Two groups are forming on my contact list, as I settle into a social life here in California: My old prominently-Canadian comrades, and my new American friends. Today, I find myself having to think twice every time I write “colour” or “favourite”, cut back, and rewrite it without our endearing u depending on the recipient.

All of this is expected, but what occured to me is that I’ve been writing “color” since I first cracked open a terminal. In fact, I just wrote grep --color=auto a moment ago and didn’t skip a beat.

So, when it comes to my brain, the default spelling in English language: colour; default spelling in programming language: color. What gives? Feels like the two are independent parts of the brain. Anyone have similar experiences?