Poll: Colour or Color?

[UberNoodle]

Quite a few Former British colonies on this site...

I hope you are including the USA is that list.

I mean, that still use British spelling for shit...

Well it might interest you to know that some so-called 'Americanisms' were not invented by American speakers at all, but rather are just words and phrases that were 'held on to'. Such differences were created when British English went through massive changes and the colonists in the Americas didn't, couldn't, 'get the memo' about it. I have found quite a few examples of English supposedly of American invention but which actually reflect how things used to be said.

 

[Angus565]

I live in Canada too so I was taught it's spelled Colour.
Apparently Firefox doesn't think so though.

 

[SoranMBane]

I spell it "colour" even though I'm American, mainly because I prefer the way it looks and because I also grew up reading a lot of British literature.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

Charizard uses random poll answer. It's super effective!

 

[Carlan]

It's colour. Why? Because we won the War of 1812, that's why. God save the Queen, bitches!

 

[Tanfastic]

"Color" unless i'm feeling fancy. Just like "Theater" instead of my fancy "Theatre".

Also, needs less random choice that's screws up poll results...

 

[DanDeFool]

Color, unless you want to be an elitist who uses archaic spelling and drinks tea out of tiny cups with their pinky finger sticking out.

I mean, come on! The 'u' in 'colour' is silent anyway. If 'colour' was pronounced 'col-ur' instead of 'col-or' then you might have a point. Either that or this debate would be whether or not the spelling should be 'colour' or 'colur'.

Hell, even Firefox's spell-checker disagrees with you; every instance of 'colour' I have in the reply editor is marked as a spelling error. I guess that's because I got the American English version instead of the British or Australian English version, but still.

Ahh, the 'archaic' argument. I am sure you are just joking around but just to comment on that: probably nothing is pure in English and to avoid any corruptions or archaisms would be a neverending endevour. So we remove a few U's from some words. Well what about all of the endless other examples of inconsistancy? Those U's and so on, reflect the history of their words. Since only learners of the language would need to spell phonetically (natives spell most words automatically from memory), a U here or not here, doesn't really matter. It could have an X in it, and natives would still know 'how to spell it'.

Yeah, I was just messing around. I don't really care how you spell it. Still, I do prefer 'color' to 'colour'. 'Colour' just doesn't look right to me; like you should be pronouncing it like 'allure' (something like 'callure') instead of how it's supposed to be pronounced.

 

[Agrael]

Colour.. because that is how they taught me in school.

English is ENGLISH.
Not AMERICAN English...

 

[BlackIronGuardian]

Colour. Queen's English, gents.

 

[Denamic]

Learned British English in school, so colour.
But then again, I got most of my actual English proficiency from the intertubes, so I'll often use Americanized words.
...like using -ize instead of -ise like I just did.

 

[Vuljatar]

Color.

If it were pronounced like velour I would spell it colour, but it's not.

 

[carpathic]

colour...Canadian!

 

[Nukey]

I mostly spell it "color", on account of being American, but from time to time I'll spell it "colour" if I'm talking with anyone who is from another country.

 

[Vaewyn]

I'm from Australia so I spell it colour.

 

[Contun]

If I'm not mistaken the British added the 'u' to make it seem more elegant and graceful. But this was ages ago.

Honestly I think it's kinda silly people even argue over trivial things like this. Zee, Zed, whatever. Doesn't matter.

There have many periods and movements in the English language's history and in terms of the 'extra U', it's meant to reflect the French origin of those words. I wouldn't be surprised if the American drive to remove the 'U' wasn't at least in part an attempt to 'de-Frenchify' the English language. Don't take that too seriously. I am just musing.

I knew it had something to do with France. I think England was interested in French culture so they adopted some of their behaviors and mannerisms. Not completely sure though...

 

[Kagim]

Colour, the Canadian Way.

Spellcheck hates me for it.

Edit: looking at it the word looks silly either way.

What a stupid word.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Colour is the only way you spell it in my town. Spell it differently and it will get pointed out.

 

[Clueless Hero]

Since I live in America, I spell it "color".

 

[v3n0mat3]

One of these threads? Well, as I always say: IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW YOU SAY IT, IT MEANS THE SAME THING, IT'S QUITE PETTY TO BICKER OVER HOW IT'S SPELLED. Also, the same goes for the type of system of measurements Americans vs. rest of the world uses (even though everyone uses both standard and metric, situation pending). It's just stupid squabbling that amounts to, well, nothing.