By Vurdlak on September 29, 2009, with 139 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)
As far as color and colour are concerned, it’s just a different way of spelling the same word – a different dialect if you will. There is no difference in the vocabulary or meaning of the word, it’s simply a different spelling.
Color is the American version and colour is the British version. They both mean the same thing.
I have loved your site for a long time but have never thought that my opinion would interest you!
Colour is English (British) spelling
and Color is English (American) spelling.
Interedtingly the UK forces and, I think, the government is gradually moving over to the US spelling of these words.
Love your site, kindest regards
Alan P-J
“Its” is the possessive, while “it’s” is a contraction of “it is.” For example, “My dog chases its tail.” or “It’s cold outside today.”
As to “color” and “colour,” they are simply two spellings of the same word. “Color” is the American spelling, while “colour” is the British spelling.
You’ve got to love English and all its quirks… haha
Hope that helps
Hi. Enlish is not my mother tongue as well but maybe I will be able to help you. Colour is in “English” English and color is in “American” English. Hope this is of some assistance to you. Great website by the way!
Absolutely no difference in those words, just spelling. Same applies to labor/labour, neighbour/neighbor, honor/honour, etc. We use the spelling with the “u” in Canada as well.
Isn’t the internet wonderful? Now, how about the difference between there and their. I keep screwing them up. :^)
colour is the propper and english way of spelling it and color is the american version of spelling it, although there are many versions og the english language the english 9british) way is the original and right way to go about it. and by the way the english government are NOT changing over o the amercan way of spelling things – had to get that off my chest :D
as usual i loved your illusions and look forward to enjoying some more very soon XD
Just to add to what everyone else has already said:
“Colour” was the original spelling. Noah Webster was an early American dictionary compiler (Webster’s dictionary) and an advocate of spelling reform. When he made his dictionary, he spelt several words in the way he thought they ought to be spelled, rather than the way they were traditionally spelled, including “color”. Some of them stuck and became standard spelling in US English.
I always seem to mix up its and it’s as well, and I AM a native English speaker! It’s hard even for us sometimes. The way I remember it, “it’s” is ONLY used as a contraction for “it is.” If you can’t replace “it’s” with “it is” and have the sentence make sense, then use “its” instead.
interesting – would have never noticed that…
Everyone here is correct. It’s just difference between British (correct) English to American (Slang in my opinion) spelling.
Another one is Defence (Brit) to Defense (Amer) or Offence (Brit) to Offense (Amer).
The one I never understood was Arse to Ass. Do Brits really pronounce it with the “r”?
Colour is the proper way to spell it. It is used in all proper English speaking countries like Britain and Canada. The only place you will read “color” is in American writing where they seem to have developed their own dialect. I believe it has something to do with their stiff accent on the “ou” sound. For example “hour” and “colour.” Same sound, different pronunciation. Americans would never be able to get used to this difference so they made up their own spelling because they feel empowered to do as they please.
English – Reasons Why the Language Is So Hard To Learn
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He’d be able to lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
As said, Color and Colour are differences between American English and British English.
Here’s a useful article if you like to read a little bit more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
re: Jims challenge:
There is a reason why their spelling is different. They’re three different words.
I guess “color/colour” is pretty thoroughly explained, so I’ll leave it alone.
@Jim: “There” is an adverb indicating a location. “Their” is a possessive adjective indicating that something belongs to “them”. Does that help?
As to the illusion: if we were to connect the ends of the vertical lines with a continuous curve, to make a curved “band,” we would find that the peaks and valleys of the curve are wider at their widest point (the top and bottom of the curve) than the middle of the curve is straight across. Even though the “band” is divided into individual cross-sections, our brain still fills in the missing parts (the so-called “gestalt” perception) to make a continuous whole. Thus, our brain ignores the true length of the lines and instead appreciates the imaginary “band” with its thick and thin areas.
My apologies for going a bit long.
Now that you’ve understood the difference between ‘read’ (present) and ‘read’ (past), you should know that ‘lead’ (present) turns into ‘led’ (past) not ‘lead’ (because that’s a heavy metal). However, lead (the heavy metal) is also pronounced ‘led’!
You gotta love how everyone wants to explain the same thing that’s been explained 5 times already.
Cool illusion.
As to there, their, and they’re: there is a place, their is possessive, and they’re is a contraction of they are.
They’re there by their car.
As in Canadua?
color is american
colour is canadian
You can remember them like this:
‘There’ contains the word ‘here’. If you can’t substitute the word ‘here’ and have it make sense, then ‘there’ is not the right one. (Of course, the meaning might change, but it will still make sense.)
‘They’re’ is a contraction that uses the apostrophe for the ‘a’, so it means ‘they are’.
And ‘their’ contains the word ‘heir’, like heir to a fortune, so you can think of it like getting or having something, possessive.
Does that help?
Color is US, colour is English, it’s the same with a lot of other words too.
neighbor, neighbour for example =)
i have dyslexia, so i say don’t worry i don’t understand english and it’s my first langaue, there’s just tooomany stupid rule that make little to no sense , and i belive with color and colour it’s the same word yet one is more for like comerceail use rather then anything else.
An early American (I think it was Webster of dictionary fame) decided that the “u” of colour, etc., was not pronounced, at least in the U.S., so he dropped it to simplify the spelling. I think he also dropped some letters in other words so the spelling was closer to the way they were pronounced in the states.
“Colour” is British English. When they got the boot from America, Benny Franklin and the rest of them decided that all things British were not cool so they stopped drinking tea and started drinking coffee, changed biscuit to cookie and removed all the letters from words that they considered extraneous.
And so “areoplane” became “airplane”, “aluminium” became “aluminum”, “colour” became “color” and so on.
Now if someone would explain why Americans pronounce “data” with a hard a.
Yup, color is the American spelling, colour is the British spelling. The same applies with lots of other words you’ll find, like neighbor/neighbour, honor/honour, center/centre, traveled/travelled, even ass/arse. It doesn’t really matter what you use unless people are fussy about it.
Guess your question has been answered by now, although I would have preferred the difference to be American color and Canadian colour.
Although those of us north of the border do have an (arguably) British heritage (along with French and Native Canadian), the proximity of a nation ten times our size over the past two hundred years has definitely presented us with a fine set of problems.
Imagine dealing with the metric (Canadian) and imperial (American, yes American)measuring systems all our lives. I am 61 and had to learn metric early in school, long before it became the legal standard here. I can function adequately in either realm, but do not ask me to convert. Usually I just select the system that offers the easiest round-off, eg., I live 100 miles, not 160 kilometres, north of Vancouver BC.
Then there’s the question about kilometers vs kilometres!
Really enjoy your column.
Their means something belongs to someone. ie – Those are their coats.
There is a location. ie – The coats are over there.
Does that help a little>
OK, english lesson time, sorry if these have already been covered. ‘It’s’ is the shortened version, or contraction of ‘it is’ with the ‘i’ from ‘is’ replaced with an apostrophe. ‘Its’ on the other hand is a possessive word, used when referring to the thing belonging to ‘it’. e.g. the house has its windows closed.
‘Color’ is simply the American English version of the British english word ‘colour’, hence Game Boy COLOR is American, well Japanese because of Nintendo, then translated, but you get the picture. It’s the same for other words. Although these days the two are so melded together it really doesn’t matter which you write where. Great illusion though.
Colour is british, color is not. No difference. Like grey and gray. Same thing.
strange, nobody talked about the illusion so far…
come on all, it’s (it is) really not that difficult.
it’s = it is
they’re = they are
these must be interchangable in a sentence, otherwise it’s the version without the ‘.
For example, you must say: “The children are terrorizing their parents.” Because it obviously makes no sense to say: “The children are terrorizing they are parents.”
Another: “The dog is licking its ass.” Obviously wrong: “The dog is licking it is ass.”
Not to mention: they’re. Or maybe here and hear. Are, our, and hour… ahhh homonyms… gotta love ‘em.
Hey, I have an English Lit degree from Baylor University, and I have extensive knowledge with teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) to French and Spanish students. I rarely find serious grammatical errors in your postings, and if you want to see how even native English speakers screw-up the it’s–its dichotomy, look at todays Dallas Morning News where a writer actually used it’s when he should have used its…”Mr. Fix It’s defense sacked”…. Which means Mr. Fix It is defense sacked…the quote refers to Wade Phillps (Mr Fix It) and the Dallas Cowboys’ defense
I never knew the difference between them too, English is not my mother language as well.
To Jim, this I do know: “there” is used to point to a place for example “I’ve been there.” but their is posessive for example “Their nationality.” It’s about the same thing as with “it’s”/”its”
Hope to help!
Hanna
There’s a great ‘I Love Lucy’ where Ricky is having an incredibly hard time pronouncing
cough, rough, bough, dough, and through
2Jim
“there” is like here(closer) and there(farther)
“their” is a possessive noun (their school, their stuff, etc)
Generally, any time there are two words, one with a ‘u’ and one without (favour/favor, honour/honor, for example), the one with the ‘u’ is the British English and the one without is the American English. Same as ‘meter’ and ‘liter’ are American whereas we Brits spell them ‘metre’ and ‘litre’. Another common difference is Americans often use a ‘z’ in place of an ‘s’ in the British spelling (eg organise/organize, recognise/recognize, realise/realize)
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences if you’re really interested in all the differences
There is a placement term, like saying, “Put the book over there.” Their is possessive, as in, “That book is theirs.” As for they’re, another term commonly mixed up with there and their, they’re is a contraction of ‘they are’. “They’re putting their book over there.” Is basically similar, if not the same, as saying, “They are putting the book that belongs to them in that general area.”
There and Their are easy. ‘There’ is similar to ‘Here’ which specifies a location, so ‘There’ is also referring to a location. ‘Their’ is usually possesive, ‘it is their choice’, but is also sometimes used as a desexed version of he or she.
Wait until you try to work out the difference between Licence and License — that’s the one that gets me.
There is a location, such as “there, on the table”.
Their refers to two or more people, “that’s their car”.
Also, they’re is a contraction of they are, e.g. “they’re dancing very well”
I apologize regularly to my son for the necessity of his learning English… in many ways it truly is an absurd language (even if it is my mother language… the American version, anyway).
heh – and while you’re at it – They’re
Love the site – thanks
Hi ok as for color and colour go color is the american or USA’s way of spelling it while colour is canadian way i use colour for the reason that im canadian hope that helps you
it’s is a contraction for it is so it’s a black pen or it’s an autobiography (witch i should finish writing right now)
“There” is a place, somewhere other than “here”.
“Their” refers to something that some other people have, as in “It’s their baby,” or “Let’s go to their house.”
Thank you for running this very interesting website.
yea the people that say colour just try to sound fancy and more mature than others, its pointless. were all american here.
Everyone is saying “british”, but its used elsewhere too. like, in Canada we spell it “colour”. so really American’s are the only ones who spells it without a ‘u’. same goes for other words. Ex: “savior” vs “saviour”. That American’s are just goofy that way :P
‘there’ is used when you’re talking about a place, i.e. “My book is over there.”
‘their’ is a possessive pronoun – “My neighbours loved their lawn.”
Their is possesive and used to describe something that belongs to someone…
It’s their ball so give it back!
There relates to places….
The ball is over there, or even
Their ball is over there!
and of course you also have they’re which is just shoert for they are, so
They’re sad their ball is over there.
PS Love the site too, visit every day! Thanks
there = “that place over there”
their = “it was their choice to do that”
they’re = contraction of they are = “so what do you think they’re upto?”
As for UK AF and Government moving to AmerEnglish spellings – I doubt that this is a deliberate thing
Ya, English is the language of rules that get made up on the spot. And then changed later.
It’s very confusing, and even we native speakers have some bad grammar.
Moslty just by the definitions of the schools who haven’t updated to the modern language where nobody says whom. I still don’t know the proper time to use that.
And since everyone has already basically explained colour, I feel the need to add that we in Canada use colour, as well as the British.
color is american and colour is the canadian spelling. both are said the same way. if you try spell check you will see that it will correct colour to color. cheers!
Jim, pronounce thier as the-ar and u wont mix them up! not using proper english right now… :D
English is a very confusing language. So confusing, in fact, that many native speakers do not know when to use “its” and when to use “it’s”. For good reason: in most cases, “‘s” at the end of a word generally implies a possessive sence to the noun preceeding the apostrophe, but that is not the case in this situation. When the noun is “it”, there is no apostrophe before the “s” to denote a possessive sense. The apostrophe is only used to indicate a contraction of the two word “it is”. I am not going to go into “there” and “their”, let alone “they’re”!
its is actually used all the time its the only word that dosn’t need an apostraphy at any time even though its a short hand for it is. The strange pronunciation comes from 2 things 1 the strange mix of languages that english is composed of (latin old french germanic norse briton(welsh/celtic)and some more) the 2nd is the fact the english dropped all the accents (eg è é ü æ Þ. As for the illusion its a very good effect though I’m sure I’ve seen it before
@jim
their is the 3.p.plural of “something they own”
there is -for example- when you tell somebody that something is in another place or just not here
The good old English language eh? Only last week did our youngest daughter ask why ‘minute’ has two meanings!
Just to throw you a few new curves in English, try these:
Raise, raze, rays, Ray’s. Raise & raze have exact opposite meanings.
Now in English we also have three (to, too, two)’s and three (for, fore, four)’s, but we only use the to and for sounds once when we speak the above sentence.
There are many other crazy usages of words in English.
For the meaning of words, the besst site I have found is:
http://www.etymonline.com/
The eye will judge the thickness of the appearant line and the brain will think the line length will match the line thickness.
color is the american was of spelling colour. if you are leaarning english i sugest using colour and spelling it the RIGHT way.
@ Alan P-J
You say that the British Govt is changing its spelling of “colour” to the lazy American way . . . well, that will be over my dead body! It is our language so maybe they might be better off trying to persuade the Americans to spell and pronounce English language words correctly. What really bugs me about the ‘net is that, in the majority of cases where you need to choose a language, you are only given the choice of American English! What happened to good old ENGLISH English!
There’s also “your” (which is possessive) and “you’re” (which is a contraction, like “it’s”). I love that people are interested in grammar and spelling.
And yes, those lines in the illusion look to me as though they’re (not “their” or “there”) different lengths, even though they’re not.
The colour/color difference is spanned across the Atlantic, however, within English there is even more fun to be had, per se:
Bow (noun) – length of fabric/string tied leaving two loops showing.
Bow (verb) – to bend at the waist, to curtsey.
Bough ((noun) – pronounced like the word meaning curtsey)) – limb of a tree
Rough (noun) – Pronounced ‘ruff’)) – coarse, harsh, not smooth
Ruff (archaic, noun) – that neckwear seen being worn around the time if Shakespeare, in modern terms using the word ‘ruffles’ conveys a similar meaning. for ‘ruffles’ see the front of some evening wear for men.
Tuff (noun) – a type of igneous rock.
Tough ((noun) – pronounced ‘tuff’)) – hardy, able to cope under stressfule situations, strong.
English, a great language, and one day those that invented it will understand it fully, currently those that do use it have very little care for it.
As a Greek guy living in England, I had to learn many differences between the American and the British ways of spelling and pronouncing things.
As everyone else says, “colour” is the British spelling. In non-USA and non-British countries, the difference has been dilluted.
Contrary to AlanP-J, the British spelling is very strongly enforced in England by the british people themselves. There is no central control of the language. In contrast to the French Academie, who create the French language rules, the british-english language evolves by the people and eventualy becomes the norm. There are no central plans to move over to the American spelling.
It is in fact such linguistic differences that enforce the sence of “belonging” to a different group. As Paul Merton, the actor and comedian, said once about language, [paraphrase] “people in one village share a very strong dislike of the people in the other village down the road, just because they all talk funny over there”. Don’t read too much into it, other than, groups of people need differences in language and expressions so they can have an identity.
See:
“theatre”[uk] vs “theater”[us]
“centre”[uk] vs “center”[uk]
Quiz: How many different spellings of the letters “ough” can you think, when these occur in words?
Hint:
- Though
- Through
- Tough
- Slough [town in Berkshire]
Apologies, the word ‘tough’ is an adjective and there is no extraneous “e” at the end of ‘stressful’.
this is a great illusion!
Its is for belonging to it, it’s is for it is
Colour and color, like a few other words, are spelt differently in England and America, and sometimes they have different words for the same thing: like Pavement and Sidewalk
Going offtop I see.))
I believe “there” is the opposite of “here”
(Eiffel tower is in Paris, let’s go THERE.) and “their” means “belongs to them”.
(It’s not my but their problem.)
You Americans just stole our English language and removed all the ‘u’s, and not to mention changed all the ‘s’s to ‘z’s! (and that’s a zed, not a zee)
:(
Their is related to its,:
My (belongs to me),
Your (belongs to you),
His/Hers/Its (belongs to him/her/it),
Our (belongs to us),
Your (belongs to you plural),
Their (belongs to them)
There is a place.
It’s is a contraction of it is.
On color and colour, as others have said the difference in spelling and country of origin. There are quite a few of these things out there. Labor and labour, favor and favour, some more common than others. Another similar class of words are theater and theatre, center and centre. In all of these the US spelling precedes the UK spelling. Generally speaking -or and -er = US. -our and -re = UK.
Glad to know you have the same difficulties as I do. It is not easy for a non-English native understand such “small” differences. Like you, I do my best to practice and have a perfect written English. I love your site and I love you as well. Since many people have already explained your doubts, I have nothing else to say… :)
There is such as a place and their is a person.
There you are
It’s over there.
It’s their object.
They went to their house.
Color is the American spelling, colour is used by the rest of the countries which were once part of the British empire.
This is actually because of the American war for independence. Noah Webster (who served in the Connecticut Militia during the revolutionary war) when he decided to write a dictionary for Americans wanted to differentiate American English from British English. He felt that the British spelling was overly complex and so he made a number of changes to his “An American Dictionary of the English Language” (Now known as “The Webster’s Dictionary”)
Colour became Color,
Theatre became Theater
Labelled became Labeled
etc.
If you want a more exhaustive list you can just Google “American spellings” there are a number of web pages on the different spellings.
There can indicate a statement of fact, or indicate the existence of an object: There is a hole in my shoe. There can indicate location: The book is there, by the lamp. Their is possessive: That is their house.
There can be no doubt that English is a crazy language. It can drive non-native speakers out of their minds. :)
Another example of American vs. UK is theater and theatre. Basically, Americans have changed words, like dropping the e in the middle of judgement.
Jim, their is the possessive.
there – refers to a place (over there, under there etc.)
their – refers to a group of people (look at their hair etc)
they’re is short for they are (they’re being silly)
there is as in ‘my car is over there’
their is as in ‘that is their car’.
Their is a plural possessive, and there refers to directions. Hope that helps!
Their is possessive (pronoun),
“I don’t know their names”
“I wonder if this is their cat?”
There is an adverb (modifies a noun, adjective or other adverbs)
“Let’s go over there”
“There will be a fight tonight”
As submitted by other people, colour is the British English version of the word. With one small addition; some of the past and present British Colonies use this spelling. Canadians, for example, use the word “colour” as well as the word “grey” in place of “gray” which is used in the US. As well, by pronouncing the letter “z” as “zed” instead of “zee” as the US does. ….English truly is one of the hardest languages to learn.