Sleepyjack

Heh, just been doing some programming in Delphi and got screwed on the colour property of these labels, cause they use american spelling!

I've just gone through, tediously, a few hundred lines of code adding a method to change colour of these labels that get displayed etc. Anyway here's a basic line of code which i did, which changes the colour of the particular label, to my default/universal Labelcolour.

CCD61.feedsolidsalt5.colour := LABELCOLOUR;

So after i added all this, i compile to check it out and get a compile error -> Undeclared identifier: 'colour'

heh, then i thought damn you America! and your American delphi libraires/properties!!
So i now have to go through about 200 or so lines of code deleting u's to make it back to color. It'll only take 5 minutes or so but i think i might get carpal tunnel syndrome just doing it Unfortunatley i can't (or don't think i can) search substrings to change/replace values

With that anecdote, i was wondering why the Americans have to be different and spell things like color, favorite etc like they do. Where'd the u go?
Also, what's up with gray? It's a raditaion unit not a colour

Basically just wondering about why the difference occurs, between Australia/british/european english and the American version?

onodrim

I don't believe there is anyone out there who can make sense of our silly language! Sorry it caused you so much pain and suffering.

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absence_of_color

bummer, dude

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Sleepyjack

hmm i found this -> http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html

interesting...

Mr.Deflok

You guys call your mothers MOM's, we call them MUM's, you guys are weird.

Confederate

I'm proud to be an American, even if we do stuff kinda goofy

PorscheBunny

Your text editor doesn't have a Find/Replace function?

At least we don't pronouce Featheringstonehaugh "Fanshaw".

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kulrblind

I was going to remark something like:
"hey, you forgot to include Canadians!" (just doing my canuckian duty, you see)

...but then i'd be opening myself up to a slew of "Canadian, British, what's the difference?" comments.
So I won't.

(but hey, don't forget us up here!)

tricks

I believe it was sometime in the mid 1800's that it was decided to distance America from the mother country by making "American" english more unique and simple by getting rid of all those extra letters.

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krwlz

Really though, it should be better without the extra keystroke!

Us americans, always thinking. The time it takes to write or punch out all those u's is minisclue, but it adds up! I swear, it does!

sexymama

I agre, so lets do evrething foneticly corect rather than spel the sille wa al english spekers spel.

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feelgood

I call mine Ma...

"Aw maaaaaaaa!"

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MSD

In the words of Homer Simpson: "If you don't like it, go to Russia"

ShaniFaye

In the famous words of Eddie Izzard..

"you say erb we say Herb........ because there is a fucking H in it"

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filtherton

Just be glad you aren't in south america or china. How many different inidiginous chinese and spanish dialects are there? Though i don't know enough about programming to know whether english is the international programming language standard.
I think the differences are due to the general truth that language evolves regionally. While we all might start with the same words and definitions their meanings change through time based on their regional everyday usage and mutations.

It's kind of like the metric system vs. inches/feet/miles/gallons. Personally, i think the metric system makes more sense intuitively and that we should eliminate the american units.

Seaver

Well... it makes us unique... kind of like how we refuse to turn metric. The entire world does it that way... yet we refuse.

But then again you brits have it too. You refuse to seat the driver on the left side like the rest of the world hehe.

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Averett

My Canadian friend is always correcting me when I say "color" in chat. He'll reply with "Isn't it 'colour'?" And I'll just tell him to shut the hell up

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Getao

I'm split between saying color or colour... but if I say colour I have to remember the bajillion other spellings that have to be changed, neighbour or some other stuff like that.

Damn me being american!

VitaminH

Beat me to the punch. I love Eddie Izzard.

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ShaniFaye

that whole bit cracks me up, but that line is classic..that and the follow up line later when spelling through.....and an H, incase some erb's come along hehehe

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World's King

It could be worse... you could have to write code in Ebonics.

*tries to think of a funny example... doesn't know code or Ebonics*

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Tophat665

I like some british spelling better than the American versions, doubling the final "L" before tacking on a suffix starting with a vowel (traveller, f'rinstance), grey, but some of it just makes no sense to me. Colour is one of those. Spelling it that way one would think it rhymes with hour or pure.

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denim

You should get a better editor, then.

:::OshnSoul:::

I always spell it "colour" and also "favourite"- always.

clifclav

Bill Bryson did a pretty good book on this whole subject. My son asked me one day why four had a u and forty didn't. After a minute or two of blank staring I went on line and was referred to this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...589358-0220163

pretty funny and informative read.

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wry1

Let's face it: America is a bastard nation....we're composed of a myriad of separate backgrounds, beliefs and ideals. As a result, we need to simplify where we can....and adding an extra vowel to words is just freakin' ridiculous!

....even if "erb" does have a fuckin' H in it!

Rubyee

There isn't a U in Fourty?

Whoops.

Really, though, if we are going to ask questions like this, then why is it that seldom I see British spellings use the letter Z?

Of course, I can't think of the words now, but I have seen many words in British literature using an S instead of a Z.

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yournamehere

You just have to accept the fact that we're separated by a common language

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Nazggul

Here's the deal, if you are coding in a product that was produced in the US, you should have known better! You want your programming language to speak British, write one. =)

Seriously though, Dialects is all that needs to be said. Hell, we get significant variations in language over time even on the same continent, never mind half a world away.

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Sleepyjack

heh, the editor i am using is in Borland's IDE Delphi 7 Professional edition. I found that i could replace substrings, so it worked out ok. I just had to hit enter a few hundred times (to confirm replacement )
I wrote colour intuitively. Normally for sorta ambiguous named functions/properties i just autocomplete it, but colour was colour to me, in my head.

cheers for the link, clifclav Looks like a good read

MrFlux

*points to the thing about bricks in tilted humour... oh wait, it's Tilted Humor... damn!*

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Charlatan

The origins of the break between British and American spelling goes back to Noah Webster (Webster's Dictionary fame).

He changed the spelling because he thought it made things simpler...

Link

It has also been suggested that due to the shortage of paper, newspaper barons decided this was the way to go as many of the spellings were shorter and therefore took up less space... I don't lend much creedence to this.

Prince

I prefer colour...and grey, instead of gray...and I say lift instead of elevator...and use words like 'lorry'...get kinda funny looks at times but whatever...

All these little differences...they make us richer in a sense.

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