Grey vs. Gray

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Ian from Washington, D.C.

From Washington, D.C.

Hello, Ian.

What’s happening in D.C.?

Well, I was thinking about the word gray, the color,

And how it can be spelled two ways, G-R-E-Y and G-R-A-Y.

And, you know, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.

The first thing that occurs to me is it’s one of those British-American things

Like curb and tire.

But unlike those words, you pretty much have a choice in America of how you spell the word gray.

And no other words really come to mind that you can do that.

There are words you can pronounce two ways.

But as far as spelling goes, I think gray is sort of unique.

I mean, I guess maybe mustache is another word sort of like that.

I just find it a little bit strange.

Boy, so when somebody has a gray mustache, you just sort of go crazy with the spelling.

It’s like, ooh, I’m a wacky guy.

Well, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. You can, in the United States, choose one or the other.

However, I should say that in the United States, most people probably use the G-R-A-Y spelling,

And in the UK, most people seem to use the G-R-E-Y. That’s just the way it’s come down.

This isn’t one of those hard and fast spelling rules like color or favorite or tire, that sort of thing,

Where you’re immediately going to be called out as a foreigner if you spell it one way or the other in the wrong country.

And what’s really interesting, if you look in the reference works, such as the Oxford English Dictionary,

Of course this is often our go-to reference work of choice, they have a really cool note for gray.

And they talk about the fact that some people believe that the EY spelling and the AY spelling indicate a slightly different kind of gray.

I feel that. I really do. Do you feel that, Ian?

Not exactly, but I do definitely have my preference.

I prefer to spell it G-R-E-Y.

I guess it’s some kind of like a synesthetic thing because it just, the word looks gray to me.

And the G-R-A-Y spelling, for some reason I get red from that.

Maybe I’m very strange, but I much prefer the G-R-E-Y.

You know, I have always felt like the E-Y is a lighter gray and the A-Y is a darker gray.

And maybe I’m nuts too.

Well, no, a lot of people say that.

But there is something happening here where we have a tendency to kind of avoid overlap.

And so when we know that a word can be spelled two ways, we seek out a difference between the spellings.

You’ll often see this, for example, with theater, the T-E-R spelling and the T-R-E spelling.

And I do that sometimes.

The T-R-E for me is the art of theater, and the T-E-R is the place where the theater is acted.

But these kinds of things are post hoc.

We do them because we’re looking for a way to rationalize the language and trying to discern rules that will allow us to choose one spelling over the other.

But, you know, it isn’t.

But you mentioned, though, that you felt that this was one of those words that was unusual because we have the choice of going either way and there’s no real baggage there.

There’s no reason why you couldn’t use E-Y or A-Y except maybe if you were working for a newspaper that preferred one or the other.

Or Crayola.

Crayola crayons.

They are G-R-A-Y.

Yeah.

There are a few other words, though, words like traveled, the past tense of travel.

Oh, yeah.

And canceled.

Right.

Canceled and traveled.

You can use a double L or a single L in the United States, whereas in the U.K., almost always people use the double L.

Right.

Well, Ian, you sent us in a really interesting direction.

I hadn’t really thought about some of that.

I guess it’s kind of a gray area, huh?

Ar, har, har.

Oh, my gosh.

I walked right into that, Ian.

I totally, I did not see that coming.

She’s got a red face over it.

I had to make the joke before you did.

I wasn’t going to.

What are you accusing me of?

But anyway, thank you for your call.

It’s fun.

I like these musings on simple things like this.

I just like to ponder the craziness that is the, English is so inconsistent.

I love these little potholes like this.

Right.

Me too.

Ian, thanks a lot for calling.

All right.

Thanks for taking my call.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye, guys.

You’re right, Grant.

I do love those nuanced questions like that.

You know, and it is kind of nice, as he put it.

You know, you and I are used to arbitrating these.

Some of these decisions are difficult, and it’s hard to convince ourselves

Or hard to convince other people and their sides to this.

So think of the fun fight we always have over a website,

One word or two, capitalized or not, right?

Gray really doesn’t bring that kind of anger out in people, does it?

No, why is that?

That peevishness.

No, I don’t know.

It’s four simple letters.

If you’ve got a question about colors, we’d love to hear it.

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