{"id":186866,"date":"2025-12-16T17:41:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:41:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:41:06","slug":"mark-carney-criticised-for-using-british-spellings-in-canadian-documents-mark-carney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186866\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Carney criticised for using British spellings in Canadian documents | Mark Carney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Carney<\/a> says that amid a fundamental shift to the nature of globalisation, his government will catalyse the growth in both the public and private sector.<\/p>\n

But Canadian linguists say that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n

Language experts have called out the Canadian prime minister\u2019s growing \u201cutilisation\u201d of British spellings in key documents \u2013 including the recent federal budget and a press release issued following a meeting with Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carney, who served as the governor of the bank of England<\/a> for seven years, appears to have run afoul of Canadian linguistic norms, returning to his home country with a penchant for using \u2018s\u2019 instead of \u2018z\u2019- a hallmark of British spellings.<\/p>\n

In an open letter<\/a> chastising the prime minister, six linguists have asked his office, the Canadian government and parliament to stick to Canadian English spelling, \u201cwhich is the spelling they consistently used from the 1970s to 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n

They warned that if governments start to use other systems for spelling, \u201cthis could lead to confusion about which spelling is Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadian English is a source of immense pride for the nation\u2019s pedants. But the country\u2019s distinct and somewhat arbitrary spelling reflects the legacy of how Canada<\/a> was colonized.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadian English evolved through Loyalist settlement after the American Revolutionary War, subsequent waves of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish immigration, and from European and global contexts,\u201d the letter says, with the current accepted spellings of words reflecting \u201cglobal influences and cultures from around the world represented in our population, as well as containing words and phrases from Indigenous languages\u201d.<\/p>\n

The linguists pointed out that Canada\u2019s distinct style of spelling was widespread in media and government documents, with this deliberate decision reflecting a desire to preserve a vital element of the country\u2019s \u201cnational history, identity and pride\u201d.<\/p>\n

The prime minister\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment on the decision to use British spellings.<\/p>\n

The letters\u2019 authors, who are university professors and editors, say many Canadians are \u201cpassionate\u201d about spelling words in a uniquely Canadian way, but acknowledge there are many opinions on what exactly is \u201cCanadian\u201d.<\/p>\n

Citing the Canadian Press stylebook, they highlight an aversion to the British variant of certain words (preferring tire instead of tyre, and jail over gaol) but also a rejection for some US versions (using cheque instead of check, and manoeuvre instead of maneuver).<\/p>\n

Other words in the Canadian lexicon are borrowed from the country\u2019s French and Indigenous histories. A \u2018toque\u2019 originally referred to a tuque knitted winter hat worn by French and M\u00e9tis fur traders. The word muskeg, used to describe peat-like lands, is derived from the Cree word maskek (\u14aa\u1422\u146b\u1420) \u201clow-lying marsh\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a nod to Carney\u2019s love of hockey metaphors to capture the current trade battle with the United States, the linguists said preserving Canadian English is \u201cthe simplest way to take an \u2018elbows up\u2019 stance<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Carney says that amid a fundamental shift to the nature of globalisation, his government will catalyse the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-186866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}