Am I British?

I was writing to my mother this morning and typed in the word "counselling."  Gmail immediately underlined it in red.  I re-typed, too lazy to carefully read whether I mistyped, and it came up again.  WTF, I thought.  I know this is right!!  So I looked it up.

Dictionary.com, at least, has the spelling I used.  However, it mentions that the double L is primarily British.

There's a guy at work that had suggested I should just move to Britain.  I was like, "Why?!" and he laughed and said, "about, scones, clotted cream, tea, and your various spellings of words."  A few days later I stumbled across mild frustration and jokingly said, "Oh, bloody 'ell" to which he laughed a bit more. The thing is, though, it felt quite natural to say even though it's not a common thing for me TO say.

I'm curious, now, to know if "manoeuvre" is also British.  I should go look that up, because I remember learning that word in school and thinking it didn't look right as "maneuver" (I think that's the spelling I learned).  I soon found "manoeuvre" and that somehow made so much more sense to me.  I cannot explain why, but it does.  Something about the "oe" combination, and the "re" at the end, makes it more proper somehow.  Oh!  Theatre is another one that tends to flow out of my fingertips more easily than "theater," which takes more concentration.

Not sure where all the British fancies come from, I mean, my mum's family is from a variety of places - England, Ireland, Scotland - so maybe they all use these things and I just don't remember them.  The few things that others would comment on when we'd moved was supposed to be "a Down East thing."  You know, "Don't upset the apple cart."  Once while I was in school, I got "What does 'puffed up with pride' mean?"  I remember glancing over at the teacher, who seemed, herself, slightly perplexed at my use of it on the board.  She knew what it meant, though, and saved me by explaining it to the other students, some of which made comments about "odd" or "weird" and "where did she ever hear that from."  Probably Mum, that's where.  Admittedly, I don't recall ever reading it or hearing it elsewhere.  Maybe it's another "Down East" thing.

Incidentally, "Mum" is a term my mother coined in our family... I believe her mother was "Mammy."  I am aware that it sounds British but it's really not, she just wanted to be called something different than her own mother had been, is all.  I personally like it better than "Mom" which has a long, drawn-out, whiny sound to it.  "Mum" is short and to the point, and kinda cute, especially to look at.  Of course, I tend to call her "Ma" to her face.  Bah, hah, hah!

Let's see... oh, another thing I found out is considered British is eating "continental style."  This is when you hold the fork in your left hand and the knife in your right.  I've done that on and off for a long time, naturally, and find it more efficient than doing everything right-handed and switching when you need to cut something.  I've always been somewhat ambidextrous, though, so I didn't think anything of it until I found out it's actually a style of eating.

Whoa!!  There's a whole site on English stuff!!  Check this out!! http://projectbritain.com/americanspelling.html

Jewellery is another one.  I have "misspelt" that so many times, and always thought, dangit, I always get that wrong!  But it turns out I'm right!!  (If I were in England.)  Every time I type that, I get underlines and eventually figure out it's "jewelry."  Which I have to think about every time.  Now, I cannot explain why "jewellery" feels right to my fingers, but it does, and I have a heck of a time getting that word to come out as "jewelry."  From a phonetics standpoint, the latter looks right... I dunno.  Somewhere I read it the way I want to spell it and it looks more normal to me despite it looking atrocious from a phonetics point-of-view.

I think I'll continue down through the list I just found.

realise - yep

cheque - no, not really.  I'm aware it's OK but usually spell it "check."  I like the look of "cheque," though.

kilometre - yep.

theatre - yep.

cosy - no, and this looks very wrong.  It's cozy.  It's funky, though, because "rosy" is rosy, not rozy.

favourite - all the time.

colour - all the time.

humour - a lot of the time.  I suspect I've spelt this both ways.  The funny thing is that gmail isn't underlining that one, nor "cosy."

dialogue - It looks right.  I'm not sure who uses "dialog" though, other than for maybe "dialog boxes."  I think that's the only place I've ever seen the "American" spelling.

tyre - I generally do not use this one.  Dale has, though, but usually when discussing Hakkapeliitta tyres. Whups.  I mean "tires!"

the "little girl's room" is not just English.  I have seen this used a lot in America.

couch is American, too!

So are several other household things.

There are a lot of these... some I recognise, some I do not... I wonder if recognise is in there.  Nope.  But it's primarily British at dictionary.com.  Sigh.

Aight, off to make more food.  :)

~w