Does it annoy British people when spelling is in American English?

Question

A friend from London was complaining about Apple always having their software in American English without an option for British English. Are there a lot of differences and does it annoy the Brits?

Answer 1

Hi I'm writing from Norwich, England.

There are a few differences in spelling (o's vs ou's like colour and s's vs z's like realise, but most of the differences are when there is a different choice of words to say the same thing).

Personally I'd say that the US spelling makes more sense, but the British choice of words & their meaning to use are better.

33 out of 34 English-speaking countries of the world today opt to use British-English spelling - but 20+/30 biggest english speaking companies are based in the US, so the divide continues on, and foreign-language are forced to teach their kids BOTH as kids, which confuses them and puts them off.

Yes, it does annoy a lot of Brits when US language is used. And every time British children pick up US language, the challenge grows.

Maybe the US/UK/Canada/Aus/NZ/S Af/etc should all sign a truce and hence forth permit BOTH in every context & in every country, making it so that neither is wrong.

Answer 2

Yes, it annoys me enormously. But what is even more infuriating is when I am writing a language other than English and my machine argues with me and corrects foreign language words into American spelling. I have to go back and revise everything! What with the spell check being in American too, it is sometimes hard to know whether I've actually got things right or not!

Here's a link showing some of the many differences between English and American spelling: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/jones/differences.htm

Answer 3

Not sure about the Brits , but it annoys the heck out of this Aussie!!
On some software I have noticed that even after you use spellcheck (which has a grammar check as well) after changing it to American, it won't let you change back the spelling or grammar; how's that for annoying!!

Answer 4

I'm American, and I don't think typing that 'My favourite colour is grey' is wrong. It's just as right as 'My favorite color is gray'.

Really and truly, it doesn't annoy me.

When I typed 'my favourite colour is grey' I got the red squiggly marks under 'favourite (favorite)' & 'colour (color)'. But not under grey, I can tell most Americans spell it either way. It's like theater/theatre, or center/centre (if it refers like to a strip mall), or cancelled/canceled.

Again, British spelling doesn't annoy me.

Answer 5

... i'm truly puzzled on what precisely you propose, might desire to you boost with an occasion? besides, i'm American yet i've got spelled issues interior the British English way because of the fact 5th or 6th grade, I purely think of it appears that evidently extra advantageous lol

Answer 6

I betcha it does! Why? Because they're not accustomed to spelling certain words in the American English way and they think the way we spell is wrong, of course! I ALSO betcha it's the same with European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese spelling, too!

Answer 7

Yes there are. British spelling is more etymological based, whereas American spelling is more phonetic based.

Eg. gaol vs jail
colour vs color (imitating French coleur-or something like that)

I am all for British spelling. It annoys the hell out of me when I see American spellings in the News paper. (This is in Australia)

Answer 8

It doesn't annoy me as such but it always underlines a word i've typed to say it's wrong like colour. Ok...it's a tad annoying

Answer 9

Sometimes it does Colour & harbour without the"U" really
stands out to those of us who were canned at school in the
40's for bad spelling. also he doved into the water, instead of
he dived into the water, must look wrong even to Americans!
Who was it that said "two like minded nations divided by a
common language" ? Best wishes. D

Answer 10

British spelling sometimes annoys me.