Dear Americans, Did You Know That Not Everyone on the Internet Is Also American?
This will probably come as a massive shock to some
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I’m one of those crazy people who write ‘colour’ instead of ‘color.’
And ‘honour’ instead of ‘honor.’
I also have this nasty tendency to put an ‘s’ where many expect to see a ‘z’ instead.
You’ve probably guessed where I’m going with this.
Yup, unfortunately, I’m not American.
That’s all right; take a minute to let that sink in. Maybe eat a biscuit or something. Sorry, I meant a ‘cookie.’
All good? Lovely.
I know it might be shocking to find out that not everyone on the internet — or this planet, as a matter of fact — comes from the land of mass shootings, lengthy medical bills and cheese in a can also known as the United States of America. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
And since I’m not American, I also don’t write in American English. No, you’re not hallucinating right now. This text is written in English.
Just the other variant you might be less familiar with — the Bri-ish one.
Every now and then, I get a comment or a private message from concerned — or sometimes even angry — readers pointing out that they found a typo in one of my articles. And I always take it very seriously.
You see, I’m not Bri-ish either.
I just came to the UK to steal jobs.
And since English is only the fourth language I’ve had the chance to learn — after Polish, my native tongue, French and German — I still tend to think I’m not that great at it.
So when I get an allegation of a typo, I usually do drop everything I’m doing at the moment to erase the proof of my linguistic inferiority before more people have a chance to notice it.
But to my relief, most of the errors I make aren’t really errors at all.
Perhaps I just used an expression that doesn’t exist in America. Or it’s my ‘funny’ way of spelling. Or I put a comma somewhere where no American would think of putting it.