Canadian English is a hybrid… on one hand, with political roots in the Commonwealth and historical ties to Britain; on the other hand, its geographic and economic influences from the US.<\/p>\n
In spelling, like so many other cultural aspects, it’s hard to think of something that is uniquely Canadian and not just borrowed or outright filched from some other nation. When British and American English do not agree on a spelling, the Canadian version is usually just one or the other.<\/p>\n
However, this endless indecisiveness yields a word spelled in a uniquely Canadian way:colourize<\/p>\n
The Brits spell this “colourise”, the Americans “colorize”. There are two rules at work here: Canadians keep the “u” in words like “color” and “flavor” that does nothing but take up space and reinforce, (in our minds at least), the massive differences between Canada and the US.<\/p>\n
But when it comes to the suffix that makes nouns into verbs, we for some reason have settled on the American “-ize” rather than the British “-ise”.<\/p>\n
Maybe like “foetus” (a fantastically ugly British spelling), we’ve decided that it’s just a bit too… provincial?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canadian English is a hybrid… on one hand, with political roots in the Commonwealth and historical ties to Britain; on the other hand, its geographic and economic influences from the US. In spelling, like so many other cultural aspects, it’s hard to think of something that is uniquely Canadian and not just borrowed or outright … Continue reading A Word (Spelled) Uniquely Canadian<\/span>