I am being discriminated against as an American in Canada!!11!1!!11!!!!!!!

Ok Canada! This has gone on long enough!

We laugh at your comedians, watch your hockey, admire your polar bears, and even put up with Nickelback. But you have gone too far this time!!! I was in my Canadian History tutorial here at the University of Toronto today, and when we were reviewing essay guidelines the TA specifically said "No American spellings".

First, I scoffed. Then I realized she was serious. I continued scoffing, because it's good enough for Bill O'Reilly so it should be good enough for me, right? Wrong. Next I complained that it would throw off my spell-check. Apparently you can set it to Canada-speak. I continued to protest, indicating that I've been here 3 years already and nobody's had trouble with my (proper American) spelling. Evidently precedent is meaningless here. Then I said "This is discrimination", but by then nobody was listening.

Is it so bad, my fellow Americans, that we have taken the hard work of modernizing the language upon ourselves? All these extraneous "u"'s are a waste of time, ink and paper!

If I weren't going on vacation tomorrow, I'd take this up with the consulate!


Just in case I need this...
:sarcasm:

a verb out of a noun. They spell nationalize as "nationalise." This is terrible. "Z" is already a much neglected letter in the alphabet and they have further marginalized (not marginalised) it.
Don't get me started on their bizarre pronunciations. Eh?

Ask them what the last letter of the alphabet is!

Do I win a prize?

"Z" cannot be properly pronounced as "zed" since that would mean a letter would have two consonants in it. That makes it a word, not a letter.

as in Junior, I hear "wuh" in my head, not "Dubya." So not only is he reduced to a single letter, but to a single syllable — one that sounds even dumber than "Bush."

I am Canadian living in Seattle and I work in a newsroom at a tv station. I spell all my words in "Canadian". I catch flack for it, but I will NOT relent. It's the way I have learned, old habits are hard to break, and it keeps people on their toes!
Besides, everyone knows when I have written something, whether I intitalize it or not. :P

America is obviously a lot freer than Canada.

People have worried about the spelling making it to air because due to copying and pasting to scripts and stuff. I gotta tell you I would rather see colour (with the u) then Kwik Kopy and other monsterous distortions of the english language. :-)

My Mom is bilingual and I do my best. I used to be pretty much bilingual but lost it throughout the years. I can get by and actually have surprised myself how much I do remember.
I think that you make the effort is more helpful then if you were not to.
You now how those Quebecois can be! LOL

I'm English. I speak English. However, I have to write my work here in American. Thankfully I understand American.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair in a country that recongises English as its language to require its citizens to speak and use it. Especially its institutes of higher education.

Maybe I am lacking in sympathy here, but frankly if you're asked to write in English then I guess that's what you have to do. If you're asked to write in American then you write in American.

Fortunately the differences aren't that marked.

So I am discriminated the same way here.

I guess the old phrase "When in Rome..." comes to mind.

Mark.

PS: I work in a call center for a credit card company. I take the next level of calls, often answered by my colleagues in India and the Phillipines. I've had people asking me to connect them with someone who speaks English.

join the effort to bring freedom to the Quebecois! ;-)

American spellings.

Thanks buddy!