tom169

My last job (I'm switching employers in a couple weeks) would be heavy amounts of written text - reports, documentation, etc. I had to quickly ensure my writing style and spelling were "Americanized".

Dates catch me off guard when I see dd/mm/yyyy. Also had to get used to writing timezones as I worked for a national company.

Pulaski

In the English-speaking world the Canadian spelling of yoghurt is a peculiar outlier, as the preferred "yogourt" is acceptable in both English and French, saving the provision of a rendundant transalation because the Quebecoise are too dumb to understand (or too proud to accept? ) that a small pot with a foil lid sold in the dairy fridge in a supermarché, labelled "yoghurt" contains "yogourt".
"Ax" is still in the Oxford English dictionary as an acceptable spelling variant, as my grandmother used to love pointing out when playing Scrabble™, but it is flagged as archaic.

Pulaski

For some reason "story" in the US is not only used for a fictional tale, but is also the most common spelling for the level of a building, which in the UK would always (correctly) be spelt "storey", though this is considered an acceptable variant in the US too, and the one that I pointedly use in my work documents.

"Ensure" v "insure" drives me nuts, with Americans, including some prestigious publications such as the New Yorker, commonly using the latter in both contexts even though, while being near homophones, they have markedly, almost opposing meanings!

Ditto the second "o" in "too", which is commonly absent in US writings.

penguinsix

I have also never seen "gantlet" nor have I see 'to' as a substitute for 'too' except for typos, but it may be something more common in modern usage and I'm just an old guy. I've read that mobile phone usage has led to a shortening of many words.

One that I wonder about is the article 'the' as it relates to things like 'hospital' and 'university'. "Off to university." -- "I'm at hospital" (Grammarly US edition is already flagging both of these). I've also seen some European organizations insist on similar, for example in some official writing I see stuff like 'It is the policy of World Bank to do x-y-z" instead of "It is the policy of the World Bank to x-y-z".

Another is "Math" and "Maths" as a short form of mathematics is another. While we both use "stats" as a short form of statistics, this is one that has different usage depending on country. The best explanation I've seen is that it's just how the short form developed in casual usage in both countries. There are grammatical arguments for both so each country just uses that which developed naturally. "Sport" and "Sports" is another, with this time the 's' switching sides between the US and UK

Pulaski

I think that to/too is on the fence between typo and common usage, but I see it so often in non-professional writings (documents written by colleagues, Farcebook, internet postings, etc. not old-school publications and books) that "to" for "too" seems to becoming the norm for usage - compounded by simple spell-check functions not flagging it as an error. .... Perhaps Grammerly will help?

penguinsix

Guess I'll just have to get used to it. I suppose it is better than just '2'.

Now as for single vs. double spaces after a period, I'll probably never be able to adjust to that one.

Pulaski

I am not sure what you are referring to about double spaces (it sounds like you think that a double space after a full stop is odd?) as the "learn to type" book I had when I was a student many years ago in the UK instructed that a full stop should be followed by a double space.

That said, the BE forum has recently, within the past few months I think, started removing "unwanted" double spaces after full stops.

sid nv

So posts are being edited to remove double spaces after a full stop. I might take offense that this site has taken license to perform this censorship, but I suppose it would be reasonable practise for BE to automatically convert all US mis-spellings to British.

Nutmegger

I found the single space after a period hard for some time, the double space was so ingrained, but now it comes automatically.

S Folinsky

This article in Slate Magazine generated a LOT of comments. BTW, I’ve gotten used to a bare double space as macro for “. “

Of interest is the 7th Circuit Style Manual. I know that I changed some of my practices based on this.

Lion in Winter

What? No, don't tell me that. To and too don't mean the same thing at all. Spell check functions are useless at this sort of thing because they don't do grammar well. Both the words are in the English language, so even if it's the wrong word in terms of sense or grammar in any give instance it won't necessarily be flagged.

Pulaski

Yeah, I'm with you 100%, and they are totally non-interchangeable, but outside of traditional print media, and their web sites, I believe that I am seeing "to" about 90% of the time that it should have been "too".

I suspect that over time "to" will just evolve into another of those English words that has two (or more) entirely unrelated meanings.

scrubbedexpat091

The yogurt I have, it's Yogurt on the English part and Yogourt on the French part.

Canada can't make it's mind up in some ways, some words UK way, some the US way. Celsius for some temps, F for others (mostly F for cooking, taking human temp and fridge temp) mostly kg for weights, but grocery stores advertised produce in meat by the pound, but then the receipt is price per kg, and most will say they weigh X pounds and not refer to their weight in kg, same with height, most will say they are X feet and X inches, and not give their height in CM. Drivers license place asks for it in feet and inches, and pounds for weight but the prints it in kg and cm on the actual license.

date varies as well, can be one of 3 ways in BC. MMDDYY or YYYY MM DD or DD MM YYYY banks like YYYY MM DD at least my bank does.

Lion in Winter

And then there's the whole question of the "h".


My son had the best solution when he was little. He just called it all "oggit".

scrubbedexpat091

I've never seen an h in the word so it perplexed me ha ha

Sometimes I resort to simply sounding word like sounds, usually when I have had a brain misfire and for the life of me can't think of the dang word I need, guess like any processor, the brain sometimes has a little bit of a short circuit.....ha ha