THESE COLOURS DON’T RUN

For what it’s worth, I’m not very patriotic. I don’t own a flag pin, I don’t know the Pledge of Allegiance, and I really just take the Fourth of July as an excuse to smoke blunts and drink light beer. That having been said, people who “use the British spelling” really fucking piss me off. Do I think America spells everything right by default? Not really. I guess it’s debatable. But unless you’re actually from Great Britain, there is absolutely no reason for you to say “colour,” “favourite,” or “programme.” Actually, if you think about it, it takes more effort to type or write “programme” than it would to just say “program” and admit that you are, in fact, from America. I’m not all that amped on the United States right now, but the issue at hand clearly transcends nationality and ventures into a realm I really try to avoid: completely unprovoked pretentiousness.

Witness Exhibit A: after some tactful Facebook stalking, I found the following little tidbit… names have been changed to protect my bankroll.

Person A wrote at 3:44pm on July 13th, 2008 I’m quite excited. It’s grueling now that I’ve finished the summer program I was doing and have nothing to distract me from thinking about starting school. My choices were modernization of europe, the group dynamics psych class, inventing the mid east, and the poetry workshop.

Person B at 2:01pm on July 14th, 2008 Awesome. What was the summer programme?

…now, I know for a solid fact that the perpetrator is not at all from Great Britain. This is simply an issue of completely unprovoked pretentiousness. Understand this fact: using the British spelling does not make you look cool. It makes you look like an asshole. Please devote a page of your “anime hero” themed spiral notebook to copying the phrase “I look like an asshole” as many times as it’ll fit. Please devote the next page to the word “program.”

Then we can all watch NASCAR.

These colours don’t run.