[Discussion] Citizenship Act (October 2018)

[Cormac]

Just a quick question here but:

(1) Do we use American or English spelling in Assembly documents?

(2) Should we include a specification in the Assembly Procedures Act under the sub-section on formatting?

(1) American English is the de facto spelling used in Mandate 12 and the APA. That wasn't really intentional, it's just that I'm American, I use American English, and I was the primary drafter for both of those. There are other Assembly members who aren't American though, like McChimp, so it's possible the Queen's English has found its way into some of our laws. I haven't been paying attention.

(2) I wouldn't, for a couple different reasons. For starters, it just seems like needless work for someone, whether that be a person drafting a bill, or the Speaker before putting it up to vote. Secondly, though, there are more differences than just British English vs. American English. You also have Canadian English, Australian English, and other dialects which, while more similar to British English than American, still have slight variations in the spelling of some words. So, what I'm getting at here is that this could be very complicated. I'm not sure it's worth the complication.

Also, @"Sheepshape" has a degree in Linguistics, so I'm paging her to back me up on this.