I went to look up the Chinese word for “metre” in my electronic dictionary the other day. To my horror, I had sought out and entered the American spelling, “meter”. Being the Oxford dictionary, there was no such entry, only a pointer to its entry for “metre”.
This sad state of personal affairs is a consequence of my job. I work for an English-language science journal here in China, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, and the editorial standard of the journal is to use American spellings. So after two years of editing for this journal, I guess I’ve developed the nasty habit. I hope it’s reversible!