By Vurdlak on September 29, 2009, with 140 Comments
Sine Line Optical Illusion
SINCE by now all of you are ware that English isn’t my mother language, there are still some minor details I’d like to check. One of the major steps I surpassed recently is learning the difference between it’s and its. Yeah, it may sound dumb but this little thing made me uncertain for quite some time. It took years before I finally understood how the hell verb read can be written the same in present and past form, even though in each case it’s pronounced differently. I think some of these rules were explained to me by one of my readers. Next on my quest of knowledge is to distinguish the difference between color and colour. Anyone cares to explain? I’ve seen both of them in use.
Concerning the illusion of the day, I posted it to the left. The line you see fluctuating is composed of many vertical lines. Do some of those vertical lines seem to be unequal in length? The strange case here, is that all of the vertical lines in this example are identical! Strange, ayeh?
(28 votes)
Simple: the word COLOUR is the british spelling and the word COLOR is the american spelling
responce to alan P-J’s post: the goverment is definitely not starting to spell colour without the U.
Jim,
There = over there, a place.
Their = their house, ownership
Hope that helps
The exact reverse of this effect works too (different leghts of lines will appear equal once curved) the link below provides more explication
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_sineIllusion/index.html
Color = American English.
Colour = British English / The Queens Language.
When people moved over to the US years ago to populate it, most of the people who went were after a new life and had little or no education…spelling wasn’t their forte and that is why there are missing letters in English words like colour, neighbour, etc and replaced S with Z and also swapped letters ER RE
if you want to learn the ENGLISH language learn ENGLISH not AMERICAN if you want to learn the AMERICAN language learn that their pretty much totally different and the ENGLISH language is the better 1 by far if you want a challange live in liverpool n learn SCOUSE (its ment too be an ENGLISH accent but it sounds like a totally different language :))
oh another point i noticed about the changing to american from chemistry the element sulphur is now getting spelt the american sulfur on english exam papers why cant the english stay ENGLISH for goodness sake its not like our prime minister already follows the american president blindly into every thing why not change the united kingdom of great britain and northen ireland into the united kingdom of america sorry bad subject 4 me
I believe that some influential Americans had a bash at simplify the spelling of various words in the latter part of the nineteenth century and ‘color’ was one of their more successful targets. Simply ghastly :)
Google “american spelling reform” for further info.
color is American english, colour English english
American English (spelling/pronunciation) is a cultural thing, and I’m glad that Greg Elfers commented with the info about Webster-it really explains the American approach to the English language.
What’s great about MO Illusions is that our friendly Illusion Master is conscious of the influx of new visitors to the site from the UK, and he is doing his best to make sure that the language (spelling/grammar) he uses is understandable to all-especially remarkable since English is not his ‘mother’ tongue.
I’ve been a fan of this site for a long time, and a lot of it has to do with the great images and stories provided, not necessarily the grammar aspect involved in the writing. Thanks for such a great site!
Colour = Canadian / British spelling
Color = American spelling.
Same word, same meaning. The two different countries spell things differently alot.
The difference is that colour is mainly seen used
in Britain or something.And color is mainly seen used in USA(im not so intelligent on this stuff :|).I love ur site.The illusions can be hard lol.
color is American English
Colour is ‘the Queens’ English
colour is how the german english ppl do it. and others whom im not sure of. same for neighbour, labour, and favourite. I take the ‘u’s out of it all.
not a very good illusion considering i knew they all were straight. I see ur havin trouble with homophones and homographs. words spelt the smae but meen diffrent and words that sound the same but meen different.
They’re = They are.
Their = defines owner ship of a group of people.
There = a place.
Read = pron. reed. means like ‘as i read this’
Read = (pron. red) Past tense of that that is pron. reed.
Lead = To guide something. (pron. leed)
Lead = That stuff in your pencil that is down right deadly if consumed. (pron. led)
I have problems with its and it’s also. I believe its the only noun needing to define ownership whereas you put an apostrophe at the end yet it’d be wrong.
It’s = it is
Its = defines ownership of a thing.
There are many nouns that can be used as a verb such as ‘guide’
Guide = Someone that leads you.
Guide = Something you read that leads you.
Guide = A verb telling someone to lead you.
Now I hope this helps.
Yeah theater is supposed to be theatre. and ill have you know we didnt drope the e in judgement.
Ill = sickened.
I’ll = I will
They’re there with their stuff, and those two are to go there too. :)
Color and colour are the same thing except in Canadian (I think British aswell) english we spell “colour” and in the USA they spell “color”. They are pronounced EXACTLY the same ^_^
Color= american spelling
Colour= British spelling
Like
grey= british spelling
gray= american spelling
There are also some words like theater that are spelt differently but still are the exact same thing and still spelt correctly
Theater or theatre
and there their and they’re are all the same too.
The to problem:
Too can be used instead of as well or also.
Two is the number
to is pretty much the basic form when you don’t need anything special for ‘to’.
Re: Color and Colour. Color is american, colour is British. Same goes for quite a few other words with …or vs. our. American spelling drops a lot of extra letters, which are retained by the Brits. Also, the Brits spell many words, such as theater, with the e and r reversed, thus theatre.
A good deal of native English speakers don’t know the different between its and it’s. So, give yourself a break.
color / colour is simply a difference in dialect. Many words are spelled differently in the US when compared to their Irish or UK forms.
I also speak Spanish and a similar thing occurs with that language — words change spelling from one country to another (primarily just a change in accented syllables but a spelling change none-the-less) and one particular word comes to mind as meaning “bug” in one country, “thing” in another, and being quite profane in a third.
Hey,
the difference between color and colour is the country. British use the ou in a couple of words, where Americans just use the o.
Hope it helps.
Color is the American spelling and colour is the British spelling. We do the same thing with rumor & rumour as well as other similarly spelled words.
As I have said before in your blog, “English is the language that makes the least sense.” I don’t understand why it is prevalent. It is an ugly language. It is difficult to learn, cumbersome, there are a lot of rules and twice as many exceptions to every rule.
I think it is impressive that you speak it as well as you do.
English is a BEAUTIFUL language. Being difficult doesn’t make a language “ugly”. Take Chinese for example. The sheer volume of characters possible for writing anything in Chinese is so daunting that virtually no Chinese native knows all of them much less a non-native, but I would NEVER say that Chinese is ugly. In fact, I personally find that complexity is what makes a language MORE beautiful. Sure, English is difficult, but there are millions of ways to say just about anything! You have to admit, English isn’t boring!
Color is the American spelling; colour is English (as in the United Kingdom)
The same goes for neighbor/neighbour; flavor/flavour; favor/favour and many other words.
There are a fair few words that are just completely different for Americans and Brits as well.
Faucet and Tap
Drapes and Curtains
Truck and Lorry
Elevator and Lift
Sidewalk and Pavement
Candy and Sweets
I can’t think of any more right now, but there are quite a few little oddities like that.
Brits?? Seriously?
Colour = British/rest of world spelling
Color = American spelling
It’s very confusing, you can even get an English to American English dictionary now, it’s nuts! lol And before the Americans start ranting, I am not anti-American, just find you confusing! :-)
Oh, and for the person who said Mother is ‘Mum’ not ‘Mom’, well I’m Welsh so here it’s ‘Mam’!
English is my first language and still feel I haven’t mastered it yet so well done!
Just want you to know that the grammar issues are not a problem for me. I have seen posts regarding this matter, but I don’t care. I understand that you want to understand English grammar for yourself, and I totally support that. But as far as it’s affect on how I view your web site…dosen’t bother me. I just enjoy your site. :)
I love this illusion it’s very effective. And judging by the comments I don’t really have to explain the difference between color and colour. I’d just want to add that us candians follow the british… That’s all…and this situation also occurs in the words flavour and flavor, neighbour and neighbor, rumour and rumor, labor and labour, honor and honour…the most funny thing is that until you brought this up…I didnt realize about the other words…so now I know why certain words look funny in american books. Anywho back to the illusion. It’s quite fascinating I would have never guessed they were the same… it’s probably because of the elevation that makesyou see tem lines as bigger.
omg lol what IS the difference between its and i’ts… i feel silly now!
You think that’s confusing. I can think of certain words that are only spoken in certain states here in the US. For example here in WI instead of drinking fountain we say bubbler.
I noticed something about this illusion – well, i dont know if that is what you were showing as part of the illusion, or if i had just luckily spotted it. You mentioned that the illusion was that the lines were the same length. I noticed that this illusion, if you looked at it closely, concentrating on the lines on the left side, it looks as though the image is closer than the lines on the right – almost like a fence. If you then look at the lines on the right, it looks as though the line is like a bridge, as the lines go ‘over’ and curve under!
Agreed, you make yourself perfectly understood as far as I’m concerned, vurdlak. I understand though, English is a confounding language. Cough, rough, bough, through, etc…
The most important difference in vocabulary between US and UK is that what we call beer in the US, they call lager.
Oh, and nice illusion, very simple and subtle.
colour is canadian also.
Also in Australia/Britain we use an ‘s’ rather than a ‘z’ in words such as ‘organisation’.
Actually, Meisha is wrong about “there,” “their” and “they’re.”
“They’re” means “they are.” EXAMPLE: They’re outside.
“There” refers to a place. EXAMPLE: The books are here (in a place close to me) and the pencils are there (far away).
“Their” means that it belongs to ‘them’. EXAMPLE: It’s their bike, not yours or mine.
So, if I said “They’re over there, but their stuff isn’t there.” it would be like saying “They are in that are farther away, but the stuff that belongs to them is not in that place.” ^-^
Nice illusion, by the way.
color is american and colour is british
my island was british but is now dependent so we use colour instead of color eg.
labour/labor
I also enjoy your site regardless of little grammar issues :-) You speak/write in English just as well as many people who were born in the states. English grammar can be such a pain in the butt that lots of people born and raised here don’t totally get it. I, for example, passed all my Spanish classes in high school and college with A’s, but nearly flunked English grammar every time!
colour is British for color….English/American would be color…
soo…
American:color
British:colour
sooooo…..yeah
It’s and its, read or read… yeah messed up… but what about the “had had” situation… Like for example. Bob had had that before.
It´s more difficult to speak Portuguese than English. I´m brazilian and I´m very sure about it!
i agree with Fernando Motta :F
to answer your grammer question, i’m no einstine, but i’m pretty sure that colour is the original way to spell that, color is the commercalised version, which came about right around when crayola crayons were invented, so, i guess you can use it either way.
but you don’t need to worry about that, mozt ppl talk liek ths when dere on de internet, confusing yes, but you get used to it
Hey th answer to your colour, color question is simple. There is an American way and a Canadian way of spelling it. colour is canadian and color is americam. I’m unaware of how Europeans spell it but thats the reason for two spellings.
“Color,” is the Canadian version of the American word, “Colour.” Also, “It’s” is used in example, It Is. While “Its” is used in example: They made Its gun barrel. (Facination with guns in progress! Oh no!)
Listen, I don’t mean to be a troll, and I sincerely hope I’m not, but it seems to me that 20 or so people are reapeating eachother,wether they’re correct or not, and even I’m starting to get confused. Bottom line, Vurdlak, you’re English is better than most on this site. What you already know is more than sufficient, as most on the internet speak in made up tongues as it is, as Nathanale said. Keep practicing what you already know, and the rest will come to you. English is a messed up language, as we borrow words and phrases from nearly every other culture, and most of the time, even we Americans mess it up. Ask more as need be, but in the meantime, keep up the good work on the site. And get us more good illusions!
I know it was a while ago, but Paul Jones tried to tell you that or and our are the same word and they are most definitely not. Our is a possessive word and is in 1st person plural (which means it goes with words like we and us). Or is a conjunction representing a choice, or multiple outcomes. For example when you serving you cake, a waiter might say “Would you like the vanilla cake, or the chocolate?” or he might say “Would you like to try our chocolate cake?” very different words.
I know you’ve already been told a million times about color/colour but I’ll tell you a few of the words that are spelt differently:
gray/grey
traveled/travelled
neighbor/neighbour
flavor/flavour
The spellings on the left are american, but the ones on the right are used by all other english-speaking countries (eg. I’m canadian and I use them)
American English: Color.
British English: Colour.
You can also check the dictionary. AmE is American English, btw.
If you want to speak/write English then it’s best to stick to the English rules while learning (there are less exceptions to the rules). American-English is a variant of the English language and therefore means that it gets a LOT of the spelling and pronunciation rules WRONG. Americans tend to disagree with this but the English language and how words are spelled follow certain rules. These rules are ignored when you see an American ‘version’ of those words.
Believe me – it’s just as frustrating to see these varients all over the place when English is your first language. I believe it’s only made harder to learn English because of the American varients. I’m sorry my American friends but there genuinely was a reason colour was spelt with a ‘u’ and it was because of the rules of pronunciation in place at the time spelling was set as a standard. These rules are apparently not taught in schools these days which I think is sad. Then again the rules have changed because of advertising language and ‘nu-speak’ such as text messaging. The language is being garbled. Almost as soon as the spelling rules were set they were garbled again. Very sad. The city I currently live in in England is full of natives who don’t follow the rules of their own mother tongue so don’t worry about getting too much wrong. I speak English pretty well but I had a hell of a time understanding the people born-and-bred here for the first few years that I was here.
Hm. My History of the English Language professor (and all of my English professors, frankly) would disagree with you. The “rules” didn’t exist in ANY English speaking country until the press (newspapers) and schools started to try to standardize the language to make it easier to disseminate news and communicate. Look at manuscripts and correspondence from before the press and schools started standardizing and you will see that there were no hard and fast “rules” for spelling, grammar, punctuation or anything else. Frankly, this let’s-hate-all-things-American kick many of you who live outside America are on is getting old. America isn’t perfect, but NEITHER ARE YOU. Just remember, my country is still relatively young and we are already trying to correct our faults – your countries have had MELLINNIA of faults to our couple of centuries and have only just begun to correct your faults (remember WHY America started in the first place – Europe wasn’t exactly the land of saints – The Inquisition anyone?). Mote and beam, my friend. Our mote, your beam.
I am totally with you Blinks. Umm don’t worry about how America butchered the English language, go by British/ the way the rest of the WORLD writes it. And oh, Mother is spelt “Mum”, not “Mom”. Well done on learning “it’s” and “its”, it frustrates me when people whose first language is English still get it wrong. And when you want to say there was many of something, it is “a lot” not “alot”.
Glad you are trying to improve because all of us could probably do with getting better at English
Michael, please see my reply to Blinks. America haters are not cool. It’s sad to see so many people (even Americans) jumping on the blame-America-first bandwagon. Everything American isn’t bad, nor are Americans to blame for all the world’s problems – those problems existed long before my country came into being and will, I suspect, exist long after all of us and you as well are dead and gone. I appreciate the good things that other countries bring to the world, but I also get really tired of seeing my country trashed day in and day out by people who clearly don’t know any typical, average Americans (and most average Americans can’t afford to travel abroad – I know I can’t – so unless you’ve traveled to America, you certainly wouldn’t have met ME). The vast majority of us are good people. We are generous, garrulous, friendly, compassionate and yes, we love our country. We would also love your countries more if you would cut us some slack and realize that NO ONE likes to be bullied and attacked, even subtly. Remember that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” meaning if you are mean to us, how can you expect us to be nice to you? Don’t you know that you “catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”? So please play nice and remember, those early Americans, the ones we Americans call our Founding Fathers, were BRITISH. So, really, please explain how the language we spoke BEFORE we were American is suddenly “different” than the language we speak now??? How is “American” English “wrong”? We didn’t start speaking English after we formed America – we were ALREADY SPEAKING IT. Oh, and even in England, not everyone says “Mum”. Some say “Ma” and “Mama” – and in the South, we call our mothers “Mama” just like our ancestors did when they were still British subjects. My ancestors came from the British isles and it is their language I speak – ENGLISH. The spelling you can blame on media and academia who weren’t ALL Americans. Oh, and the rest of the “WORLD” aren’t native speakers of English. The native speakers are England, America, Canada, Australia, etc – in that order. (Canada officially became The Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867 and Australia wasn’t officially a nation until 1901 which puts them AFTER America, so really don’t you think America has seniority on the spelling/ grammar issue second only to England and since my ancestors kicked their butts… ? :P LOL). People who don’t speak English as their first language should refrain from telling native speakers which version is “better” or “right” because – well, it’s just rude. It’s okay to have an opinion, but don’t be so adamant about it. Sorry for the rant, but I love my language and my country and somebody has to speak up for them in this increasingly hostile world! I hope you and Blinks and everyone else here have a nice day and I truly hope you meet some of us nice Americans so your view of us will cease to be distorted. I’ve met plenty of nice foreigners (and a fair few not-so-nice ones) so I don’t automatically assume you are “mean” when you insult Americans. Since I can’t hear your tone of voice when you type I will give you the benefit of the doubt and suppose that you may only be teasing, but caution that if you aren’t teasing, please remember that the people you are insulting have hearts and minds and spirits just like you and deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity you want for yourself. We also have the right to speak and write OUR language the way WE see fit. England may be the birthplace of English, but aren’t the sons heirs of their father? Isn’t the son of a man whose last name is, say, Smith as much a Smith as his father?
color and coulor mean the same thing, just coulor is british and color in american
Color- american english
colour- british english
It’s- it is (in short form)
The difference between “it’s” and “its” is that “it’s” is the short form of “IT IS”(third person singular of the verb ‘to be’-he is, she is, it is- and “its” is a possessive pronoun like: MINE, YOURS, HIS, HERS, THEIRS.
I would also like to say that I am not a native English speaker but I do teach English as a foreign language. I also do not agree with English being a ‘hard’ language to learn-so not true- there are many other languages that you cannot understand because they have very few grammar rules (take German for example). At least English has rules and exception…
“Colour” is used by quaint folks of little significance on a little island north east of France. “Color” is used by the crazy people who dominate geopolitics.