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How long has Canada had its rules on what is considered proper spelling? How did they determine what to borrow from Britain and what to borrow from the US?
If you ask most people you will find the conventional wisdom is that Canadian spelling in English was originally mostly British and that it's taken on many American traits due to cross-border cultural influences over the centuries.
This is actually false, as someone demonstrated to me on another forum a few years ago.
The story of the spelling of the English language in Canada (and also of vocabulary) is actually a back and forth between British and American influences, dependent on the zeitgeist of the era you're talking about.
The first large group of English speaking settlers in Canada were Loyalists who came after the American Revolution. So with them came influences from the land to the south.
After them came much larger waves of people from the British Isles who had their own linguistic usages, although of course they often arrived in places where the local English variant was more or less established. But they were often so numerous that they still influenced the language to some degree anyway.
And of course throughout history Canada has had periods where it was closer to the U.S. than others. This also influenced language in one direction or the other.
The Canadian Press Style Guide (used by newspapers as a spelling guide) was long (still is?) a reference for Canadian spelling. But for the longest time omitted the U from colour, favour, honour, etc. Even though most everyone else in Canada thought these words should be spelled with a U.
So all of the newspapers for many decades would write color, etc. It was sometimes weird because all of the Canadian towns with the word harbour in their name spell it harbour, not harbor. So you'd read about the "harbor at Victoria Harbour". Also public agencies like harbour authorities would be spelled "harbor authority" in lower case but "Harbour Authority" when the official name was used.
The Canadian Press amended its style guide to recommend the U in all of these words about 10-20 years ago.
In all my written exchanges in my lifetime, I've noticed that Canadians are the least likely of all Anglosphere nations to stick to their national spelling standard.
Americans basically all spell the American way.
Brits basically all spell the British way.
Aussies and Kiwis basically all spell their country's standard way (which tends to lean British).
But Canadians are really a hodge-podge. Relatively few Canadians spell the full British way, unless they're originally from the UK and emigrated to Canada.
But tons of Canadians spell predominantly the American way. Especially words like center, dialog, etc. And of course many drop the U in colour, etc.
And many Canadians write with a mix of British and American spellings that may or not be consistent with what is considered to be Canadian spelling.
Another inconsistency is that Canadians tend to use “railway” which the British do instead of “railroad”, which most Americans do . Other than that, they will say “freight train” instead of “goods train”, “switcher” instead of “shunter”, etc.
Do you go to see a movie at the “theater” or the “cinema”.?
I see a movie at a theatre (British spelling) instead of at a theater. And I've always used the u in words like neighbour, harbour, labour, favour, savour, etc. It's how I was taught to spell in school.
While the spelling of certain words can be influenced, even regulated through the school system, the use of terms has been more highly influenced by proximity to the U.S.
hoovering - vacuuming
tube - subway
hob - kitchen range
petrol -gasoline - gas
bonnet - hood
boot - trunk
lorry - truck -articulator - tractor trailer
There are endless examples of the influence of the more prevalent Americanized terms and phrases replacing those terms Great Britain exported to Canada even earlier in history such as "chains" and "furlongs" used as 66' for purposes of early acreage measurement of land grants etc., along with some of these:
My Manchester born and raised grandma often confused my brother and I by using the term "fortnight" to indicate a mysterious time frame associated with her comings and goings.
We would not even wish to discuss the monetary system of Great Britain and our thankfully not having to deal with that nonsense.
Another inconsistency is that Canadians tend to use “railway” which the British do instead of “railroad”, which most Americans do . Other than that, they will say “freight train” instead of “goods train”, “switcher” instead of “shunter”, etc.
Do you go to see a movie at the “theater” or the “cinema”.?
Many Canadians say railroad too, but railway is the Canadian term.
I say cinema but that could be French influence. Theatre (always spelled like that) is for live plays.
In the university I went for a semester I was sort of "reprimanded" because I kept on using the British spelling (I was told especially about the -s instead of -z, such as realise, organise, analyse etc), while they tended to favour the American one: yet, oddly they used quite a lot of British words as far as I remember.
I've seen both British and American spellings the times I visited Canada. Similarly, I usually see metric measurements but I am not lying when I say I saw square feet in a real estate advertisement in Toronto or produce weighed in lbs. in a supermarket in Laval, QC. Even more confusing are dates because some people use British day/month/year setting while others write American month/day/year.
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