Rainbow Grammar Family! Clearing up the confusion of UK versus US spellings.

This is how people say hello to each other in different parts of the world:

America: What’s up?

England: Alright?

France: What is it like you going? (Rough English translation)

Australia: How the fuck are you, you fucking cunt-arse dickhead? (Rough Lara Bing-in-a-tourism-ad translation)

We all know that people from difference places but have different ways of saying things. But things can get confusing at times. MC Grammar has a correspondent from the southern states of the US who can’t help but notice that there are words out there that swap back and forth like MC Grammar’s corn rows. She asked me, ‘what’s the deal with the word travelling? Sometimes it’s spelt traveling, and sometimes it’s spelt travelling? What’s the story with that?

Sister, the story is that traveling is the US spelling, and travelling is the UK and Australian spelling.

So now you’re saying ‘oh, I get it, in the US, words with a single l are spelt with a double ll in the UK.’ Not always. For example,

US Spelling UK     Australian Spelling


Enrollment                  Enrolment

Fulfill                           Fulfil

Skillful                        Skilful

There are lots of words like this, and people get confused all the time, which is fine – but sometimes they think that everyone but them is spelling incorrectly. Why you gotta hate? Don’t you know a rainbow needs all the colours to make it beautiful? That reminds me, Colour is the UK/Australian spelling, and Color is the US spelling. See what I’m saying here? Here’s a few more to remember.

US                              UK/Australia

Theater                              Theatre
Anemia                              Anaemia
Agism                                Ageism
Favorite                             Favourite
Check                               Cheque
Defense                             Defence
License                              Licence
Program                            Programme
Pajamas                             Pyjamas
Tire                                   Tyre


There’s also a difference between verbs that end in –ise. In the US, most of these words end in –ize instead. Words like agonise, terrorise, hypothesise, accessorise, and so on become agonize, terrorize, hypothesize, and accessorise.

I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘yeah, well it’s obvious what happened here; the yanks have gone and mangled our beautiful language and BROKEN THE RULES OF GRAMMAR. If the English do it one way, THAT must be the right way.

Sucker, you’d be wrong. The form –ize has been in use in English since the 16th century. The first white colonists of the US brought it over with them from England, and it they retained it while back in England it changed over time. This can be said for a lot of things in American English. For example, you might have noticed that they tend to say and write ‘I am’, ‘I will’ and ‘I can not’ a lot more than ‘I’m’, ‘I’ll’ and ‘I can’t’, which is more the norm in the UK and Australia. Again, this is because they’ve retained an older, or 16th Century usage of English. If grammar was a piece of clothing, they’d all be wearing Elizabethan ruffles, while the UK and Oz would probably be in Adidas track pants.

To finish up, here's a picture of some global harmony that should inspire you to take all these different spellings and use them for good, not evil. Use grammar to make friends, not enemies!

'To' and 'Too'

This is MC Grammar's sister, Mashaylah.

As you can see, Mashaylah is a pretty awesome. As you can see, Mashaylah has her priorities in order – she’s got lust for life, excellent coordination skills, and a bitchin wardrobe. If you saw Mashaylah on the street, you’d find yourself nodding your head and saying ‘scene’ before you even realised you were saying it, or what it meant.

But there's one thing Mashaylah doesn't have - an astute understanding of how to and too work.

Some people might judge Mashaylah for this, but not me. The truth is, more than just the impeccably dressed have this problem. It's a common situation, and it's time to clear it up.

Let's go to the Grammar dancefloor!

Here's the basic rundown:

Too – an excess amount, or meaning 'also.'

To – everything that isn't the above.

Example: There are too many examples to mention.

So too has two meanings. It means either also and besides, like I want one too, and it also means an excess amount of something, like too much or too many bananas.

To is a preposition, this just means it's a function word. It's like the person that everyone always dumps on at work, thinking they do shit-all around the place and imitating their laughter when they're not around, and then, when they finally leave you suddenly realise all the indoor-plants are dying and there's no recycled paper cut into neat squares for note-taking, because while they were being under-appreaciated by you and your workmates, they were the glue that held everything together, and you never even noticed.

A function word combines with a noun or a pronoun, and tells you where, or when, how or why. Some examples are

The job was suited to her abilities.

We went to the city.

Their faces were pressed to the windows.

They toasted to evil.

She referred to the dictionary.

In some cases it can also be used as an adverb. An adverb is a word that limits or 'describes' another word, like she paints well ('well' is the adverb), or he's funky fresh (funky is the adverb)

An example of to being used as an adverb is the patient came to, as in the patient woke up or regained conciousness.

MC Grammar thinks that the best way to remember anything is to remember it through song. Whenever you get confused, just remember The Temptations song 'Ain't Too Proud To Beg'. It's all there in the title, taking your hand and dancing you through a grammatically correct life.

Your and You're

For those of you who don't have time to read this whole post, here's the quick guide to your and you're:

You're – You are


Your – Something you own


Your and you're has to be the most divisive aspect of grammar around. Confusion about these two is so widespread that MC Grammar sometimes hurls himself onto his large, four-poster bed and cries from a sense of helplessness. But we can sit around all day and find people to blame for this grammatical mishap, or we can settle this score on the dancefloor. Come with me!


As I've said before, MC Grammar loves you, and doesn't want you to feel bad if you've just looked at the quick guide above, and your face is becoming paler as every grammar mistake you've ever made with your and you're is now dancing in front of your eyes like so many mischieveous leprechauns. There's no need to feel bad, just grab the horns of now and ride fearlessly into a grammatically correct future!


The best way to work out whether you're after your or you're in a sentence, is to ask yourself if you're saying you are, or if you are referring to something the other person owns. For example. 'Hey! You're right!' means 'you are right.' If you say 'your right', you're referring to their right-hand side.


Think of it like this - you cannot say any of these things:


Your great


Hope your ok


Your lying


Your welcome


Your looking trim



Because 'Your' is like 'Mine', 'hers', 'his' and 'theirs'. It's something that belongs to you.


But you can say:


What's your phone number?


Your mum!


Your car is missing


Your jumper is nice


Your cat just said 'Aubergine'


If you ever get completley confused, the best thing to do is, each time you're about to use your, ask yourself if you're saying you are in a shortened version. If you're not, hold back cowboy! Control yourself and your base animal urges! You'll be needing a you're there instead.

This video is also very entertaining and helpful. I think it's mostly directed at the thousands of abusive comments he gets for sharing his videos with the world, hence the slightly bitter undertone. MC Grammar has too much love to share this bitter undertone, but likes the cut of his jib anyway.

Why Even Bother?

I know this is what you're wondering. You're thinking, 'ho hum, another toff tries to find yet another way for me to feel shit about myself. Well you can you can go to hell in a hand-basket MC Grammar, because grammar's just what smarmy people use to put everyone else down! I hate you!'

It's true – correcting people over their grammar is the height of rudeness. No-one ever appreciates it, in fact a lot of people also consider it pointless. What does it really matter if an apostrophe is out of place, or if 'your' and 'you're' get mixed up. Who cares? You still get your point across, right?

It depends on who you're trying to get your point across to. Yeah, your mates on facebook are going to be down with your avant garde ways, but how hard does it become trying to write a cover letter for a job when you're not sure of where an apostrophe goes in 'its' or 'it's'? Most employers just throw away an application at the sight of one of those indescrepancies, so grammar can end up being the difference between getting ahead and staying where you are.

But that's all pretty superficial business. More importantly, the purpose of grammar is to help make a sentence clearer – otherwise it's just a way of showing off.

As Lynne Truss, who wrote 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' said, grammar and punctuation are the traffic signs of language. They prevent meaning from getting confused. For example: A used car show-yard sign reads, 'Used cars for sale: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first!' This looks wrong because of a mangled subject/verb agreement. More on that later. I promise it will be awesome. But more than that, the bottom line is that a lot of the time, you're not actually saying what you think you're saying, and that's like wearing a hessian sack and thinking you're in Prada.

Probably the number one example of this is the case of 'your'. I'm going to settle this score in the next post, but for now I'll say that when someone writes something like 'hope your well', the nearest thing they're actually asking is 'hope you have turned into a well.'

It's important to remember to MC Grammar loves you. MC Grammar has noticed your outrageous physical attractiveness, and also finds you funny and witty. MC Grammar doesn't mean to offend you or be a toff –and don't forget, MC Grammar makes grammar mistakes all the times. If this blog really annoys you, but helps you just a smidgen to write a letter or impress someone you're trying to sleep with, then my massive pants are filled with funky joy.