The other day at work, someone asked me the difference between ENG-US and ENG-GB.
At first, I was a little confused by the question. Really, I wondered if it was a serious question, but the man seemed to be very genuine in his request. So, I explained that while the pronunciations of words pretty much remained the same (I thought he might debate the idea of “accents”, but he didn’t), they could often be spelled differently.
I gave him a few examples, like….color (US version) vs. colour (British/Canadian spelling), and labor (US) vs. labour (British/Canadian) etc. Often, it is the addition of an extra vowel added to a word that makes up the British spelling. It’s one of those things I’m very familiar with as a Canadian, so I thought maybe the man was American.
Turns out, he was just worried about downloading a HARRY POTTER eBook that was only available in the ENG – GB version. He didn’t want it to be full of “gobbledeegook” that he wouldn’t understand.
On my!
