Iadmit to having some peculiarities. Most could be

downgraded to mere preferences. A Roman soldier's 'peculia' were the personal possessions he carried, apart from army issue. One's peculiarities are the things that are "mine own", as Shakespeare's Touchstone said of Audrey. For example, I prefer a shirt with buttons and, when necessary, a necktie to a Tshirt, especially the kind that posts a message. I avoid garments that promote places, brands or causes, however pleasant or noble. I even dislike wearing a 'Hello! I'm So and so' name tag, just as I resist donning any slogan or logo.

I also prefer some British and European usages to those that are current in either Usanian or Canadian America. I may soon advocate the Québec usage of 1$ (or 1.50$) rather than $1 (or $1.50) to distinguish the loonie from the greenback. I deal hereinafter with other preferred usages under three headings.

1. Words. I prefer to live 'in' a given street rather than 'on' it. It seems to me that to live on the street implies homelessness. A saver of excerpts from newspapers and magazines, I like the word 'cuttings' rather then 'clippings'. I clip my nails and never save them but I cut and save many things from the paper. Thus, my files are of press cuttings rather than clippings. Further, I use the word 'crisps' for those crinkly or saddle shaped comestibles that one offers with drinks before dinner. Potato chips are the things that come wrapped with fish in paper. They are cousins of French fried potatoes but they are quite distinct from crisps. My guests, I am certain, would bridle at being offered fish shop chips with their sherry just as I would resist 'French fries' in the same situation.

Furthermore, since the word 'raise' is a verb and 'rise' is a noun, one should not ask the boss for a 'raise'. Ask, rather, for a salary rise. The British are also more correct in using the term 'underground' for what is called here a subway. Properly, a subway is a road that passes under another road, an underpass. It is short and open ended. Further, if we have railways, why not, as in the U.K., motorways rather than superhighways? I would even go so far as to encourage 'fly-overs' and 'lay-bys' in Canada. If you are not familiar with those terms, ask somebody. And I prefer 'car park' to 'parking lot', a theatre 'interval' to an 'intermission'.

2. Pronunciation. Interested as I am by the surnames derived from our ancestors' occupations (Miller, Carter, Butcher, Carpenter) I call clerks in shops 'clarks' because that is the origin of the name. Do you know anyone whose surname is Clerk? Similarly, I encourage a clear distinction between one's aunts and those industrious insects that, nevertheless, have time to go to all the picnics. 'Aunt' and 'ant' should, surely, be distinct. With reasonable care one can make the distinction without sounding pedantic.

Speaking of pedantry, one hesitates to rail unduly against the use of 'loo-tenant' for one who holds the rank of 'lef-tenant' or, in naval parlance, 'letenant'. Our pronunciation may have arisen from the fact that the first printers used a 'v' for both the modern letters 'u' and 'v'. So 'lieutenant' appeared for some time in print as 'lievtenant'. If the U.S. military uses a French-style pronunciation for lieutenants, why does it not also call colonels 'col-on-els' rather than 'kernels'? And that Toronto E-Zee Rock radio station should be charged with treason against Canadian usage, let alone against music. The final letter of the alphabet is 'zed'.

Both French and German pronounce it that way, as do we. 'Zee' is too easily mistaken for 'c'. Perhaps a regional English pronunciation centuries ago, it was likely changed for that reason. Some will think me eccentric when I say that I came home from study and teaching time in Britain with a definite distaste for the dispensable letter 'z'. I had learned to prefer Sir Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation' series to "civilization". The important word 'jazz", of course, presents a problem.

3. Spelling. I insist on 'centre' never 'center'. Was there, perhaps, a spelling purist among those who attacked the World Trade 'Center'? Why not 'Wurld Trade Senter', if one must spell like a Grade 2 youngster? The same applies to safeguarding the words 'theatre', 'metre', 'catalogue', 'jewellery', 'traveller', 'cheque' and the like. A growing problem may result from the increasing influence of out-of-the country head offices. Will they impose their Webster spelling rules on office correspondence and those who plan their advertising? Noah Webster was the compiler of a dictionary that, like the Declaration of Independence, was a deliberate rejection of British usage. He said that language, like government, should be "national".

A case could be made for widespread spelling reform on phonetic principles. Meanwhile, spelling peculiarities from below the border should be resisted. By Webster's own principle, Canadian schools should use only Canadian English dictionaries. Many teachers are lax in correcting spelling errors that their students see in common use.

That said, I am prepared to accept 'program' instead of 'programme' and, on my car, 'tires' rather than 'tyres'. But let's not let that kind of thing get out of hand. I insist on a house of three storeys rather than three 'stories' even though the latter might be an accurate description of the lives lived there. And I vilify those publishing houses that convert British and Canadian novels into USAmerican spelling. Such books should be taxed at the border like soft wood lumber moving in the other direction and the money given to Canadian publishers who resist such revisionism. Surely anyone in Hoboken or Tuscaloosa could still follow the plot if the author's Oxford spelling were retained.

Some may think these concerns trivial. The novelist, Thomas Hardy, said that too many writers, rather than putting music into their words, simply hang them out like clothes on a fire escape to dry. Most employers still give priority to those applicants who can spell correctly and speak and write with some style. For this writer British and Commonwealth standards are the preferred usage.