Why Humor and Not Humour?
Happy New and Improved Year everyone! And speaking of new,
you’ll notice that we are changing our name to Humor at Work.
After only 334 issues, we realized that some spam filters don’t
like the word hump! So it’s simply Humor at Work, and yes, my
fellow patriotic Canadians, it’s humor without the “u.” Here’s
why, by the way, I don’t use the British spelling of humour:
I’m not British! Okay, seriously, in academic circles the
internationally accepted spelling by organizations such as The
International Group for Humor Studies (of which I am a member,
because really, how could you not want to be a member of an
association with THAT name?), is humor. The Globe and Mail
Newspaper curiously uses both humor and humour, while Canadian
dictionaries suggest that either spelling is acceptable.
As well, there’s those pesky web search engines that get upset
and can’t find me when I only use the “humour” spelling.
But also, think of the time I save by dropping a letter, and
the time you’ll save each week reading the word humor! This
could add up to seconds by the end of the year! Think
of the trees we will all save by keeping things shorter!
And by now, most of you really don’t care and haven’t even
noticed that I’ve been spelling humour humor. But, if I’ve
done something to initiate some debate and exciting dialogue
in your workplace, then I consider my job done for the year.
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