alt Hacker NewsMuch 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?
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> Nonetheless, actual Americans barely notice if you use British English-isms in American contexts.
Try this in rural communities with people who dropped out of college.
Saying "note" instead of "bill" will be noticed.
Same with "petrol" instead of "gas".
Probably a whole list of others.
>Why is anyone talking about this?
A "news" article was written, doesn't mean any real people actually care.
Where I grew up in the US, in grade school, our neighborhood school in the small city had teachers from both Quebec and Ireland. So we learned non-US spelling first. That caused a pain when I and my friends ended up in high school and had to use US spelling.
But to me, who cares, there was a time ages ago people spelt a word the way they wanted and no one cared. Just look at old documents from the 18th century in the US.
Even decades later, once in a great while, I end up using colour instead of color :)
Pfft. Spelling differences is minor league stuff. Try code-switching on silence.
Pointed out to me by a Kiwi, that Americans take silence after a statement to mean general agreement, but in Britain silence implicitly asks, "Are you _really sure_ you want to be doing that?"