Gray or Grey?

Once I determined my vanity could accommodate gray hair, I worried about how to spell it: gray or grey?  A retired English teacher, I am pretty persnickety about words.  Which would be correct?  Or at least best?

Curious, I Googled.  Turns out gray-with-an-a is the generally accepted American spelling while grey-with-an-e is British, according to the definitions I looked at.  One helpful site pointed out a nifty mnemonic: grAy = American spelling; grEy = English.

Which diverted me from obsessing about gray (or not) hair to considering some of the differences between British and American spelling (not to mention definitions and pronunciation, but that’s another topic or two).  I vaguely remember that when I was very young, some spellings retained the British “u”in words like color/colour, honor/honour, favor/favour.  I thought the spelling conventions were just then changing, but it turns out (another foray into Google) that current British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), whereas many American spellings follow Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).

Naturally, the next step would be to find out how Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster spelled gray/grey in their respective dictionaries.  Assuming that grey would be Dr. Johnson’s choice, I looked there first.  Here’s the first part of his entry: “GREY. adj. [gris, French. More properly written gray.]  See GRAY.”  Hmm. He does, however, quote a line from King Lear which uses grey, but no doubt gray is his choice.  He goes on for at least a third of a page with definitions of gray, including illustrative quotes from Milton, Newton, Dryden and Shakespeare, among others.  (That Shakespeare used both spellings is no surprise.  He’s never been accused of being a consistent speller.)

Well, then.  Let’s see what Noah Webster’s American dictionary has to say.  “GRAY.” Webster doesn’t include any examples, just several definitions of gray as both noun and adjective (“white with a mixture of black,” “white: hoary,” etc.).   Webster’s entry for grey reads simply, “See Gray.”

So much for the observation about American/British spelling sources, at least where gray/grey is concerned.

So I’m glad I chose gray-with-an-a.    Gray seems lighter, airier, less ashen than grey.  Though I kind of like Webster’s “hoary.” Jazzes things up a bit.