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Showing posts with the label American spelling

American iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS usage mapped

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Mashable had an interesting report to show us from July 2011: It occurred to me that the North-East, Mid-West and South/West looked vaguely reminiscent of American political party affiliation data by state, so I found this Wikipedia map of the gubernatorial election results data from 2010 : L egend:    Republican gains    Republican holds    Democratic gains    Democratic holds    Independent win    not contested Well, a slight correlation can be discerned, anyway - California may be favouring Android overall, but Mashable's article did report that there are iOS-heavy cities (to be specific, they were reported as  San Francisco, San Jose, Modesto, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Chico, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo and Napa). Given my personal history in Massachusetts and the fact that most of my friends (and colleagues) are iPhone owners, one might think I'd also jumped onto the iOS bandwagon. Apple had also been the most popular smartphone manufacturer in Japan. However, wh

To Americanize or not: the orthography (spelling) question

I'd alluded to the fact that I'm an ex-pat. Astute readers of prior posts would have noticed that I wrote "flavour" with the u included. This correctly indicates that my English retains UK influences - and indeed, I was born and raised in Canada, a Commonwealth member (although I understand that environmentalists asked the country to be suspended in status in 2009 ) . However, I do work for an American multinational . And my undergraduate studies were also undertaken near Boston , where I vividly recall being penalized (not "penalised") for any slip-ups I made for non-American spelling. For those asking "but is there such a thing as "Canadian" spelling?", my good friend Rosemary has this example: "Canadian Tire Centre". In UK spelling it would be Tyre, and in the US, it would be Center: in Canada, the full example is the only correct way to write it. So, dear readers, please expect - and hopefully respect - my