[Ads-l] "Grey" in AmE

[Mark Mandel]

Part of a thread on a copyeditors' list I belong to:

Original post:
On Mar 4, 2016 12:10 PM
Subject: "Grey" not dead yet
>
> From the wild:
>
> "Grey is the new beige."
>
> ---Crate & Barrel
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/special-features/how-we-create-natural-mix/1

> Maybe they like the visual effect of the e's in "grey," "beige," and
"neutral."

My reply:
So do I. Native AmE speaker, but I've used that particular British spelling
for many years, for just that reason.

Others:

> I'd estimate that about a third of my American clients (mostly fiction
writers), even when we specify AmE and use CMOS [Chicago Manual of Style]
and M-W [Merriam-Webster], the whole nine yards, prefer grey over gray.
It's fascinating to me, a UK-born Anglo-Canadian who has always used grey
but has no problem switching to gray.

>> Grey is alive and well, even in AmE. I just sent a book to the printer
for which that spelling was specified on the style sheet. US author. US
copyeditor (not me, in this case). People are entitled to their preference,
non?

Mark Mandel

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