Grey / gray
March 8th, 2005
Whenever I need to write the word "grey" I get caught for a moment in a logic loop. Both ‘grey’ and ‘gray’ are acceptable spellings, so I can’t decide which to use.
Today I was critiquing a website and needed to write about how bad the grey navigation was, so I tried both ways and flipped between ‘grey’ and ‘gray’ a few times. Doing This helped me to gauge which was best and I came to a decision, but afterwards I had to ask myself why?
Which spelling felt right was purely subjective, and my reasons for choosing would have remained totally subconscious had I not been flipping quickly between the options. As it was, I was able to ‘feel’ how my perception of the word changed when the vowel flipped over, and then decide which ‘felt’ right in the context.
In a moment of clarity I understood why I’d chosen. I realised (and this is where it starts to get a bit odd) that I’ve always subconsciously thought of the letter ‘a’ as having a refined and elegant character. I don’t know why – maybe because it’s the first letter in the alphabet, literally superior to rest. But in any case, that’s the way it feels to me.
I have felt something similar to this before. Sometime ago I had a job which required that I carry a large bunch of keys. These could be distinguished only by their id numbers, so to open a door I’d have to know the number of it’s key and find the right key on the bunch. Over time I learned the last three digits of the key numbers, and then, somehow, my brain began to project the ‘feel’ of the key numbers onto the doors they opened. It was only after years that I realised I was projecting evil onto odd numbered doors and that even doors felt good. It wasn’t profound – not enough to impinge into consciousness really. But there nonetheless. I could feel it: even numbers are good, odd are evil.
I think that these sensations are as close as I will ever come to experiencing synaesthesia.
In the end I went with ‘grey’. The navigation was lacklustre and it’s description didn’t deserve to be elevated with an ‘a’ (or so I reasoned). Decision made, the critique continued.