Gray/Grey

[severity_softly]

Growing up, I was taught that either 'grey' or 'gray' was a correct spelling of the color. I preferred 'grey', but I've noticed most Americans I know always use 'gray'. So I was curious. :)

ETA: To be clear, I am talking about what you consider correct for where you live. So even if you know it's spelled differently in different countries, but you only consider one way correct for yours, pick your spelling.

[Poll #1587346]

Comments

[aunty_marion]

I was taught/told (don't remember which!) that 'grey' is the UK spelling and 'gray' the US spelling.

[severity-softly.livejournal.com]

That's what I was just reading, and I hadn't ever heard that before, so it made me wonder! I have ALWAYS used grey, though. lol Maybe I'm a little bit British. ;)

[aunty_marion]

The Colour Oxford English Dictionary and the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (both close to hand!) agree that the UK spelling is grey, and that gray is the US variant.

However, 'gray' is the SI unit of the absorbed dose of ionizing radiation. "I'm sorry, Mr Jones, you're probably going to die - you've received seventeen grays!" (No, I have no idea what a harmful dose is. But.)

[florahart]

Yes to grey:UK and gray:US; however, the reason I always knew grey was that I read a lot and many of the authors I read (yes, even when I was six) were British.

[accio-arse.livejournal.com]

I was taught/told (don't remember which!) that 'grey' is the UK spelling and 'gray' the US spelling.

Me too. For example.

Gandalf the Grey, Lord of the Rings: UK

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: US

And I just discovered this:

Grey literature (or gray literature) is a term used variably by the intelligence community, librarians, and medical and research professionals to refer to a body of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_literature

[mcgarrygirl78.livejournal.com]

I am all over grey. I always have been because no one else around me was spelling it that way so I felt slightly superior. Yeah, I never said I was normal. Now its just stuck with me.

[severity-softly.livejournal.com]

LOL I just thought it looked more right. :P

[mcgarrygirl78.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that too : )

[innerslytherin]

Gray is the US spelling. Grey is the UK spelling. I prefer grey myself, but when I moved to the CM fandom I finally weaned myself away from British spellings, which I used all through school and until I was about 30. I got tired of fighting people who marked it incorrect. LOL

[severity-softly.livejournal.com]

You you were taught that gray was the correct spelling in school?

[innerslytherin]

Yup. They always tried to mark my "grey" wrong. :(

[dunderklumpen.livejournal.com]

English isn't my mother tongue but I learnt in school that "grey" is BE and "gray" AE. Maybe too easy but that's my baseline for it.

[slash-girl.livejournal.com]

Here in Canada either is correct--although I _think_ we learned gray in school, but I honestly can't remember. Of course, this is Canada where we spell some things the UK way and some the US way, so it's no surprise both spellings are acceptable. Although it makes me sad that the so-called Canadian spelling programs in school these days are really American, not Canadian. *sigh*

[nebula99.livejournal.com]

"Grey" is what we use over here - "gray" just looks wrong to me.

[rambleinblue.livejournal.com]

I really don't remember what I was taught in school - that was ions ago - but I can't remember a time when I didn't spell it "grey".

[rambleinblue.livejournal.com]

P.S. I was just looking around the web and found this explanation which I thought was funny :

"Gray is a color, Grey is a colour."

Bwah !

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I prefer "grey," but spellcheck keeps telling me I'm wrong. I also know that learning to spell while I lived in London might have an impact on my preference. I saw it spelt that way more often when I lived in New England than I do here in DC, if that helps your data set.

[aunty_marion]

Depends which language your spellchecker is set to! LJ's default one is American English, so it marks grey as 'wrong'; but my spellchecker/dictionary in Word is set to English (U.K.), so it would (probably) think that gray was wrong!