Sep | 12 | 2007

American, British, or Canadian English?

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorial, Opinion, Writing

English in the universal language – at least that’s what we English speakers of the world think. To a certain extent, this is true, especially on the Web. Though I read somewhere that there are more web pages in Chinese than in English, it is also true that there is a considerable number of people who would prefer to read blogs in English. Yet even with English, there are some differences.

The Internet being as widespread as it is, we cannot assume that everyone speaks the same variant of English as we do. For each country, there is a slight twist to their version of English. Perhaps the most common ones are the ones I’ve used in the title – American, British, and Canadian. If you are writing a blog, you have to be open to the fact that people from all sorts of backgrounds would be reading your post. So which English should you use?

For non-native English bloggers, the question remains the same. Some are concerned about being corrected by their readers because of their spelling. Others are concerned about not getting the message across due to idiomatic and lexical differences. Still others are more concerned about SEO-related issues.

So is there a standard as to what type of English to use when writing blogs? My take on this is to adjust your tone and style to your primary audience. If you are writing primarily for a British audience then use British English. If you are writing primarily for an American audience then American English is the way to go. For a more global touch, I prefer American English, but that is just me. How about you? Which English do you prefer to use?

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