“Dad, why do we use U in words like colour and neighbour?”
“I don’t know that’s just what we do. It’s kind of silly actually.”
That’s my dad, spoken like a true Canadian with British heritage – we have no freaking clue.
When you spell words like colour, flavour, honour there is always that little red swiggly line from your old pal spell check letting you know that word is spelt wrong, and if you’re like me you don’t change it. But do you know why? Maybe it’s something in our subconscious telling us that we, Canadians, spell these words with a U just to be different.
After a little research, I found that there is no earth shattering reason why we do this. The British do it this way so we do it this way. The website I found hints that Americans changed the language as a way of breaking free from the British – big shocker there. Canadians, on the other hand, continue to use the British spelling as a way of preserving a sense of heritage and tradition.
U isn’t the only thing Americans changed in the English language. Here are some others that even Canadians adopted:
| British | American |
| aeroplane | airplane |
| aluminium | aluminum |
| arse | ass |
| bogeyman | boogeyman |
| fillet | filet |
| moustache | mustache |
| mum | mom |
| pyjamas | pajamas |
| scallywag | scalaway |
| speciality | specialty |
| titbit | tidbit |
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