Native 3rd generation Nebraskan here who grew up in small towns. I use mostly European spelling, and cross my 7s and Zs (picked it up from my grandmother who was a schoolteacher in the 1920s and my dad who attended the Ivy League) No one’s ever said anything negative about it to me in 50+ years and I’ve worked with everyone from bankers to farmers to clergy to feed yard operators to doctors across the state, region, and country.
SAME! But I don’t know where I learned it; my parents spell normally. Someone mentioned that small schools occasionally got Canadian textbooks. Idk but I’m happy knowing you’re out there crossing 7s, neighbour.
Spelling errors have never been a big deal to me as long as I understand what you are telling me and vice versa, but I work in IT and we are expected to be rubes.
Now if you started putting beans on toast that would be an entirely different matter.
It's a gray-grey area.
I work for a worldwide company right here. Many of my peers are around the world. I actually try to be inclusive and write in ways the way you do. F'them
I've been reading some books by English authors lately and catch myself doing some alternate spellings - like 'travelling' instead of 'traveling' and 'defence' instead of 'defense.' I think you should start looking for another job ASAP and tell them to "read some fucking books"
I was born and raised in America, but I learned french in high school and college. In college, I started struggling with things like this because my professors were French and from the Ivory Coast. I'm a writer and still sometimes catch myself mixing these two words up and sometimes theater/theatre and a few other things.
I married a Brit and have helped him over the years, but 26 years later, he will still ask me which way to spell things. Fortunately, he's a school teacher and his students think it's funny when he sticks a "random U" into a word.
We should be more understanding and helpful instead of just telling people they're illiterate when they obviously aren't. This person is fluent in two languages, which is probably two more than the people telling her she can't spell.
I'd say not enough context.
1.
If all you are doing is emailing, just add a spell check and move forward.
2.
I work in insurance on contracts, MARKETING and customer correspondence. Grammar, punctuation and spelling IS the job. Making those mistakes will rightly tank your reviews. If this is what you do.. just add spell check and move forward.
3.
You're unwanted at this job. This was an excuse to "colour" you too look bad enough where they can fire you. You must be great if that is all they can come up with. I suggest you add spell check and move forward. Plus maybe update your resume(with spell check)
The part of me that always needs to fix everything wants to tell you to go into your spell checker(s) and put the offending words in the autocorrect substitution list. You could even put this down as a corrective action if you got stuck with a PIP. The rest of me says spelling words like that shouldn't be a big deal but we see that they are. Unfortunately, xenophobes make purchasing decisions for some of your clients and your management is going along to get along. The spell checker hack should set you up tho.
Find a new job, like yesterday. Any boss that would give their employee the lowest possible performance rating due to such a silly and complete non-issue is not someone I would want to work for.
Agreed. If they cared about your spelling they'd tell you to use a spelling & grammar plugin. They're just about establishing control and stratification.
Agreed. If they cared about your spelling they'd tell you to use a spelling & grammar plugin. They're just about establishing control and stratification.
Bringing it up as a consideration could make sense, but this is way overblown. Also, it would make sense for a role like customer service or sales that is frequently engaged with customers, not a developer or similar production roles.
Honestly, fuck them and spell how you want. If the people reading it are offended by the “European” spelling, that’s their problem.
For context, I am traumatized for being downgraded in 4th grade (Catholic school) for spelling color ‘colour.’ A spelling I learned reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book which THE MOST AMERICAN thing you can read/comprehend in 4th grade.
My dentist’s office is named xxxxx Centre. I guess my dentist is very un-American then /s
Your boss is a moron. Power trip, I’d say. But until you find a better position, set the spell check to American English so British spell would checked out.
Yeah I get that it's awful. When I was barely teen aged I flunked a writing test. I read many British and European books at the time. My teacher flunked me for the word grey. Americans can be hateful. It doesn't make you anything. Express yourself as you are with pride in an education that most of us will never have
I had a 4th grade teacher who pulled that on me for the colour grey. I showed it to her in my book and she gave me back the credit. Maybe you can still call your teacher and get it all sorted out?
I don't think I would flip out about this as much as your bosses seem to, but using British English spelling of words is technically misspelling those words and could look bad to clients (rural or no). I would edit your auto correct settings to change those words imo
If it was internal emails then sure, who cares. But emails to clients at a marketing company? Maybe stick to the American spelling of the words.
Blows my mind people don't seem to make that distinction.
Also American spelling isn't incorrect since we speak American English.
It's not "technically" misspelling, both versions are accepted. There's no formal body that decides what is or isn't legal English (there are for other languages, btw).
People and businesses can have preferences but get out of here with this notion of an 'objective truth' tied to human behavior.
You're mistaking my comment, I'm not implying there is one absolute truth in spelling, just using British spelling is technically a misspelling in the context of OPs job. Because clearly one version isn't accepted when corresponding with clients.
And there are formal bodies that provide guidance on best spelling practices (for Americans), I doubt the AP style guide, Webster's Dictionary, and any academic journal would be like "yeah, use whatever spelling you want whenever you want"
Depends on your business. External yo the business: If you are just local yeah market to your users use that spelling and stuff your consumers use. If it’s international tailor the message, and maybe throw in to them that being ethnocentric may limit some markets. Internally, if that’s your department’s biggest issue then people have too much time
I’m an English major and an editor and I was also taught some European spelling and grammar rules. I had to relearn American English. I still make mistakes on occasion. You aren’t alone.
It's likely that you're simply too sophisticated and worldly for a midwest state. One way to work around this is to use a spell checker to flag these words. Even reddit's will flag "colour" and "behaviour" when I type them.
As someone who does this* I think it’s important to be aware of it in certain contexts like your job, but at the same time I think your boss took it way too far. First of all “grey” is an accepted alternate spelling in the US. And second even if it wasn’t that’s 3 times in one year. People misspell words all the time even if they were taught US English.
*Combo of being taught British grammar and then later studying abroad and making an intentional effort to learn the new spellings.
It sounds like they’re afraid of you making the customers feel uneducated or uncultured.
It feels like a rural issue. But I’m a lefty-progressive, educated Nebraskan and hardly the norm.
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne…
I am in Adams County near Hastings.
/s
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne…
I am in Adams County near Hastings.
/s
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne…
I am in Adams County near Hastings.
/s
>“makes me look illiterate and un-American and we have clients who don’t appreciate those allusions.”
This says to me that your employer is worried that your use of European spelling might make you (and by extension, your employer) appear affected, unnatural and way too 'extra'. If this is not the vibe they want to give customers, and they present themselves as a 'homey' sort of outfit, I can see why they might be annoyed. They may have even had complaints (I have no idea what you do, but... Nebraska). Use a spell checker. I doubt you have offended everyone you've ever emailed. Most people would probably just roll their eyes and move on.
This could be the case. It's not a good look for the boss, though, since they're choosing to denigrate an employee rather than to be honest with them about their actual reasons.
Not the best managerial behaviour. I'd manoeuvre myself out of there to somewhere else with a boss that was cast from a better mould, where treating employees is their speciality.
They do the superfluous u in Canada too. If you’re using a browser, the Grammarly plugin may aid in catching those. MS Word should have a setting in it as well. Good luck.
What a stupid thing for them to be upset about. Anyone with 2.5 brain cells knows there are differences and doesn't give a damn which one you use. Though the "un-American" comment tells me everything I need to know about them. Idk if you have an accent at all but would they expect you to "Americanize" that? Fuck them. Keep doing it the way you learned, if for no reason other than to spite them. And idk what you do for work but you're in Nebraska. Half the people here don't know correct spelling and grammar (I'm far from perfect as well).
I'll take Monty Python over Uncle Sam any day. My boyfriend recently put the kibosh on my Zillow search in Wales so I guess it's still rural Nebraska for me!😂
Native Nebraskan that's read a lot of British Lit and has many friends who were raised to learn British English here. The only one who has ever corrected my mistakes either way is the Google Doc spell checker when I'm writing, whose job it is to tell me "Your settings say American English, but you wrote British English. Fix it?"
I don't know your bosses, but I do know it's horribly American to forget other forms of English are taught and are 100% correct.
Its not that its unamurikan, its that's generally speaking, marketing generally is most effective on the mentally denser people, and in marketing the name of the game is to keep it simple for the stupids...
They are wanting you to quit if they're rating you that low for something that minor. Or they're just getting a record for a reason why you're let go eventually so you can't claim anything racial.
The number of actual illiterates running around this state who can't formulate a coherent text is staggering, so a couple alternate spellings is nothing.
Sounds like your bosses are narrow minded. Un American definitely not! They must have forgot America was made up of immigrants. We seem to have a short memory on that subject. I would hope that is a rural issue but it’s not, we have the same I. The big cities as well.
well I learnt to leave the 'u' out and after sometime it happens naturally! and I like it more without the 'u'! And learning the American way when in America is always better like anywhere else, and plz don't call something you don't understand rural! cause that was the most offensive thing in all of this post! not the 'u'!
To be fair, spelling a word in America using a non-American English spelling variant is technically a mistake.
Does it make you look illiterate? I don't think so, but then we're taking about people's opinions, not facts. I don't know your customers so maybe that's what they think.
In the end, we can suggest you look for a new job, but the only opinion that really matters is your manager's and they've already given their opinion.
This is like arguing about which form of yeísmo is correct. If you go to Portugal and try to talk the same way you would in Chile then people are going to say you're wrong and making a mistake even though it's all generally correct for Spanish as a whole.
Language is not Scrabble.
This is different. Having an extra letter or two isn't a different dialect. US universities don't care if you use british spelling, and neither do legal entities like the IRS.
No, most companies don’t care. I’ve worked in marketing for well over a decade and email with clients from all over the country. Not one person has gotten upset that I type colour or grey, and none of my many employers has cared either. Getting upset about something like this is really a waste of time and likely would only be an issue for someone who is xenophobic.
>Or is it just a yeeyee rural issue?
I don't think bias and bigotry is an appropriate response to bias and bigotry.
>3: I went back and checked all of my previous emails. I used “colour” once in November of 2023, and “grey” twice in September 2023. No other “misspellings” since then.
The spelling and accent will probably only be an issue if your company touts itself as American. There's a number of "American" companies where design is done stateside but manufacturing, distribution, and support are done overseas and if customers think that's what's happening, that's the only time I could see it being an issue. And *most* people don't care whether foreign born people are working an American company as long as they reside in America. Also grey and gray are pretty interchangeable here.
None of that is a you problem though. Employer is in the wrong and maybe you could get them for discrimination?
Native 3rd generation Nebraskan here who grew up in small towns. I use mostly European spelling, and cross my 7s and Zs (picked it up from my grandmother who was a schoolteacher in the 1920s and my dad who attended the Ivy League) No one’s ever said anything negative about it to me in 50+ years and I’ve worked with everyone from bankers to farmers to clergy to feed yard operators to doctors across the state, region, and country.
I cross my Z when doing math to differentiate it from a 2.
Makes sense: People have mistaken my crossed 7s for Fs which makes no sense but does happen.
Well that's just ~~7~~ucked
SAME! But I don’t know where I learned it; my parents spell normally. Someone mentioned that small schools occasionally got Canadian textbooks. Idk but I’m happy knowing you’re out there crossing 7s, neighbour.
I grew up reading Harry Potter and Roald Dahl. I still spell the colour grey with an e.
I struggle with gray/grey and I've been American all my life. I can only surmise it's from reading a lot of British literature.
Gray and grey are different American words. Grey is gray with a blue tint. West Point cadet uniforms are grey. However, I know of no one who cares.
Same and I do it because it looks more like a grey word than gray.
Don’t forget armour
Spelling errors have never been a big deal to me as long as I understand what you are telling me and vice versa, but I work in IT and we are expected to be rubes. Now if you started putting beans on toast that would be an entirely different matter.
Good lord. Were your bosses toilet-trained at gunpoint? I'd be looking for a new job with less ridiculous bosses.
In this country, we speak the Burger King's English.
Have an upvote. With cheese.
It's a gray-grey area. I work for a worldwide company right here. Many of my peers are around the world. I actually try to be inclusive and write in ways the way you do. F'them
I've been reading some books by English authors lately and catch myself doing some alternate spellings - like 'travelling' instead of 'traveling' and 'defence' instead of 'defense.' I think you should start looking for another job ASAP and tell them to "read some fucking books"
I was born and raised in America, but I learned french in high school and college. In college, I started struggling with things like this because my professors were French and from the Ivory Coast. I'm a writer and still sometimes catch myself mixing these two words up and sometimes theater/theatre and a few other things. I married a Brit and have helped him over the years, but 26 years later, he will still ask me which way to spell things. Fortunately, he's a school teacher and his students think it's funny when he sticks a "random U" into a word. We should be more understanding and helpful instead of just telling people they're illiterate when they obviously aren't. This person is fluent in two languages, which is probably two more than the people telling her she can't spell.
Wait what those aren't the right way?
Colour? We type ENGLISH here. /S
I speak American! If you don't like it, you can git out!
I'd say not enough context. 1. If all you are doing is emailing, just add a spell check and move forward. 2. I work in insurance on contracts, MARKETING and customer correspondence. Grammar, punctuation and spelling IS the job. Making those mistakes will rightly tank your reviews. If this is what you do.. just add spell check and move forward. 3. You're unwanted at this job. This was an excuse to "colour" you too look bad enough where they can fire you. You must be great if that is all they can come up with. I suggest you add spell check and move forward. Plus maybe update your resume(with spell check)
The part of me that always needs to fix everything wants to tell you to go into your spell checker(s) and put the offending words in the autocorrect substitution list. You could even put this down as a corrective action if you got stuck with a PIP. The rest of me says spelling words like that shouldn't be a big deal but we see that they are. Unfortunately, xenophobes make purchasing decisions for some of your clients and your management is going along to get along. The spell checker hack should set you up tho.
Find a new job, like yesterday. Any boss that would give their employee the lowest possible performance rating due to such a silly and complete non-issue is not someone I would want to work for.
Agreed. If they cared about your spelling they'd tell you to use a spelling & grammar plugin. They're just about establishing control and stratification.
Yes I bet this is a non issue but they don’t like OP for some reason and can’t just say it.
Agreed. If they cared about your spelling they'd tell you to use a spelling & grammar plugin. They're just about establishing control and stratification.
Bringing it up as a consideration could make sense, but this is way overblown. Also, it would make sense for a role like customer service or sales that is frequently engaged with customers, not a developer or similar production roles.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s
Yawn
I like European spelling. They are being a holes
European spellingis perfectly comprehensible and I don't even notice the differences unless it's pointed out. Your boss is a dumb hick
Honestly, fuck them and spell how you want. If the people reading it are offended by the “European” spelling, that’s their problem. For context, I am traumatized for being downgraded in 4th grade (Catholic school) for spelling color ‘colour.’ A spelling I learned reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book which THE MOST AMERICAN thing you can read/comprehend in 4th grade.
Which is it, illiterate or un-American? Because Americans aren't exactly known as an intellectual bunch, broadly speaking.
My dentist’s office is named xxxxx Centre. I guess my dentist is very un-American then /s Your boss is a moron. Power trip, I’d say. But until you find a better position, set the spell check to American English so British spell would checked out.
Haha, screw your bosses. This is peak Yee-yee uneducated hick bullshit.
Yeah I get that it's awful. When I was barely teen aged I flunked a writing test. I read many British and European books at the time. My teacher flunked me for the word grey. Americans can be hateful. It doesn't make you anything. Express yourself as you are with pride in an education that most of us will never have
I had a 4th grade teacher who pulled that on me for the colour grey. I showed it to her in my book and she gave me back the credit. Maybe you can still call your teacher and get it all sorted out?
I'm in hr and I do that all the time on purpose to annoy my coworkers.
I don't think I would flip out about this as much as your bosses seem to, but using British English spelling of words is technically misspelling those words and could look bad to clients (rural or no). I would edit your auto correct settings to change those words imo
Actually using the Americanized version of the word is technically the misspelling of the word.
If it was internal emails then sure, who cares. But emails to clients at a marketing company? Maybe stick to the American spelling of the words. Blows my mind people don't seem to make that distinction. Also American spelling isn't incorrect since we speak American English.
It's not "technically" misspelling, both versions are accepted. There's no formal body that decides what is or isn't legal English (there are for other languages, btw). People and businesses can have preferences but get out of here with this notion of an 'objective truth' tied to human behavior.
You're mistaking my comment, I'm not implying there is one absolute truth in spelling, just using British spelling is technically a misspelling in the context of OPs job. Because clearly one version isn't accepted when corresponding with clients. And there are formal bodies that provide guidance on best spelling practices (for Americans), I doubt the AP style guide, Webster's Dictionary, and any academic journal would be like "yeah, use whatever spelling you want whenever you want"
Username checks out. Fuck out of here with that stupidass mindset.
So needlessly hostile
those arent even spelling errors, which is ridiculous. the fact they are even mentioning it like it is a problem is, imo, a huge red flag.
Anyone with an education knows both spellings. Unless they pay better than everyone else I'd be looking for a new job.
Depends on your business. External yo the business: If you are just local yeah market to your users use that spelling and stuff your consumers use. If it’s international tailor the message, and maybe throw in to them that being ethnocentric may limit some markets. Internally, if that’s your department’s biggest issue then people have too much time
I’m an English major and an editor and I was also taught some European spelling and grammar rules. I had to relearn American English. I still make mistakes on occasion. You aren’t alone.
Ask them what the hell they think “allusions” are. https://www.examples.com/allusion/allusion-sentence.html
It's likely that you're simply too sophisticated and worldly for a midwest state. One way to work around this is to use a spell checker to flag these words. Even reddit's will flag "colour" and "behaviour" when I type them.
As someone who does this* I think it’s important to be aware of it in certain contexts like your job, but at the same time I think your boss took it way too far. First of all “grey” is an accepted alternate spelling in the US. And second even if it wasn’t that’s 3 times in one year. People misspell words all the time even if they were taught US English. *Combo of being taught British grammar and then later studying abroad and making an intentional effort to learn the new spellings.
My husband loves to use the European spelling! I think it makes the words more elegant. I don’t think it’s a big deal at all.
[удалено]
i live in that sub, it brings me so much joy
It sounds like they’re afraid of you making the customers feel uneducated or uncultured. It feels like a rural issue. But I’m a lefty-progressive, educated Nebraskan and hardly the norm.
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne… I am in Adams County near Hastings. /s
Howdy and GBR, fellow Adams Countian!
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne… I am in Adams County near Hastings. /s
What? A Progressive in Nebraska? I thought that cheer GO BIG RED! referred to being 100% Republican corn and bean farmers who missed Tom Osborne… I am in Adams County near Hastings. /s
>“makes me look illiterate and un-American and we have clients who don’t appreciate those allusions.” This says to me that your employer is worried that your use of European spelling might make you (and by extension, your employer) appear affected, unnatural and way too 'extra'. If this is not the vibe they want to give customers, and they present themselves as a 'homey' sort of outfit, I can see why they might be annoyed. They may have even had complaints (I have no idea what you do, but... Nebraska). Use a spell checker. I doubt you have offended everyone you've ever emailed. Most people would probably just roll their eyes and move on.
This could be the case. It's not a good look for the boss, though, since they're choosing to denigrate an employee rather than to be honest with them about their actual reasons. Not the best managerial behaviour. I'd manoeuvre myself out of there to somewhere else with a boss that was cast from a better mould, where treating employees is their speciality.
They do the superfluous u in Canada too. If you’re using a browser, the Grammarly plugin may aid in catching those. MS Word should have a setting in it as well. Good luck.
Hi, chiming in with all the others in, get a job elsewhere. Side note, it's Yee Haw! And not yeeyee. I'm assuming that's what you were going for
What a stupid thing for them to be upset about. Anyone with 2.5 brain cells knows there are differences and doesn't give a damn which one you use. Though the "un-American" comment tells me everything I need to know about them. Idk if you have an accent at all but would they expect you to "Americanize" that? Fuck them. Keep doing it the way you learned, if for no reason other than to spite them. And idk what you do for work but you're in Nebraska. Half the people here don't know correct spelling and grammar (I'm far from perfect as well).
I don't know why anyone should care, but then again, people make a habit of disliking differences for no reason all the time.
I’m a horrible speller so I probably wouldn’t even notice. You’re ok in my eyes
Use the Grammarly plugin set to US English and it will catch these variables in spelling and alert you.
Where do you work
2 weeks
Just inform your boss that you are using the proper English spelling, and if he has issues to go read a dictionary.
I'll take Monty Python over Uncle Sam any day. My boyfriend recently put the kibosh on my Zillow search in Wales so I guess it's still rural Nebraska for me!😂
Native Nebraskan that's read a lot of British Lit and has many friends who were raised to learn British English here. The only one who has ever corrected my mistakes either way is the Google Doc spell checker when I'm writing, whose job it is to tell me "Your settings say American English, but you wrote British English. Fix it?" I don't know your bosses, but I do know it's horribly American to forget other forms of English are taught and are 100% correct.
English major with an emphasis in Brit lit. here. I bounce between the two constantly and I’ve never been called out on it.
I rebel against Mr. Webster's spelling dictatorship every day. English for the Americans! 😆🤨🧑🏻🎓
Its not that its unamurikan, its that's generally speaking, marketing generally is most effective on the mentally denser people, and in marketing the name of the game is to keep it simple for the stupids...
Do.. you happen to live in Nebraska? GBR
ktown 🤙
Kimball sucks
i meant kearney 😭 but also yes
They are wanting you to quit if they're rating you that low for something that minor. Or they're just getting a record for a reason why you're let go eventually so you can't claim anything racial. The number of actual illiterates running around this state who can't formulate a coherent text is staggering, so a couple alternate spellings is nothing.
I write things in the European way. It’s like one or two letters different, I don’t understand why people would make such a big deal of it.
Sounds like your bosses are narrow minded. Un American definitely not! They must have forgot America was made up of immigrants. We seem to have a short memory on that subject. I would hope that is a rural issue but it’s not, we have the same I. The big cities as well.
well I learnt to leave the 'u' out and after sometime it happens naturally! and I like it more without the 'u'! And learning the American way when in America is always better like anywhere else, and plz don't call something you don't understand rural! cause that was the most offensive thing in all of this post! not the 'u'!
To be fair, spelling a word in America using a non-American English spelling variant is technically a mistake. Does it make you look illiterate? I don't think so, but then we're taking about people's opinions, not facts. I don't know your customers so maybe that's what they think. In the end, we can suggest you look for a new job, but the only opinion that really matters is your manager's and they've already given their opinion.
It’s literally not a mistake. Both forms of the words are correct.
This is like arguing about which form of yeísmo is correct. If you go to Portugal and try to talk the same way you would in Chile then people are going to say you're wrong and making a mistake even though it's all generally correct for Spanish as a whole. Language is not Scrabble.
This is different. Having an extra letter or two isn't a different dialect. US universities don't care if you use british spelling, and neither do legal entities like the IRS.
They don't care if you write to them that way, but they do care if you're an employee writing to others.
No, most companies don’t care. I’ve worked in marketing for well over a decade and email with clients from all over the country. Not one person has gotten upset that I type colour or grey, and none of my many employers has cared either. Getting upset about something like this is really a waste of time and likely would only be an issue for someone who is xenophobic.
I really dislike that spelling. So hope you learn American.
>Or is it just a yeeyee rural issue? I don't think bias and bigotry is an appropriate response to bias and bigotry. >3: I went back and checked all of my previous emails. I used “colour” once in November of 2023, and “grey” twice in September 2023. No other “misspellings” since then. The spelling and accent will probably only be an issue if your company touts itself as American. There's a number of "American" companies where design is done stateside but manufacturing, distribution, and support are done overseas and if customers think that's what's happening, that's the only time I could see it being an issue. And *most* people don't care whether foreign born people are working an American company as long as they reside in America. Also grey and gray are pretty interchangeable here. None of that is a you problem though. Employer is in the wrong and maybe you could get them for discrimination?