American spelling of shop name causes a stir in downtown Spalding

Colors & Curls owner Tracey Severn with daughter Amy with the Winsover Road shop sign which has got tongues wagging. Photo (NIKKI GRIFFIN): VNG150814-20

Colors & Curls owner Tracey Severn with daughter Amy with the Winsover Road shop sign which has got tongues wagging. Photo (NIKKI GRIFFIN): VNG150814-20

What’s in a name? Well, quite a bit a Spalding hairdressers’ shop has found out.

There was bemusement from some social media users and anger from others last week over the spelling of Colors & Curls, a new business in Winsover Road.
There was even a suggestion on Facebook page Spotted:Spalding that “Colors” was a spelling mistake, rather than intentionally spelt the American way.

However, business owner Tracey Severn says there is a simple reason why the shop name was spelt like that – Colours & Curls would have been 13 characters and she considered that unlucky.
She joked: “I don’t really consider myself superstitious but I wouldn’t walk under a ladder and I didn’t want 13 letters in the shop name, so I suppose I am!”

She added: “I didn’t want the usual hairdressers’ shop names that you get. My husband Michael came up with Colours & Curls, which I liked the sound of.
“But I realised it was 13 letters and it’s hard enough starting a new business without asking for any bad luck!
“So he said how about spelling it the American way.
“I really apologise to anyone if I have offended them with my sign.”

The business is Tracey’s first venture after qualifying as a hairdresser three years ago.
She wanted something which enabled her to down tools and leave work quickly, if necessary, to care for one of her five children. Daisy-May (7) has quadriplegia (a form of cerebral palsy) and West Syndrome (infantile spasms).

Tracey is part of a traveller family and never went to school, so she struggled with elements of the Boston College course, delivered at Spalding’s Red Lion Quarter.
She hopes to build up Colors & Curls and pass it on to daughter Amy (19), who completed the same hairdressing course and is working at the shop, which opened in June.

Amy admits to being “not impressed” by some of the Facebook comments but said a positive from the debate was that many more people had become aware of the shop.

One comment

  1. What an excuse. She could have called it Colour & Curls, and it would still have only been 12 letters. There are too many incorrect spellings around these days without a deliberate mistake being used. Imagine the scene – little child comes home from school with a cross against his spelling of ‘color’. They say ‘but it is spelt like that at the shop’. Your reply is what.? We are trying to teach our children to learn and spelt English, it is hard enough without American words being promoted.

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