the answer is either yes/no, or a single sentence explanation available in a web search.
we should just not have Lemmy at all and only read news articles, wikipedia and talk to ourselves
I would argue that the purpose of Lemmy comments is dialogue, not for other users to be someone’s dictionary
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Gray in the US. Grey elsewhere.
Yes
for the color i use “a” always… but was taught either one was acceptable, unless it’s a name (proper noun).
Grea
Yes
Gray in the U.S. presumably because a was cheaper than e for typesetting
Why would a be cheaper than e
They’re both vowels lol
Source: I made it up.
