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Comment by Navarr | Hacker News Reader

Just out of curiosity, in what countries is it "Tyre"? Can any HNer's fill me in?

It's "tire" in Canada, but our Commonwealth status has stopped meaning anything at all. We owe more to our American cultural ties than to our historical monarchy and our tendency towards UK English.

Source: my entire life and, I suppose, http://canadiantire.ca

UK -- or at least it used to be (wouldn't be surprised if more people were using the american form now).

Any country that uses British spelling for things.

That really depends, because "British spelling" isn't an all-or-nothing thing -- many of the Commonwealth countries show broad variation in how much they adhere to the traditional UK spellings.

Thus, for example, Australia has a Labor party, not a Labour party (while neighbor New Zealand does have a Labour party), and typically sends people to jail instead of to gaol. Canada usually has tires instead of tyres, and Canadians realize things instead of realising them.

It's probably worth noting that "gaol" hasn't been common in British English for some time. A search of the BBC news site reveals "jail" being used almost daily while "gaol" is only used to refer to historical buildings which are now closed.

Well, on etymologic grounds, "gaol" is closer to French (goale, while the pronunciation is different) than the Old English equivalent (gaylle, gaille, gaile) - so jail is somewhat closer to the Old English, in form and pronunciation.

The ALP (Australian Labor Party) changed the spelling of their name deliberately in 1912 order to distinguish it from the general labour movement and also to make them appear more progressive and modern by using the American spelling.

More information on Australian spelling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English#Spelling

Not sure about NZ & Oz but you would never see it written "tyre" in Canada and I bet most Canadian's would have no idea "tyre" was an alternative spelling for tire.

In Australia it's spelled "tire" as far as I know. I've never really seen the spelling "tyre" used here before, hence invalidating the claim that any country that relies on British spelling all use the same spellings for words.

Actually it is tyre in Australia.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=tyre

Now here's a case where having points visible would help those not-in-the-know to see what those-who-are-in-the-know think of the he said/she said between DigitalSea and hartror above

Given you can't see points, hartror is correct, and here's a collection of tyre retailer names as evidence

Kmart Tyre & Auto Service

Welshpool Tyre Service

Berry's Tyres

Fremantle Tyrepower

Ian Diffen World of Tyres & Mufflers

West State Tyre Service

National Tyres

(you get the idea)

How long have you lived in Australia? I have never seen "tire" used here before.

I will openly admit in front of you all that I was wrong. I've lived in Australia all of my life, Queensland to be exact. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, I was almost convinced that it was spelled "tire" not "tyre" but you people are correct. No offence taken.

Two questions (and I'm not trying to be snarky or aggressive here!)

1) Are you Australian? (sub question, were you born Australian?)

2) What state/territory do you live in?

Because every state and territory I've lived in, it's been tyre. I've never seen tire used except by non-native speakers.

Tyre is English.

New Zealand, as we are a british colony.

it's tyre in ireland.

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