US / UK English

[Ian]

I don't know if any other people from the UK have this problem, but I find myself writing in a hybrid of US and UK English. As most of the content I write is for an international audience, I sometimes try to write it in US English - to the extent that my normal e-mail/forum posts are now a hybrid of the two :lol:

Coding is almost always done in US English, so I'm using the same word with two different spellings all the time. The reason for posting this is that I've just been explaining how to align text in the middle of the page in HTML code, and I gave the following as an example:

<center> Centre </center>

Very confusing, as of course I'm using 2 spellings for the same word in the same piece!

/end rant

Lots of other words like adaptor/adapter, colour/color, analogue/analog, realise/realize also get me frequently!

 

[Thrax]

I'm a US English speaker, but without much thought I often write offence instead of offense, defense instead of defence, practised instead of practiced, sabre instead of saber, theatre instead of theater and analogue instead of analog.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I recognize often.

 

[Ian]

I'm a US English speaker, but without much thought I often write offence instead of offense, defense instead of defence, practised instead of practiced, sabre instead of saber, theatre instead of theater and analogue instead of analog.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I recognize often.

Confusing isn't it Words ending in er/re or ised/ized often catch me out. Thankfully ieSpell points them out if I'm writing a long post.

 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

I write in US English, but that may be because I'm from the US.

Though, if I'm talking to someone from the UK, I try to talk as if I'm from there as well.

Like the other day, I said "fortnight." A word which is not common at all in the US English.

 

[clifford_cooley]

My vote is do the best you can - After all this is global and will be read from many different countries. As far as choosing US or UK I vote use your native language. If there is a word I dont understand there is always the internet search to help out. The sentence itself nearly always helps clarify the words within.