Gray and Grey

A recent post got me thinking about 'gray' and 'grey', and not for the first time too. Did you know that some colour charts consider grey and gray to be two different colours? Well, I did not. I often find myself debating on which of the two to use, the a or the e.  Usually I will choose depending on the letters in the following word. As in Gray Days I use 'gray' because it goes well with 'day'. Were it to be evening instead of day, I would choose grey instead. Being a fan of Grey’s Anatomy (both the Medical textbook and the TV show) didn’t help much either, as I seemed to have come to the conclusion that Grey is to names of people and Gray is to colours. Don’t ask me, I don’t how I came to the conclusion; my brain seems to have a lot of that going sometimes – drawing strange conclusions.

Google to the rescue. I decided to look characters Grey and Gray up; I’m not sure what took me so long seeing as I’m the ultimate Google poster girl. Apparently grey" (#D3D3D3) is considerably lighter than "gray" (#808080), and  some people see grey as a silver-like color, while seeing "gray" as a range of colours between white and black. British English uses 'grey' whereas American uses 'gray' although both will be found in usage in both types of English.

Warm gray, left; cool gray right.

Now that all that is ingrained in my gray matter I certainly won't be spending time debating over which one to use. Perhaps about which shade of grey compliments me better - of that I'm certain there will be some pause for thought.

Au revoir! Much Love,

         Katerina.