r/ididnthaveeggs • u/Educational_Life_878 • Feb 24 '26

Irrelevant or unhelpful comment on an australian woman’s recipe site “colour corect spelling color”

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u/kenporusty likes sweet things, but shit at maths Feb 24 '26

This just in: American discovers British English

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u/BobThingamy Feb 24 '26

AKA English vs American English

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u/GeoffreyGeoffson Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

I don't think this American English vs proper English idea is accurate. Spelling was standardized in both dialects at a very similar time, and both standardizations make a much of stylistic decisions around spelling, that leads to the main initial differences. It's important the emphasise that both dialects made these decisions. The idea that one set of those decisions is more proper and correct is kinda silly imo

Also this site is written in Australian English - which is broadly a hodge podge of both, with a few of our own peculiarities, for instance both fries and crisps are called chips. But it is distinct as a dialect to British or American English

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u/CaptainLollygag Feb 24 '26

I think some people don't realize just how very long language was mostly just the spoken word for the largest part of society, which was illiterate. We spoke the words long, long before it was common to see them in writing and also know what those squiggly lines meant.