why is this not one way or the other?
addendum: wow, thanks everyone. I truly never knew it was a British vs. American spelling thing.
“Grey” is British English, “Gray” is simplified English AKA American.
Grea
It is spelled grey in correct English. In the USA, they like spelling it gray.
No we don’t. Grey is the only way.
All language is made up. There is no ‘correct’.
Standardisation of language is not pointless. Shared standards serve concrete functions:
- When 8 million people write “colour” the same way, you don’t pause to decode variants
- Technical manuals, legal documents, medical instructions need precision—ambiguity costs lives
- Cross-generational understanding: Shakespeare’s English is already hard without adding modern variation to the mix
- Standardized spelling keeps homophones distinct (their/there/they’re)
Standardisation of language isn’t about one version being inherently right. It’s about shared agreement that enables function at scale.
And it’s agreed that both Grey and Gray are acceptable variants, and they will be right up until they aren’t for one arbitrary reason or another.
Here to give you a boost away from the downvotes.
Lawsuits are won and lost over grammar and spellings. Constitutional crisis happen over the question: is the text to be understood in the time period of writing or reading (because the meaning of words shifts over time)
shakespeare spelled it “color” multiple times
Bullshit. Yes there is.
Buddy we got the spelling from you before you decided to deep throat the French and copy their phonics and corrupt your own spellings.
I’m not British.
Also, grey in French is gris so I’m not sure how that is relevant
1066?
‘Grey’ refers to the colour.
But ‘grey’ and ‘gray’ can also be surnames.
I think it’s a USA vs European English thing.
I prefer the ‘grey’ spelling though, even though ‘gray’ is most common in the states.
European English
Is this a thing? Isn’t it just “British English”?
Nah, I think that was part of the terms of Brexit, given more people in the EU speak it than in Briton they get to claim the weird spellings… At least they let the Brits keep there combined use of metric and imperial.
/s if it wasn’t obvious
Depends on where you live. There are American and European spellings for some words. IE color vs colour
Gray is a color, while grey is a colour.
I like mixing American and British spells to piss assholes off who have nothing better to do then attack people for their spelling choices.
Its very fun.
Than*
It’s not British or American to just use the wildly-wrong word… That’s just misusing words.
Maybe they actually means “then.” As in after they mix American and British spellings to piss people off with nothing better to do, they attack people for their spelling choice.
So now we have a choice. Did Holytimes mean 1) piss off people who attack others (than), or 2) piss off people and attack people (then).
Does your comment even make sense to you…?
It’s pretty clear. Not sure how you could have issues with it.
You seem lonely
Because I can read? Or…?
We all need hobbies.
Seems you succeeded, keep up the good work!
piss assholes off
piss off assholes
;-)
Split infinitive? To boldly go or to go boldly? If it’s intelligible I’d let it slide - second languages and all that.
*arseholes
*essholas
Gray is the color of aluminum, grey is the colour of aluminium
Fantastic!
I know that this is “no stupid questions” but it boggles the mind that people post in forums when the answer is either yes/no, or a single sentence explanation available in a web search.
we should just not have Lemmy at all and only read news articles, wikipedia and talk to ourselves
I would argue that the purpose of Lemmy comments is dialogue, not for other users to be someone’s dictionary
Okay, I get what you mean about some questions. I don’t think it applies to this post. 50 people commented because they thought it was worthwhile in some way. It’s better than Lemmy being dead. To me, there’s an element of humor and levity to nostupidquestions, somewhat like showerthoughts.
I’m glad you asked. This is something I never realized how often I have brief flashes of curiosity about before I yolo it and never bothered looking up. As soon as I saw the title I was looking forward to reading what people had to say.
It’s græy
In all the languages that have the letter æ , exactly none of them use it for that colour.
for the color i use “a” always… but was taught either one was acceptable, unless it’s a name (proper noun).
I know it’s an American vs other English speaking countries thing, but as an American I can honestly never remember which one we are. I always used to look it up, but now I just shoot from the hip and assume I’m right, which feels the most American way to approach it.
I think that’s what most Americans do. I don’t think I’ve thought about how to spell it in decades. I just spell it both ways depending on the day.
Either way is correct.
E is the European version, A is the American version. This sounds trite, but is true, and makes it simple to know which one to use
. . . Unless you’re in the majority of the English speaking world, which includes India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Of course, grey is the appropriate spelling for all of those but Canada, which uses both.
Australia uses both, but grey is “correct”.
Canada, which uses both
græy /s
“Both” in Canada is Gray and Gris
That looks awesome though
Canadas english is weird
Especially when it comes to measurements (weight, volume, mass, temperature)
No need to downvote this comment
Even canadians agree that we have a weird mix of different systems in play
What’s wrong with Canada’s weights and measures?
Everything is in SI units.
Unless you’re cooking, where heat is in Fahrenheit, solid measures are in cups teaspoons and tablespoons (but liquids are in litres and weights are in grams).
Or in construction, where you work in feet and yards. Or measuring a person’s height.
But while someone might be 6’ tall, their stride length will be in metres, as will their arm span.
So yeah; simple. It’s not like Canada has tons of people weighing in tonnes.
Canada said fuck it we use what makes the most sense for the scope and scale at hand. And then cherry picked everything.
Unironically if you get your head out of your fucking ass for two seconds and stop being a fan boy for measurement systems.
Canada has arguably the best worst solution! Its fantastic! And awful! I love it.
Whats the temp outside? -20C eh? Good thing its a nice comfy 80 F in here eh
A “Pint” of beer served commercially in Canada must be 20 imperial (UK) ounces (aka ~568 mL), with a 2.5% margin of error permitted within the law, unlike a US pint (16 US fl oz ~473mL).
Just for fun, “Une pinte” of alcohol in French served commercially is “a quart” of alcohol in English which is double that value.
My in-laws in Quebec get weighed in pounds
Canada, which uses both.
Is it Caneda then, or Cenada?
;-)
Also depends if it’s someone’s last name… 😅
E is English. A is American.
This makes the Scottish very mad
I’m sorry.
But the Scottish want to claim something English as theirs? When did that start?
Are you being like pedantic or just trying to make it more simple?
(Otherwise North America and specially the United States has the majority of English speakers in the world, so there is a realistic distinction between U.K. / European English and American English and both are equally correct evolutions of their English roots )
it’s a mnemonic to help people remember, not pedantry
English as in England, the country
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted either.
To answer your question it’s neither and both. I can appreciate it might seem pedantic from an American point of view, but not from ours. It’s our language, created here and named after us, it doesn’t require the British/European prefix. It is simply English.
American, Canadian and Australian English should have suffixes as simplified variations of the default.
Americans spell it whatever way they want.
Yup. Their freedom bone twitches otherwise.
But in certain circumstances, the Europeans will still use it with an a. Specifically, when referring to the color of a horse.
Wasn’t aware of that
Gray in the U.S. presumably because a was cheaper than e for typesetting
Why would a be cheaper than e
They’re both vowels lol
Source: I made it up.
Gray in the US. Grey elsewhere.
