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This is not a duplicate of questions such as“Login” or “log in”? or “log in to” or “log into” or “login to”. The reason is that this question deals specifically with converting from American English to Canadian English and the underlying differences between those two dialects, whereas those other questions do not specify or deal with particular dialects. I don't want to assume the answers in those questions apply universally without confirmation.

Please also note that I think a requirement to "translate" between these two dialects is kind of unreasonable in most situations, but I was just doing as I was told by the company, which in turn was doing what the client mentioned in the contract.

In American, something a lot of people don't seem to realize is that "login"/"logout" is for nouns, and "log in" / "log out" is for verbs. You shouldn't use either set interchangeably. (Again, note the first paragraph.)

Right now, I'm translating some software between American and Canadian English. For things in Canadian where both British- and American-style spellings and such are correct, we're wanting to lean more towards indigenous or British usage.

Inevitably the words "login" and "logout" have come up. Somebody already translated them as being one word each in the Canadian dialect, despite their usage as verbs, but I'm wondering if I should change them to be two words each.

In Canadian, when used as verbs, do you have to write "log in" and "log out", instead of "login" and "logout"? Does it matter? What about noun usage? Part of the reason of my asking this here is that online translators are liable to just spit the same spellings out, regardless of the answer. Thanks!

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Panzercrisis
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    The problem with writing the verb login as one word is conjugating it: he logins, I loginned, you are loginning. *Don't do it*. – Peter Shor May 29 '14 at 14:47
  • Being Canadian, I would never consider using either login or logout as a verb. Nevertheless, that may have more to do with education than with citizenship. – Anonym May 29 '14 at 15:39
  • Technically people log in. The process that logs them in is the login procedure. – Oldcat May 29 '14 at 21:08
  • possible duplicate of Logging in or on? Also “log in to” or “log into” or “login to” – FumbleFingers Mar 09 '15 at 18:00
  • @FumbleFingers It's not a duplicate. I learned the answers to those questions a long time ago. Technically though, the answer could have depended on the version of English, and you basically don't hear anybody in the US describing what the rule is specifically for Canadian English. – Panzercrisis Mar 09 '15 at 18:06
  • @FumbleFingers Note the first pargraph, including the last sentence. – Panzercrisis Mar 09 '15 at 18:08
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    @Panzercrisis: I think the idea that AmE and "Canadian English" usages are so different as to require "translating" is misguided in and of itself. There are no "official bodies" defining or enforcing "standard usage" for either of these regional variations. People in both countries recognise (and use) all the relatively common variants anyway - and the same applies in all other Anglophone countries. – FumbleFingers Mar 09 '15 at 18:15
  • @FumbleFingers The client was the only one misguided about this, and I was just doing what my boss told me to do. – Panzercrisis Mar 09 '15 at 18:16
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    Where's your evidence that AmEng actually distinguishes them? – curiousdannii Mar 10 '15 at 23:51
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    @Panzercrisis it would be unfair to delete your question after it received an answer which had received three upvotes. Don't get so worked up, I just posted a question myself and got a downvote. If anything it's EL&U's way of saying This question needs improvement/further research/ whatever. You got "unlucky" that people noticed your edited post. Only 150 views, and two downvotes. If it were that terrible, it would have been immediately closed No one thinks the question is foolish. – Mari-Lou A Mar 11 '15 at 13:02
  • @curiousdannii I was always tending strongly towards the idea that there was no difference. One of my co-workers though had done an earlier release of the translation work a while back, then quit. Then I had to update it somewhat, but I saw things in there being spelled like "logout". I think this was in both versions, and I knew that it was wrong in American...and I was pretty confident English is fairly consistent on this point, even between dialects with much more meaningful spelling differences...but I wanted to make sure. – Panzercrisis Mar 11 '15 at 15:12
  • @Mari-LouA I'll think about it. It would probably be better if SE took a little bit of a softer tone about things, took a little less of a "presumed guilty" approach, and really provided more of a way for OPs to resolve things and back out of things like this. – Panzercrisis Mar 11 '15 at 15:33

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If it's of any help, the official portal for the Canadian Govt uses Log in as verb enter image description here

As well as the Canadian Association of second language teacher

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