Gray and Grey: What’s the Difference?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Deva and Shailen from McKinney, Texas.

Hi, Deva and Shailen.

All right, what are we dealing with here?

Sisters, mother, daughter, co-workers?

Mother, daughter, me, and my wonderful 12-year-old daughter.

Oh, okay, great.

Excellent.

So which is which?

I’m Shailen, and I’m the 12-year-old.

Okay.

I’m in seven grades.

All right, so Shailen, what has your mom done wrong now?

Well, we were shopping online and we were looking for some pants.

And we noticed how there was two different spellings of the word gray.

So like the color gray, G-R-E-Y, and gray, G-R-A-Y.

And we wanted to know what the difference means or is it just like you have a preference of spelling.

So G-R-A-Y versus G-R-E-Y.

Did you notice a pattern at all?

I mean, personally, I’m more of the avid shopper.

My daughter, we were sitting in a waiting out of tornado in Texas curve.

You know, that’s normal.

But so I was shopping.

No, I was shopping online and looking for gray pants.

And I’ve noticed a pattern that it seems that with certain, like if they’re a European merchant, that the spelling, it seems like the more English version of gray, which I think is G-R-E-Y, like Earl Grey T.

And then for a lot of U.S. sellers, it’s G-R-A-Y.

But I’ve noticed also that it’s interchangeable between brands that are stateside or international.

Martha, wonderful fieldwork, don’t you think?

Yes, yes.

Thank you for those data points.

That’s really interesting.

Yeah, as you suggested, G-R-E-Y appears in British English in general, and G-R-A-Y is what you see in the United States.

And a good way to remember that is that G-R-A-Y is American.

G-R-E-Y is English.

You see it in England.

England starting with the letter E.

And both of those spellings have been around for a very long time.

In fact, in the mid-18th century, Samuel Johnson published his famous dictionary.

And the entry for gray with an A is much, much longer than the entry for gray with an E,

Which is weird because now we think of G-R-E-Y as something that you’ll see in England.

And then it gets complicated even further.

I mean, I think this is some of what you’re running into is that products from outside the United States often have the G-R-E-Y spelling.

Like, for example, Grey Poupon Mustard.

You know, that was named for a Frenchman.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That was named for a Frenchman, Maurice Gray, whose last name was spelled G-R-E-Y.

You probably haven’t read Fifty Shades of Gray.

But that book was published by a British author, E.L. James, and that gray is spelled G-R-E-Y.

So you’re sort of reporting on the same kind of thing, which is that we kind of get mixed messages about the spelling.

But generally speaking, in the United States is going to be an A and elsewhere is going to be an E.

There’s no meaning difference between the two, although some people think that there is a color difference.

Some people think that the A spelling is darker and the E spelling is lighter.

And some people think the opposite.

So it’s very complicated.

Dava and Shailen, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk with us.

Oh, thank you.

This is one of our favorite shows.

We listen to it endlessly.

And my daughter, she wants to say one really quick thing.

Yes, please.

Thank you for answering our question.

And I love watching your show.

It’ll help me learn about a lot of new work.

Thank you so much.

Take care of yourself.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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