wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member Topic Starter
11 years ago
Forget the metric system as being being ignored by the US while the rest of the world adheres to it.

I almost always write "grey" and then realize I spelled it the "un-American" way.

Anyone else use the global spelling of "grey"?

Gray and grey are different spellings of the same word, and both are used throughout the English-speaking world. But gray is more common in American English, while grey is more common in all the other main varieties of English. In the U.K., for instance, grey appears about twenty times for every instance of gray. In the U.S. the ratio is reversed.

Both spellings, which have origins in the Old English grǽg, have existed hundreds of years.1 Grey gained ascendancy in all varieties of English in the early 18th century, but its dominance as the preferred form was checked when American writers adopted gray about a century later. As the Ngram below shows, this change in American English came around 1825. Since then, both forms have remained fairly common throughout the English-speaking world, but the favoring of gray in the U.S. and grey everywhere else has remained consistent.

Some people make their own distinctions between gray and grey. You can find some interesting examples in the comments below. There is nothing wrong with these preferences, but they are not borne out in broader usage. For most people, gray and grey are simply different spellings of the same word.

Both spellings are used for the participles, grayed/greyed and graying/greying, as well as for most of the words and phrases involving gray/grey. For instance, grey area/gray area, referring to an area having characteristics of two extremes, is commonly spelled both ways. So is graybeard/greybeard, referring to an older man with a beard, and gray squirrel/grey squirrel (which refer to closely related types of squirrels on opposite sides of the Atlantic). There are at least a couple of exceptions, though: greyhound, for the breed of dog, always has an e, while grayling, which refers to several types of fish, always has an a.



This Ngram graphs the use of gray and grey (as a percentage of all words) in American books, magazines, and journals published from 1800 to 2000:

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And this Ngram shows the words’ use in British publications during the same period:
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Best post by one of the readers was


Grey is a colour, and Gray is a color. =)

Lukasz wrote:


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dfosterf
11 years ago
I'm torn. I went to reply immediately and emphatically typed "grey". I was quite sure of it, at the time. Then I looked at it, contemplated, and said to myself, "No." "Gray looks better."

I gotta go "gray", upon reflection. 🤣

It's a tough one, I gotta admit. 😕



DakotaT
11 years ago
One of the gayest topics we've had in a while. I don't even know where to start with my ridikule.
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wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member Topic Starter
11 years ago
I need something to do since GB is not going to sign a bunch of free agents.
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Nonstopdrivel
11 years ago
In most instances, I spell it grey. If I think the person who is reading what I am writing will be hypersensitive to non-American spellings, I may amend it to gray.

By contrast, I spell honor the American way, because it is more etymologically justifiable. The Brits added the "u" to a lot of latinate words ending in "-or" because they thought it looked "more English." Yes, they are snobs. Noah Webster thought that was absurd and refused to include the "u" in his spellings of the words.

No lie, though, if I am flirting with a girl by text, I will spell it honour. ("It was a pleasure, Madam, to have made the honour of your acquaintance this afternoon at the ball.") Chicks dig that. I've been complimented so many times for doing that. They think it looks more distinguished and romantic.

Yes, I use Madam too.
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Formo
11 years ago
NSD, nice to hate seeing your avatar/sig again! haha Why hasn't WCS posted about Jennings to Vikings yet? Or I just can't find it?

That said, I change the spelling of gray/grey. Unless it's a last name, then I'll worry about the spelling of it. I'm fluid like that.
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Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!
Nonstopdrivel
11 years ago
Short answer? We don't have a Vikings beat writer. It's like pulling teeth to get anyone to write about the Vikings. Oddly, it's surprisingly hard to find news stories on the Vikings too. Even the local papers are much slower to update with news than sites geared to the Bears, Lions, and Packers are.
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dfosterf
10 years ago
An aside-

Thank God "whom" has pretty much bitten the dust. I always had trouble with the whole "whom" vs. "who" thing, and further, even when used absolutely correctly, whom is a jerk-off-prick-asshole-arrogant, prissy word. imo

To whom it may concern, probably the exclusive club of mass-tort-lawyer assholes. They seem to like the GD word...

😆
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