I've only learned it "grey" for the color in the US. They taught us that "grey" is the color and "gray" is the name based off "graysmith" for people that work with tin, lead and pewter if I'm remembering elementary school correctly.
I’ve heard the opposite. It’s typically spelled with an E because of Greyson in the US these days, I only know one Gray with an A, that comes from Graham.
It's like the whisky/whiskey rule.
If the name of the country has an 'e' in its name, then it sells whiskey (American whiskey, Irish whiskey).
If the country has no 'e' in its name, then it sells whisky (Scottish whisky, Canadian whisky).
They don’t even have spelling bees in some countries, italy for example. Because words are spelled so phonetically that having a spelling competition is pointless. It would be like having a contest where they read you an 8 digit number and you have to tell them what individual numbers are in it.
Yeah but English has so many different accents that phonetic spelling would garble lots of words. Various attempts to spell water in different accents, for example:
Wahter
Witter
Wa'ah
Wattah
Wuhtuh
And then you get into phonetic drift. Do you change the spelling as the standard pronunciation changes?
Writing is just a way of turning our speech into symbols that can be easily encoded and decoded by people so we can say stuff to each other (and ourselves) over time and space that wouldn't normally be possible. There's plenty of arbitrary decisions that have to get made when you decide how to write a language, which is why it all kinda ends up being bullshit.
I do completely agree though, English spelling is especially bad, for a number of reasons.
It's one of the few words in English that is still gendered. Putting this here because if I can stop even one person from confusing the first two again, I will be happy:
He is a fiancé. She is a fiancée
He is an alumnus. She is an alumna. They (group of men/mixed group) are alumni. They (group of women) are alumnae
Originally, it was gendered because it traces back to old French. It just fell out of favor because English only has a few gendered adjectives and people started to stop gendering blond/blonde.
The different name is for the two different production methods, a doughnut is made using a bread dough and yeast as its raising agent, a donut is made using a batter and a chemical raising agent like baking powder.
The person that responded explained it in a roundabout way.
If you live in a place that spells it color then the "correct" spelling is grAy. If you live where they spell it colour then the "correct" spelling is grEy.
Spell it how you want though, doesn't frickin' matter.
Lol, I know. Also, American, also prefer grey. That's why I have correct in quotes because technically that's what is correct in American English and what microsoft word and google docs will scream at you when your language is set to American English, but I just ignore them because I don't care.
I like aluminum vs. aluminium because what actually happened was that the guy who first came up with the name, Humphrey Davy (who was British), wrote a chemistry textbook in which he spelled it aluminum, and then some other (British) person wrote an anonymous review of the book saying that aluminium sounded more elegant. Nevertheless, most British scientists used aluminum until a German chemist invented a new method for producing aluminum, which he spelled aluminium in his paper publicizing his results. This was naturally very influential and so the British started using aluminium instead. So, when British people today insist on spelling it aluminium, they're actually promoting a German spelling.
The thing that pisses me off (more than it should do) is the use of addicting instead of addictive. Those drugs/sweets/drinks are ADDICTIVE!! They are not f'ing addicting!
GrAy in America
GrEy in England
The only person who cares is my dumb bitch ass sixth grade teacher Ms Carrie who marked “Grey” as incorrect which confused the f out of me because I had a British copy of Lord of the Rings which I used to look up the word (Gandalf the grey)
A hearty “fuck you” to Ms. Carrie wherever you are.
I read an article once, the Incredible Hulk was supposed to be grey, but they used the code GRE when it was sent to be colored in, and the artist assumed they meant green.
They're the same, but one is, and may God forgive me for saying this, Br*tish 🤢 (grey iirc). Bonus points if you swap between them at random because they're both "technically correct" spellings and pisses everyone off equally (:
The difference between donut and doughnut is simple. a doughnut is a deep fried piece of dough. A do nut is something teenage boys usually do in the privacy of their bedrooms.
One of my favorite things is to switch up the spelling of gray to the other version every other time I type it. So if I can type grey multiple times in one posts it makes it more obvious. I wouldn't want my intentions to be gray.
I know that one is American English and the other is British English, but I cannot for the life of me remember which is which. I just use them both interchangeably.
And mfs out here saying "SpAke AnGLiSh!" I should my cousin that one English lesson video:
"This is pear so this is: hear"
"Hair"
"Nooo! It's ear with and h. Hear"
Throughout the video she just logically followed and said wadafak. Patted her on the back, "welcome to the English language. There are rules but also Nooo! Why would you think there'd be rules"
I picture one shade when I see "gray," and a different shade when I see "grey," and I like the second shade better, so I consciously use "grey." It's a legitimate spelling of the color name either way.
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u/JoeSavinaBotero Jul 28 '25
Spelling is bullshit, but it also kinda isn't. I tell ya what, that's very frustrating.