alt Hacker NewsCanada's Carney called out for 'utilizing' British spelling
Comments
Much ado about nothing.
Due to my somewhat international career, I had to learn to code-switch between American and British English. My default is American but can do British as needed. Spelling, vocabulary, dialect to some extent, etc.
For a global audience, I find American is the best default. Nonetheless, actual Americans barely notice if you use British English-isms in American contexts. They may notice but no one cares. Everyone knows what you mean. Using British dialect may confuse them occasionally but even then no one cares. Canadians should do what is natural for Canadians.
It boggles my mind that someone from a Commonwealth country using British spelling would even warrant a news article. Why is anyone talking about this?
One persistent problem is that there isn't a Canadian English spelling option in most software with spellchecking functionality. Often we are forced to choose between US English and British English spelling defaults, when neither is quite right. I suspect that this was a stylistic choice not of Carney himself, but whoever proofread the document. There has been considerable erosion in Canadian orthography in of late, which has only been made worse with the widespread adoption of UFLI English language learning materials in our schools' elementary curricula, which emphasizes American spelling and pronunciation.
> "So far, bless him, he has not resorted to 'gaol' for 'jail.'"
Some parts of Canada inexplicably used "gaol" for "jail" until fairly recently. For example, the "Headingley Gaol" near Winnipeg. The jail has been renamed to Headingley Correctional Center, but the road to it is still Gaol Road, preserving the linguistic curiosity.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headingley_Correctional_Instit... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gaol+Rd,+Headingley,+MB,+C...
Canadian English is what you get when a country moves out of England’s attic to attend university and ends up with America as a roommate.
He spent 7 years (2013-2020) in London running the Bank of England though - as the first foreign head in its 300+ year existence - he would have been very careful to avoid using Canadian/American spellings in official documents - has he just got used to it?
Maybe just don't utilize "utilize" or "utilise" at all. There are very few cases where utilizing "utilize" or "utilise" is better than using "use".
As an ESL immigrant, as it happens, I agree with this! Agree with sticking to a "Canadian" spelling. You'll prise the "u" in things like "colour" out of my cold, dead fingers, but just as Canada is a cultural melting pot, so is the language and spelling and the "z" in "utilize" belongs there. We're not British here, we're not 'murricans. This is Canada.
Canadian here.
I use American spellings wherever they make sense and don't gratuitously mess with the Latin roots.
Such as "behavior", "neighbor".
But: "centre" and not "center" (it's from Latin "centrum": the R goes after the T, and there is no need whatsoever to revise that.)
The shift to Z in the -ise Latin-derived suffix is not just in American English. European languages are split about it. For instance, let's look at "to synthesize"
German: synthetisieren
French: synthétiser
Dutch: syntetisere
But:
Polish: syntetyzować
Hungarian: szintetizálni
Italian: sintetizzare
Romanian: sintetiza
I think the sound is Z in all of them? It's partly a question of whether the orthography of the language uses S for a Z sound or not. If they don't have that feature in their orthography then they don't have the choice of retaining an S spelling with a Z sound.
I agree that Carney should use Canadian English. However, this does not seem like a major enough issue to me, to worry about much, nor is it important enough to fine or sue anyone or anything else like that.
Asked to comment, Carney's office stated that they had told those hosers to take off.
I wish this was the level of scandal we were dealing with in the US. Canada is so lucky to just be squabbling over spelling choices.
As a Canadian, we should work on improving our productivity and incorporate more automation and tooling. Whatever impacts our GDP in times of tariffs and economic uncertainty.
Not collectively waste time on the useless debates on how to spell things.
Once got taken to a Canadian shopping mall for books in Canada. There discovered the history of Canada in early-2000's. Now, reading the amusing headline of technology–editing software. This seems there they are now accepting this person; given their change once more? Colour spelled color is fun to discover.
Keeping track of "-ize" versus "-ise" is a PITA, mainly because (a) American English uses both, altho not interchangeably, and (b) on teh interwebz there's always an inconsistent grab bag of dialectical usage. For those reasons I for one have settled on "-ise". My 0,02€, ymmv
Long before spellcheck was everywhere, I used to use the British spelling of words when posting on the internet to catch over eager "spelling nazis".
I was a fun bit of trolling that most people didn't notice, could still stay on topic ... but man it triggered some folks.
Is the NHL on a holiday break? This seems like the sort of thing one runs in a dead news cycle.
As a Canadian, I describe my country as, "Proudly Not England, Not France, and Not America, since 1867."
Style over substance seems to be the order of the day. It would be refreshing to see people debate of substantive issues, ones that make a difference. It's a symptom of the broader crises in competence. Our leaders are chosen because they aren't good at anything, so we can only argue about their spelling and word choice.
As a British person working for an American company, my spelling at work is an inconsistent mess.
How does one go to the Governor of the bank of England to the PM of Canada? Pretty much overnight?
It's very refreshing to see political news be about how someone misplaces their letters.
Incidentally, both 'utilize' and 'utilise' are 'code smells' in writing. One can almost always go with 'use' instead which is an older and simpler word.
If I work for a US multi-national and based out of London, and work with team members in both USA and UK, which language should I use for my emails?
Also, he should use Times New Roman instead of Calibri.
I worked in Canada for 18 years still have Canadian clients 3 years after coming back to the US, no one bats an eye over whether you use American or British spelling in documents. No one. Ever.
This is more manufactured outrage. I wish the media was not incentivized to amplify nonsense all the time.
Time for a classic Canadian joke:
Canada was supposed to have British Culture, French Cuisine and American Technology. Instead we ended with British Cuisine, American Culture and French Technology.
Is "gossip news" accepted now HN, as long as the celebrities are connected to finance?
As a canadian, sheesh. Don't we have better things to worry about?
He did work in Britain for decades, if I was him I’d just completely own it and say something like “if this is the weak stuff they are trying to get me on I must be doing a great job with things that actually matter. Everyone, especially the people whinging about this, also make mistakes!”
And the gen-text-speak will conquer all with 'utlgng'.
Really, what is under the bonnet in Canadian policy making?
An odd choice, for sure. Not much else to be said really.
> In an open letter, they asked Carney to stick to Canadian English, writing that it is "a matter of our national history, identity and pride".
A bit touchy, aren't we?
There are much better things to be proud about than using "z" instead of "s" in a few words.
slow news is good news i guess.
as a canadian, i always thought the official canadian spelling was to arbitrarily switch between the british or american spelling of words whenever you felt like it, including interchangeably in the same writing.
At least in my experience in early 2000s BC we still used British spelling in grade school and all over Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, and the island (eg. Harbour Centre)
Can anyone give me an example how Canadian English spelling differs from American English?
Reminds me of the legendary flow chart "How to measure things like a Canadian": https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/18xbabx/...
British-born Canadian here. Strong spelling pedantry courses through my veins.
But... this is just the next chapter in Canadian media (ha! it mostly belongs to the southern dictatorship) having a go at non-Trumpish politicians.
Life continues.
As an old-stock Canadian (one side of my family settled in Upper Canada in 1782 because of the revolution, so I have very thick British loyalist roots)...I use British spelling. I explicitly reject the use of American English.
This is a nothing burger.
If this is the worst this guy has done, well done Canada !
I had thought Canada spelled words like the UK more often than not.
Reading this, I wonder how this became an issue to become big enough to have an article written about it.
Then hearing the justifications about why it might be, in turn, pitting a few characters in text on the canadianness of a politician, or not.
If you can imagine a word processor somewhere writing this, maybe it didn't have it's language set to English (Canada)?
Some folks here have said sometimes it can feel like there might be folks trying to grasp at straws.
This is a very important matter....
>Prof Dollinger told the BBC, noting how CanWada's language has evolved from its past as a British colony.
Whos face is on the Canadian 20 dollar note?
Unlike the US, Canada does have official languages so this is very much a request that the PM comply with the law.
I've never heard anything about a change to British spelling. Sounds like nonsense.
Carney is the most popular politician Canada has had in decades. The opposition party is starting to fall apart (two members defected, which means Carney's party is one seat away from a majority).
Whole thing sounds like an attempt to manufacture an 'Obama beige suit' moment.