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Hey everyone. This is my first post. I'm a South African and we use British spelling over here. I was going over some words with my 4 year old niece and we came across the word "colour". Since the words that were printed out on her homework sheet was taken from an American site I presume, it had "color". And she was really confused I have noticed quite a lot of times now that Americans have made the spelling of words easier (according to how they're said) and omitted "extra letters". The way the English language has evolved fascinates me!

I learned British spelling at school but on the Internet I see a much broader use of American spelling. The latter is simpler so I adopted it.

I recently had the opportunity to spend a month in the UK and I'm working on being more tolerant of British spelling, but it still surprises me sometimes

There are times when English makes no sense at all. I'm American, so I use that. But I've taught many littles to read and notice things like:
Dove - the bird Love Above Hover <-- this batch makes no sense with American pronunciation
Dove - past tense of Dive Woven Clover Rove

This is pronunciation and not spelling but still...do Brits pronounce them differently?
Then there are phrases. I found a Finnish comedian that did a routine about the use of the word "ass" in English making it one of the hardest to use correctly. I figured it would be good for a couple of jokes, but he did a full ten minutes and had me agreeing!

I prefer American spelling, as it is simpler, but occasionally I use British spelling.

It's very interesting. I'm from the Caribbean and we're exposed to both. The British influence is part of our history but then we're exposed to US television, books, and of course the internet. The British spelling is taught in schools but then people interchange with both US and UK spelling after school.

I prefer British spelling-I think because we were colonized by Britain but find American accent cool.Both sides have lots of things to offer our world.

Being Australian I have grown up with British spelling and I find it hard to tolerate American spelling and pronunciation. With having international e-books now, we really need to all stick to just one spelling of English words, but I guess we'll never agree on which one!!

The differences between American and British spelling cause me to wonder if the people in charge of choosing words for a spelling bee avoid words like "traveled" and " canceled". Maybe in some judges in America would discard the word if the contestant tried to use the British spelling instead of the American?

I was raised with British spelling so that's what comes more naturally to me.
My take on it is that either is acceptable as long as it's used consistently in a given piece of writing. If it's not consistent, I feel I have to point out the errors.

I prefer British English, but I've been writing my reviews in American English. British English has a sense of ancientness, and therefore reverence. It's like Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil; or Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Latin America. European languages are closer to Latin and Greek than "colonial" (no offense intended) languages.

My husband and I are both non-native speakers, speaking English with each other as the common language. I worked mostly for US companies and read a lot of US books. He used to live in London and reads more British literature. When we started dating we often had discussions on what would be the correct prononciation/expression/spelling. We learned pretty fast we simply have different preferences and exposures.

I am more used to British English. But I think American English is lot easier to type so I prefer the latter.

So far, I have been using British English all my life. Words like 'labour', 'flavour', 'honour', and 'neighbour' are marked as incorrect when typing on most websites, which is why I prefer to sometimes type in American English as it is more well-known and used.

However, I am afraid of getting far too into the habit of doing so because I could end up implementing it into my writing and essays, which would result in misspellings.

I am from a non-english speaking country. I have been raised learning British spelling in first half and American in second half. I mix these two sometimes. I have a habbit of writing using British words but they count as errors at various places. So, I am trying to fit.