Language Question

I know many of you are much better writers then I will ever be however I have to ask a simple question which has been on my mind for a while now as I write stories.

In your opinion is there a difference in Canadian vs American language, I do not mean verbally, just in the way things are written and told?

I have my "checker," for lack of a better word set for Canadian, and am wondering if I should set it for American. The mere fact that the "checker" implies there is a difference makes me wonder even more. Comments would be appreciated.

In Quebec I expect there is a very significant difference

I believe that at least some Canadians use the ou spellings which have been replaced in the US by o, humour vs humor, honour vs honor, (interestingly the Library spell check just accepted the American spellings, and rejected the British ones. I suspect Blimp will blame it on the Pink Lady.) I do not believe, without any data, that Canadians use the re vs er spelling in such as centre vs center, eh.

LOL...yes well...Quebec has its own problems, I am of course talking English Canadian, and not including Newfoundland as it has it own version of English, far different then that of western Canada.

My "Canadian" checker rejects the American way of spelling things just as yours rejects the British or Canadian way....I course I think we Canadians spell everything right but must admit in some cases Americans do spell words easier.

Just a question, you know that as a fact about the Library spell checker or you are guessing?

I know it for a fact. While typing my earlier post I looked and saw "honour" and "humour" were marked as wrong while "honor" and "humor" were passed. A small bit of further investigation, right click the wayward word and go to "languages" that English / United States is the only choice. Of course I would not put it past Februs to have fixed things so that each of us in spell checked in his/her national language.

You can retire the boy out of linguistics, but you cannot retire linguistics out of the boy. Further scholarly investigation, i.e. I googled it, reveals a site, http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm, which purports to compare British, Canadian, and American spelling. A quick look suggests that Canadian favors the British -our, and -re spelling over American -or (but note Canadian "color") and American -ize over British -ise. Overall there is more Canadian acceptance of two variants vs either British or American.

I grew up just south of the USA/Canadian border. Though immersed in media from each country, I recall virtually no language differences worth mentioning.

When enjoying fiction, I find regional spelling and grammar differences as charming as I find some regional speech accents when I travel. So why worry about it? If you're Canadian, then hold your head high and communicate like a Canadian.

Guy

Easy to say but we spell things different up here and also call things different then at least one half of the USA. I have noticed numerous accounts of words used that would fail any spelling test up here and in some incidents things called something I have never heard of. A common example is the word "chips", up here it can refer to a plate of chips in the restaurant or a bag of chips from the store. In the USA when I ask for chips the waitress brings me a bag of chips and does not understand I want what you people call "fries". I have had this happen all over the US and this is just one example. Cheers

True enough, but if you order "fish & chips" most anywhere in the USA you will get deep fried fried fish served with french fries. Go figure.

It's also not too hard to find such differences within the US. In some NE cities if you order a "whiz" you can expect some sort of cheese sandwich. Express a desire for a "whiz" anywhere else in the USA, and the waitress will direct you to the men's room. The differences in common breakfast foods across the USA are amazing. Some breakfast meats (liver mush, scrapple) that are common in one area, are unheard of in others. (None beat Canadian bacon, so I usually pass.)

Hi Canadian
As a matter of interest, what do Canadians understand by 'suspenders','pants' ,'fanny' , and 'lift'.

And Guy-'Liver mush' sounds even worse that 'grits' -which in the UK would mean eating small sharp gravel.
I imagine 'liver mush'to be about ten gallons of 100 proof spirit which would turn most livers to mush!

Jimi

PS The spell checker is cretinous- it calls Jimi an invalid word- obviously not heard of the greatest guitar hero of all time!