GB English, or US English?

Question

If you have an API, and you are a UK-based developer with a highly international audience, should your API be

setColour()

or

setColor()

(To take one word as a simple example.)

UK-based engineers are often quite defensive about their 'correct' spellings but it could be argued that US spelling is more 'standard' in the international market.

I guess the question is does it matter? Do developers in other locales struggle with GB spelling, or is it normally quite apparent what things mean?

Should it all be US-English?

Answer 1

I would tend to use US-English as that has become the norm in other APIs - whether I like it or not! Speaking as an English programmer, I don't have any problem using "color", for example.

Answer 2

Depends where you see most of your customers. I personally prefer using English-GB (e.g. Colour) in my private code, but I go to Color for externally published applications/API/code!

Answer 3

I have trouble with APIs that are not in US-English. Just because of the spelling differences. I know what the words mean but the different spelling trips me up.

Most of the libraries and frameworks I'm familiar with use the US spellings. Of course, I'm an American so... US-English is my native language.

Answer 4

I got another sample: Serialise and Serialize. :)

Personally, I don't think it matters much. I've worked on projects that were using UK-English spelling countries and they use the UK spelling. It still is English and it doesn't really matter much due to Intellisense.

Answer 5

Even though I'm usually very pedantic about correct spelling, as a UK developer I would always go with the American 'color' spelling. In all programming languages I've encountered, it's like this, so for the sake of consistency, using 'color' makes a lot of sense.

Answer 6

Assuming this is a Java or C# API it probably doesn't matter given the pervasiveness of auto-complete functionality in the IDEs. If this is for a dynamic language or one where modern IDEs aren't the norm I would go with the American spellings. Of course I am an American and am therefore obviously biased, but it seems like most of the code I see from developers who aren't native English speakers use US spellings for their variable names etc.

Answer 7

The majority of the development documentation (just like MSDN) is in American English.

So it might be better to stay with the main-stream and use American English in your API if you are targeting international audience.

Answer 8

I'm not a native speaker. In writing, I always try to use en-gb. However, in programming I always use en-us instead of British English for much the same reason that I don't use German or French for my identifiers.

Answer 9

As a Canadian, I run into this all the time. It's very difficult for me to type "color" as my muscle memory keeps reaching for the 'u'.

However, I tend to adopt the language of the libraries. Java has the Color class, so I use color.

Answer 10

Generally I would be a stickler for GB spelling but I think that the code reads a lot better if it is consistent and I find:

Color lineColor = Color.Red;

to look a lot better than:

Color lineColour = Color.Red;

I guess that ultimately it doesn't really matter.

Answer 11

I try to find alternative words if possible. I will let -ize slide. For Colour I could possibly use Hue, Ink, Foreground/Background...

If not, as an Englishman, I will use en-GB because I have some pride left in my country and origins.

If it was to be part of a bigger project however, especially an international one, I would keep the entire project consistent above having a small part be in one language variation and the rest in another.

Answer 12

I'm one of these people who's heart rate and blood pressure rises each time I'm forced to use American English in setup files, etc, due to the fact that the software doesn't give the option for British English, but that's just me :)

My personal opinion on this one however would be to provide both spellings, give them setColor() and setColour(), write up the code in one of them, and just have the second one pass the parameters through.

This way you keep both groups happy, granted your intellisense gets a bit longer, but at least people can't complain about you using the 'wrong' language.

Answer 13

I would go with current standards and pick the US English spelling. HTML and CSS are acknowledged standards with the spelling "color", secondly, if you are working with a framework like .NET then chances are you already have color available in different name spaces.

The mental tax on having to deal with two spellings would hamper rather than help developers.

Label myLabel.color = setColour();

Answer 14

If all of your programmers are British, use en-gb. If your code will be seen by programmers outside of Britain, then en-us would be a better choice.

One minor point, we rely on a translation service to copy our documentation in to other languages. We have found we get better translations when using en-us as the source.

Answer 15

I'm also going to have to side with US-English, simply to keep things consistent (as others have already noted here). Although I am a native US-English speaker, I have done software projects with both German and Swedish software companies, and in both cases the temptation occasionally would strike my teammates to use German or Swedish text in the code -- usually for comments, but sometimes also for variable or method names. Even though I can speak those languages, it's really jarring on the eyes and makes it harder to bring a new non-speaker into the project.

Most European software companies (at least the ones I've worked with) behave the same way -- the code stays in English, simply because that makes the code more international-friendly should another programmer come on board. The internal documentation usually tends to be done in the native language, though.

That said, the distinction here is about two different dialects of English, which isn't quite as extreme as seeing two totally different languages in the same source code file. So I would say, keep the API in US-English, but your comments in GB-English if it suits you better.

Answer 16

I'd say look at how other libraries in your language choose and follow their convention.

The designers of the programming language and its built-in APIs made a choice, and whether the users are international or not they are used to seeing spellings consistent with this choice. You are not targeting speakers of a different language but users of a programming language. Odds are they've learned quite a few words in the foreign language from the built-in APIs, and they might not be aware there's differences between US English and GB English. Don't confuse them by switching sides of the pond.

I use .NET languages primarily, and the .NET Framework uses US English spellings. On this platform, I'd stick with US English. I'm not aware of any languages standardized on GB English, but if yours has done so then by all means stay consistent with the language.

Answer 17

I agree with the "go for American" troupe. I myself prefer en-GB when writing e-mails and such, but American English is pretty much the standard in all programming circles.

Answer 18

As an English programmer, I use en-US for my software dev. American english dominates so well in almost every other API that it's much easier to stick to one type of spelling and remove the ambiguity. It's a waste of time searching for a method only to find the spelling is off by one letter due to spelling localisations.

Answer 19

Even though British English is what is spoken throughout the world - I recommend using American English which like other people have said dominate the market.

Answer 20

You need to consider your audience. Who is going to use the code and what are they expecting to see?

I work in a company that has offices in both Canada & US. We use Canadian spelling (very similar to British English) when producing documentation and code in Canada and US spelling for what is used in the US.

Some things cross borders, but the difference in spelling is rarely an issue. It acutally can generate some interesting dialogue when American's are not aware of different spellings for Candian and British English. Sometimes they are OK with it, othertimes they insist on it changing to the "correct" spelling. This also affects date formats (dd/mm/yyyy in Canada and mm/dd/yyyy in US)

When there is an impasse, we typically go with the US spelling since the people in Canada are familiar with both variations.

Answer 21

The main reason I've heard for choosing US over UK English is because the UK audience, when confronted with US spelling, realise it's a US application (or presume it is so), whereas a US audience confronted with UK spelling thinks '... hey, that's wrong.. it's color not colour'

But like others have said, standardise. Pick on and stick with it.

Answer 22

It comes naturally for me to work in UK English without even thinking about it. However, if you are developing internal procedures it doesn't really matter. If you are creating APIs that will be used publicly, and your audience is international, why not implement both?

Answer 23

I prefer US English.

Answer 24

Definitely US english.

Answer 25

First, I'm in the US. In my current project, it's always "color" however, the word we can't seem to pick a spelling for is "grey" vs "gray".

It's actually gotten quite annoying.