A long time ago I had a dream to become a published author and I read somewhere that the biggest English-speaking book market is the good ol’ U.S. of A (this was before TikTok ruined everyone’s attention span and reading became quaint and/or gauche), so when it came to writing, the advice was to make your work as publication-ready as possible for the U.S. market, in anticipation of possible publication.
This led me to shunning my Canadian spelling heritage and switching the dictionary/language in various applications like Microsoft Word to U.S. English. I felt dirty, but also efficient and professional.
I had one story published in a (Canadian) Moose Lodge newsletter when I was 12. This was an actual newsletter, printed on actual paper. It was pretty thrilling when I was 12. This was the sum of all my publication efforts, and it was because the man who ran the newsletter was nice and wanted to encourage me.
But thanks to inertia and a weird need to be efficient, I have kept using the American spelling of words, even though I had long given up the idea of seeing my work formally published. Heck, I skipped National Novel Writing Month in 2020 and didn’t even feel guilty about it!
I am starting to lean back to switching to Canadian spelling. Sure, “labour” has one more letter than “labor” and with my typing speed, it makes a difference, but “labour” has character and flavor flavour. “Labor” has the blood ruthlessly drained from it.
Perhaps I am overthinking this.
I’ll ponder some more on this Labour Day, then make a decision, because I think that may have been one of my New Year resolutions–to be more decisive. Maybe?