the psychology of Gray/Grey

[Bob Haas]

Oh, it's fairly offensive, since I try to be only marginally pretentious,
but I do agree with you  It seems in keeping, though, with my combined
academic and theatrical careers.  Hey, if you're discussing Molière, you're
talking about theatre.  And my area of study is in Shakespeare; I see
theatre all the time.  Whaddyagonnadoo?  BTW, like the grey/gray phenomenon,
one can only differentiate (really) between the two on the page.  At least,
that's how it works in my case.  In most instances, I detest such affected
pronunciations as vase (rhymes with Oz) and harass (rhymes with Roger
Maris).  But those are my peeves.

> From: Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:39:16 +0200
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: the psychology of Gray/Grey
>
> Bob Haas:
>> I use "theatre/theater" in exactly the way you mention, Lynne--theatre
>> equaling drama and theater equaling edifice--despite knowing that there's
>> essentially no difference.  But despite that knowledge, I still use both
>> theatre and theater.  It just feels correct.
>> But the whole grey/gray thing?  No diff.  I tend to use grey, but I
> couldn't
>> really say why.  Probably some suppressed anglophilic agenda.
>> bob
>
> No offence, but isn't theatre a tad pretentious? It's a pet peeve of mine,
> though only in American English.
>
> Curious,
> Paul
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