I am Canadian and I still think this is dumb as hell

I've consumed so much American media that I no longer know how the majority things are "supposed" to be said/spelt/consumed in England. HOWEVER you can't take the "u" out of "colour". It is illegal.

Bagged milk is cheaper, 100% recyclable and you can see evidence of it being way past expiration date before serving or drinking straight from the pot and save yourself from an unpleasant surprise. And as for the supposed impracticality of bags, they require no more effort to use than cartons. Putting a bag in the plastic jug takes no more time than opening the carton.

British spelling in a country with a strong British heritage. No surprise there and nothing wrong with that.

As a Canadian, I don't care.

I always laugh at that because of an article I read in Nintendo Power as a kid. Someone wrote in asking if they would release Gameboy Colours with the correct spelling of colour and they just responded with no. Always thought it was dumb.

I find it funny that its the extra 'u' that puts you off and not the 'er' to 're'. I'm Canadian and love my 'centre' and 'theatre' but I would never defend that it makes any sense.

When I noticed the discrepancy for the first time as a child, it kinda freaked me out and it was like I had my eyes opened to EVERY spelling difference between American and British English. Turned out that I was spelling most words like an American and one of my teachers even docked marks for not consistently picking one or the other in a paper.

Most of the English-speaking world puts the U's in there, so if you're going by sheer numbers, we Americans have it ass backwards.

There are superfluous letters in lots of words across lots of languages. I kind of like it. Grass is greener on the other side, I guess, but everything in America is based around utility and economy. It carries advantages, but it's also kind of boring. Unnecessary as some of it is, I like the stylized ways of other cultures.

Just an example, my brother lives in The Netherlands now for business, and he said that he was describing to one of his colleagues how the utility poles and lines in America are just kind of strewn all over the road, hanging all over the place and whatnot, and they were apparently in disbelief, one of them remarking that it "must not look well." Having lived in America my whole life, it's not something I ever considered, but now that it's been pointed out to me, they do look fucking ugly, and I kind of wish we would put a little effort into making things just, look nice.

Nothing wrong with doing it with words, either.

I must disappoint you with the fact that I'm not Canadian! Though, I can still tell you how the hell this strange thing works. After you buy a bag of milk, you have a special jug in the fridge for it to be in and to pour with.

The dumbest thing ever.

Kind of a dumb way to argue the point, Matty, since it completely ignores accents and regional pronunciations. I'd say 90% of the people I know pronounce 'or' 'er,' just like everybody pronounces 'the' 'thuh.'

English is a language that has a lot of weird spellings and exceptions to phonetic rules (unlike something like Italian, for example, which is 98% phonetic). People should just accept that.

Why don't you just marry America if you love it so much?

As a Canadian, I louve it.

If four no outher reason than to irritate you Yanks :)

I'm an American who loves the art of written language, and I like the random 'U's. But really, tussling over things like this is like arguing with the Inuits for having more words for "snow." The only good cause for language change is in cases of unnecessary confusion.

But it's time to put 'Aluminium vs. Aluminum' to rest. Sir Humphry Davy named it 'Aluminum' but his peers thought the name should follow Latin rules like aluminum's relatives. Americans have two names for the metal: 'Aluminium' for the element, and 'Aluminum' for the refined metal. The rest of the world uses 'Aluminium' for both the element and product.

We don't even have bagged milk in Alberta, as far as I know only Ontario has them

So .. what you're trying to say is.. America wins again! Yes! God Bless Ronald McDonald! Long live Lord Hamburgler!

@humanity: What I'm trying to say is:

I moved to California from Australia (English Texas) in '08 and I'll tell you one thing. Nothing makes a whole populace seem more lazy than listening to people say Aloominum. I swear to you, put those U's back in the USA and a whole swath of international opinion would change for the better. Canada is representing the last shred of lingual dignity on the North American continent.

Thank you! I live in Canada, but where I live we use cartons and plastic jugs. Bagged milk is for barbarians.

Here in the west coast of Canada we use cartons, unlike you savages in Ontario.

@mariachimacabre: Florida...granted it might have just been a different percentage...not sure but it rubbed me the wrong way...also American cereal is tinier and sweeter than Canadian cereal

Start thinking about this after you stop saying the letter Z as "Zed" instead of the proper "Zee." Crazy people.

It's the original British spelling of the words, so it's nothing weird with it. I myself use color and honor, since it's the common American way of spelling.

Seconded. I've never heard of milk with chunks in it. Unless it's like dangerously past its expiration date.

Even then, it's only a rumor!!

@mcghee: Naaaa that is another thing where you guys are fucking insane. It is ZED

@superkenon: not chunks or anything...it was fine milk...it just had things floating in it...also your corn pops are shaped like ovals...ours are spherical

OH YOU MOTHER FUCKERS! LOOK AT THIS! I am Dyslexic and have trouble with English as it is, I have learned about U in words BUT FUCK SAKE!! no wonder I can never spell Centre or Litre right! ITS BECAUSE OF THIS MOTHER FUCKING U.S SPELL CHECKER TELLING ME I AM WRONG! NO I A M RIGHT!! YOUR WRONG!

I have great trouble with most words on this list!

ZED? MADNESS SHEER MADNESS

My fellow Canadians, listen to yourselves. We are tearing each other apart. Rejoice that some use bags to store their milk. After all, we must cling to the differences we have between us and those that shall not be named that live to the south.

Besides, every true Canadian knows that the only savages live east of the Rockies and west of Thunder Bay.

@chocolaterhinovampire: Nope. Never had any manner of thing floating in my milk. It's the smoothest drink I know.

You're right on our Corn Pops though. Those things are weird.

I ain't ever seen a bag of milk in Canada, fuckin' plains baby. We cartons now.

We are not savages, sir. We're just very cheap and very lazy.

And while I've got the mike, I'll say that the way I spell this word or that word is largely determined by the spellcheck settings of the word processor I'm using. "Color" and "colour" mean the same goddamn thing, and I don't think anyone is going to be confused if and when I choose one or the other.

Also, Loonies are awesome.

This is the best part of this whole stupid argument is people who SINCERELY believe that it makes any shred of difference. It doesn't matter and calling 300 million people all lazy for something THAT THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER is shitty. Hey. These decisions were made before you, me or anyone else currently on this planet existed. If Obama spontaneously decided one day that "You know what, My Fellow Americans? They're totally right. Let's change the spelling of dozens of our words that have been spelled that way in America for well over 150 years." he'd be met with Congressmen (idiots) calling him a European Socialist and a populace all collectively saying "Why does this matter compared to any other thing that could be occupying our time?" Equating this tiny difference in language to some weird form of Barbarism that's sucking the supposed beauty out of a stupid (English is a silly, nonsensically over-complicated monster baby of Roman Britannia and the Germanic tribes that conquered them or pushed them into Wales.) language is laughable. My advice to everyone who actually thinks this is an issue is this: This isn't going away, it's not a big deal. Language differences between nations that share them are not a new thing. They're as old as language.

That's not a mistake all Americans make. It's not like the spellings which are considered correct. Thanks for lumping together 330+ million people yet again!

And yes, the u's are stupid. Deal with it.

SpecialiZe makes more sense than specialiSe.

"Theatre"doesn't even TRY to make sense.

ZED? DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THIS MAKE ANY GODDAMN SENSE?????????

When it comes to spelling and pronunciation English is dumb everywhere, Finnish is where it's at. None* of this 'stuff being pronounced differently depending on the word' crap. The Us should be the least of your concerns about consistency

It is common for unhomogenized milk to separate, causing a situation in which the fat globules float on the rest of the liquid due to their lower density - this is how you separate cream from raw milk in the first place, I think.

That said, I don't think I've ever seen unhomogenized milk in any US store anywhere ever. Homogenization sounds like a very American thing to do to... anything. My guess is that if @chocolaterhinovampire's milk tasted off and had chunks floating in it IT WAS OBVIOUSLY SPOILED WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, is my guess.

In this thread an Australian insists that another country has butchered the English language. Now I've seen everything.

Words should be spelled how they sound. It makes the language easier to learn for native and non native speakers alike. Breaking down language barriers brings us closer together as a species. Why do you hate the solidarity of humanity British-English?

I agree the argument is stupid but to be fair, there are only like 6 of you in Finland (As a man with Finnish heritage, I'm related to 2 of them.) and hundreds of millions of English speakers. Again, not a slight against you Finns. I love all of the Northmen.

That's an adopted French word, the spelling absolutely makes sense if you pronounce it all Frenchly. Tay-Arrgh-Trrruuuh. Theatre. Try to end the word with a really good mouthful of phlegm, that's how you know that you're doing it right.

I didn't think I'd like that video but I did. I can't believe he ranted on about could care less. That's not an American thing. That's people miss hearing somebody say it the right way. The same way my mom thought you say "old wise tail" instead of the right way of saying, "old wives' tail".

Bagged milk? What the! A friendly reminder of how little I know about this world.

It's my understanding that the simplification of 'ou' to 'o' in many words was part of an attempt by some dude in America to do a wholesale simplification of the English language after our independence was attained. It went way beyond 'color' over 'colour', but for whatever reason, that was one of the few changes that took.

This thread's supposed to be funny right? The guy who opened it isn't trying to build a coalition of Canadian anti-uists with the intention of overthrowing their lingual traditions (I hope, that would be insane). I'm from Australia, I was playing the bit, my way is better than yours etc. etc. I will keep pronouncing and spelling things the way I want, so will everyone else. I figured my allusions to English Texas and the lunatic self righteousness of that last sentence would've tipped the hat towards my humorous intent. Didn't mean to rile you up duder!

This guy gets it!

Quit trying to apply logic to the English language. Half the "rules" in English don't make sense. Half of them are "just because." How does GH make an F in "rough" and is silent in "through?" JUST BECAUSE.

Oh I'm not riled up at all. I'm just good at typing a lot of nonsense on a single subject. It's also hard to distinguish who is sincere and who is not on the internet. You may not be sincere but I've heard so many similar things from people that were and I enjoy a good, spirited debate. No matter how silly the source.

Bagged milk is classy, just like the letter u.

As a Canadian, I would rather have a dollar bill, then have the loonie.

Milk in a bag and it isn't near as common as some Americans think.

@mariachimacabre: Glad to hear it, I can definitely get behind a good exchange, you could even say it's one of my favourite things.

Fuck.