Spelling as a Political Act

Lately, I've been having what I have come to think of as Sherman Alexie moments. That is, those moments in which I feel "between cultures."

One of those between-culture moments has to do with language, perhaps not surprisingly, given what I do. As you might expect from an American living in Canada and working with words, I have had to create some mental rules around spelling.

When I write something, I use the spelling that the audience expects. American clients expect "color," and Canadians expect "colour." Great. That's easy. Usually, with the guidance of MS Word's language default setting and my own reading of Canadian periodicals, I can get it right. This rule works even in the creative work I'm writing more of nowadays: if it's designed for Canadian audiences, it gets Canadian spelling.

On Facebook, I've adopted some practices, mostly to see how they work. For example, I celebrated "Labour Day" this year because I celebrated it in Canada. When I converse online with American friends, I tend to "type American"; for Canadians, I "type Canadian."

You've seen me use parentheses on the blog here for things like
"favo(u)rite." It's a way to type "between cultures." Hey, we're an inclusive place here.

But then I wondered: when I'm just me, writing just for me, what do I use?

And THEN I wondered: when on earth do I write "just for me"?

The answer is, I don't. Even the journaling I do will be read by someone other than the writer. Even if that "someone" is some future version of me--well, that version of me won't be the same person that I am at the "now" in which I write.

This also ties in with something I first heard discussed in graduate school: writing is a powerful act. One of my professors said his favorite (he was American) students were those he taught in a penitentiary. They were extremely motivated to learn. Learning to read and write effective arguments could help with their appeals and help them gain parole. For them, writing was highly personal, political, powerful.

I was more recently reminded when listening to CBC's Sunday morning news program, which featured a panel discussion about language issues, that even spelling is political. Someone on the panel mentioned Noah Webster, who of course is famous for changing the spellings of words such as "center," "defense," and "traveler." He did it for unashamedly ideological reasons: American English should be different from British English.

So, I am tempted to say, "Oh for crying out loud, this is not a big deal." Except that it is. Language and identity are so closely related as to be inseparable. It gets to Sherman Alexie's statement that whoever lives between cultures eventually is at home in neither.

Is spelling going to be my measuring stick? (Notice how I avoided using "yardstick"?)

If so, I guess it's time to take a baseline measurement. At present, the default setting for my spelling is still American. I wonder how much longer that will be true.