American and British English spelling differences
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British or Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth] English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828. Webster's efforts at spelling reform were effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between the American and British varieties of English.
Historical origins
In the early 18th century, English spelling was inconsistent. These differences became noticeable after the publication of influential dictionaries. British English spellings mostly follow Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, while many American English spellings follow Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language.Webster was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution, John Algeo notes: "it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States, but he did not originate them. Rather he chose already existing options such as center, color and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology". William Shakespeare's first folios, for example, used spellings such as center and color as much as centre and colour. Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did the Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted. In Britain, the influence of those who preferred the Norman spellings of words proved to be decisive. Later spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on American spellings and vice versa.
For the most part, the spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland closely resemble the British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities. Australian English mostly follows British spelling norms but has strayed slightly, with some American spellings incorporated as standard. New Zealand English is almost identical to British spelling, except in the word fiord |macron]s in words that originated in Māori and an unambiguous preference for -ise endings.
Latin-derived spellings (often through Romance)
''-our'', ''-or''
Most words ending in an unstressed ‑our in British English end in ‑or in American English. Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, the spelling is uniform everywhere.Most words of this kind came from Latin, where the ending was spelled ‑or. They were first adopted into English from early Old French, and the ending was spelled ‑our, ‑or or ‑ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became ‑our to match the later Old French spelling. The ‑our ending was used not only in new English borrowings, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used ‑or. However, ‑or was still sometimes found. The first three folios of Shakespeare's plays used both spellings before they were standardised to ‑our in the Fourth Folio of 1685.
After the Renaissance, new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original ‑or ending, and many words once ending in ‑our reverted to ‑or. A few words of the ‑our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart that ends in ‑or; for example, armor, behavior, harbor, neighbor; also arbor, meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate of the other word. The word arbor would be more accurately spelled arber or arbre in the US and the UK, respectively, the latter of which is the French word for "tree". Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that ‑or be used for words from Latin and ‑our for French loans; however, in many cases, the etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated ‑or only and others ‑our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain, but also for words where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, errour, governour, horrour, inferiour, mirrour, perturbatour, superiour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". English speakers who moved to the United States took these preferences with them. In the early 20th century, H. L. Mencken notes that "honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have been put there rather by accident than by design". In Jefferson's original draft it is spelled "honour". In Britain, examples of wikt:behavior rarely appear in Old Bailey court records from the 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts. One notable exception is honor. Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century; honor only exists in the UK now as the spelling of Honor Oak'', a district of London, and of the occasional given name Honor.
Derivatives and inflected forms
In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, British usage depends on the nature of the suffix used. The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been adopted into English. However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:- may be dropped, for example in honorary, honorific, humorist, humorous, invigorate, laborious, and vigorous;
- may be either dropped or kept, for example in coloration and colorize or colorise; or
- may be kept, for example in wikt:colourist.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots, not Latin or French. wikt:glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. Nevertheless, the adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". wikt:saviour is a somewhat common variant of wikt:savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for honour in the formal language of wedding invitations in the US. The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it because the spacecraft was named after British Captain James Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour. The special car on Amtrak's Coast Starlight train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor. Proper names such as Pearl Harbor or Sydney Harbour are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary.The name of the herb savory is spelled thus everywhere, although the related adjective savory, like savor, has a u in the UK. Honor and arbor have -or in Britain, as mentioned above, as does the word pallor. As a general noun, rigour has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor does not, such as in rigor mortis, which is Latin. Derivations of rigour/''rigor such as rigorous, however, are typically spelled without a u'', even in the UK. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere. Junior and senior were borrowed directly from Latin in the 13th century, and have never had -our forms anywhere.
The word armour was once somewhat common in American usage but has disappeared except in some brand names such as Under Armour.
The agent suffix -or is spelled thus both in American and British English.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. Canadian English most commonly uses the -our ending and -our- in derivatives and inflected forms. However, owing to the close historic, economic, and cultural relationship with the United States, -or endings are also sometimes used. Throughout the late 19th and early to mid-20th century, most Canadian newspapers chose to use the American usage of -or endings, originally to save time and money in the era of manual movable type. However, in the 1990s, the majority of Canadian newspapers officially updated their spelling policies to the British usage of -our. This coincided with a renewed interest in Canadian English, and the release of the updated Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1997 and the first Canadian Oxford Dictionary in 1998. Historically, most libraries and educational institutions in Canada have supported the use of the Oxford English Dictionary rather than the American Webster's Dictionary. The use of a distinctive set of Canadian English spellings is viewed by many Canadians as one of the unique aspects of Canadian culture.In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use throughout the 19th century and in the early 20th century. Like Canada, though, most major Australian newspapers have switched from "-or" endings to "-our" endings. The "-our" spelling is taught in schools nationwide as part of the Australian curriculum. The most notable countrywide use of the -or ending is for one of the country's major political parties, the Australian Labor Party, which was originally called "the Australian Labour Party", but was frequently referred to as both "Labour" and "Labor". The "Labor" spelling was adopted from 1912 onward due to the influence of the American labor movement and King O'Malley. On top of that, some place names in South Australia such as Victor Harbor, Franklin Harbor or Outer Harbor are usually spelled with the -or spellings. Aside from that, -our is now almost universal in Australia but the -or endings remain a minority variant. New Zealand English, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English, follows British usage.
''-re'', ''-er''
In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with a consonant followed by an unstressed -re. In modern American English, most of these words have the ending -er. The difference is most common for words ending in -bre or -tre: British spellings wikt:calibre all have -er in American spelling.In Britain, both -re and -er spellings were common before Johnson's 1755 dictionary was published. Following this, -re became the most common usage in Britain. In the United States, following the publication of Webster's Dictionary in the early 19th century, American English became more standardized, exclusively using the -er spelling.
In addition, the spelling of some words have been changed from -re to -er in both varieties. These include amber, blister, cadaver, chamber, chapter, charter, cider, coffer, coriander, cover, cucumber, cylinder, December, diaper, disaster, enter, fever, filter, gender, leper, letter, lobster, master, member, meter , minister, monster, murder, November, number, October, offer, order, oyster, powder, proper, render, semester, September, sequester, sinister, sober, surrender, tender, and tiger. Words using the -meter suffix normally had the -re spelling from earliest use in English but were superseded by -er. Examples include thermometer and barometer.
The e'' preceding the r is kept in American-inflected forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, which are fibres, reconnoitred, and centring respectively in British English. According to the OED, centring is a "word... of 3 syllables ", yet there is no vowel in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. The OED third edition allows either two or three syllables. On the Oxford Dictionaries Online website, the three-syllable version is listed only as the American pronunciation of centering. The e is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However, the existence of related words without e before the r is not proof for the existence of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance come from enter, which has not been spelled entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive and comparative forms. One outcome is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while "Metre " is often spelled as -re, pentameter, hexameter, etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words, such as anger, mother, timber and water, and such Romance-derived words as danger, quarter and river.The ending -cre, as in acre,Although acre was spelled æcer in Old English and aker in Middle English, the acre spelling of Middle French was introduced in the 15th century. Similarly, loover was respelled in the 17th century by influence of the unrelated Louvre. lucre, massacre, and mediocre, is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced rather than. The spellings euchre and ogre are also the same in both British and American English.
wikt:theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place. National US newspapers such as The New York Times use theater in their entertainment sections, the Times even corrects proper names from theatre to theater. The spelling theatre was previously more common, prevailing into at least the 1960s, with organizations such as Theatre Communications Group, founded 1961, and The Guthrie Theater, founded 1963, using it. The New York Times switched to using theater in 1962, The Guthrie changed its spelling in 1971, and the spelling has become increasingly common since.
The spelling theatre is a variant in American English. It appears frequently in names, such as those of many New York City theatres on Broadway, especially of things named when it was still the prevailing spelling.
It is sometimes claimed that, in the US, these two spellings have different meanings, with theatre referring to dramatic arts and theater referring to buildings. However, the trade magazine American Theatre described this as a "popular myth" writing, "not only is there no etymological basis for this rather arbitrary distinction, it’s also not borne out empirically in usage."
Some placenames in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the villages of Newton Centre and Rockville Centre, the city of Centreville, Centre County and Centre College. Sometimes, these places were named before spelling changes but more often the spelling serves as an affectation. Proper names are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary; so, for instance, although Peter is the usual form of the male given name, as a surname both the spellings Peter and Petre are found.
For British accoutre, the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling, but The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanwords keep the -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used, as with double entendre, genre and oeuvre. The unstressed pronunciation of an -er ending is used either as the most common variant or an alternative pronunciation with some words, including cadre, macabre, maître d', Notre Dame, piastre, and timbre.
Commonwealth usage
The -re endings are mostly standard throughout the Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized as minor variants in Canada, partly due to United States influence. They are sometimes used in proper names.''-ce'', ''-se''
For advice/''advise and device/devise, American English and British English both keep the noun–verb distinction both graphically and phonetically. For licence/license or practice/practise, British English also keeps the noun–verb distinction graphically. On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs.American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are defence and offence in British English. Likewise, there are the American pretense and British pretence; but derivatives such as defensive, offensive, and pretension'' are always thus spelled in both systems.
Australian and Canadian usages generally follow British usage.
''-xion'', ''-ction''
The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin attenuates, and it has almost never been used in the US: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio-. The American usage comes from Webster, who abandoned -xion and preferred -ction. Connexion was still the house style of The Times of London until the 1980s and was still used by Post Office Telecommunications for its telephone services in the 1970s, but had by then been overtaken by connection in regular usage. Connexion is still in use by the Methodist Church of Great Britain to refer to the whole church as opposed to its constituent districts, circuits and local churches, whereas the US-based United Methodist Church uses Connection.Complexion is standard worldwide and complection is an uncommon variant. However, the adjective complected, although sometimes proscribed, is on equal ground in the US with complexioned. It is not used in this way in the UK, although there exists a rare alternative meaning of complicated.
Greek-derived and Latin-derived spellings
''ae'' and ''oe''
Many words, especially medical words, that are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English are written with just an e in American English. The sounds in question are or . Examples : aeon, anaemia, anaesthesia, caecum, caesium, coeliac, diarrhoea, encyclopaedia, faeces, foetal, gynaecology, haemoglobin, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, palaeontology, paediatric, paedophile. Oenology is acceptable in American English but is deemed a minor variant of enology, whereas although archeology and ameba exist in American English, the British versions amoeba and archaeology are more common. The chemical haem is spelled heme in American English, to avoid confusion with hem.Canadian English mostly follows American English in this respect, although it is split on gynecology. Pediatrician is preferred roughly 10 to 1 over paediatrician, while foetal and oestrogen are similarly uncommon.
Words that can be spelled either way in American English include aesthetics and archa'eology, as well as palaestra.
Words that can be spelled either way in British English include chamaeleon, encyclopaedia, homoeopathy, mediaeval, foetid and foetus. The spellings foetus and foetal are Britishisms based on a mistaken etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide; the Oxford English Dictionary notes that "In Latin manuscripts both fētus and foetus are used".
The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as
Commonwealth usage
In Canada, e is generally preferred over oe and often over ae, but oe and ae are sometimes found in academic and scientific writing as well as government publications and some words such as palaeontology or aeon. In Australia, it can go either way, depending on the word: for instance, medieval is spelled with the e rather than ae, following the American usage along with numerous other words such as eon or fetus, while other words such as oestrogen or paediatrician are spelled the British way. The Macquarie Dictionary also notes a growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide and with the exception of manoeuvre, all British or American spellings are acceptable variants. Elsewhere, the British usage prevails, but the spellings with just e are increasingly used. Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia, and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found.One interesting exception is that while British and American English both use the spelling "palaeolithic", the Canadian English standard spelling is "paleolithic", which is one of the very few instances where the Canadian spelling of a word differs from both the British and American spellings of that word.
Greek-derived spellings (often through Latin and Romance)
''-ise'', ''-ize'' (''-isation'', ''-ization'')
Origin and recommendations
The -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen in Britain as an Americanism. It has been in use since the 15th century, predating the -ise spelling by over a century. The verb-forming suffix -ize comes directly from Ancient Greek wikt:-ίζειν or Late Latin wikt:-izare, while -ise comes via French wikt:-iser. The Oxford English Dictionary recommends -ize and lists the -ise form as an alternative.Publications by Oxford University Press —such as Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Hart's Rules, and The Oxford Guide to English Usage—also recommend -ize. However, Robert Allan's Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either spelling to be acceptable anywhere but the US.
Usage
American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like organize, realize and recognize.British spelling mostly uses -ise, though -ize is sometimes used. The ratio between -ise and -ize stood at 3:2 in the British National Corpus up to 2002. The spelling -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist and the BBC. The Government of the United Kingdom additionally uses -ise, stating "do not use Americanisms" justifying that the spelling "is often seen as such". The -ize form is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary, and of other academic publishers such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement. It can be identified using the IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict.
In Ireland, India, Australia, and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail: the -ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the Macquarie Dictionary.
In Canada, the -ize ending is more common, although the Ontario Public School Spelling Book spelled most words in the -ize form, but allowed for duality with a page insert as late as the 1970s, noting that, although the -ize spelling was in fact the convention used in the OED, the choice to spell such words in the -ise form was a matter of personal preference; however, a pupil having made the decision, one way or the other, thereafter ought to write uniformly not only for a given word, but to apply that same uniformity consistently for all words where the option is found. Just as with -yze spellings, however, in Canada the ize form remains the preferred or more common spelling, though both can still be found, yet the -ise variation, once more common amongst older Canadians, is employed less and less often in favour of the -ize spelling.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as United Nations Organizations and the International Organization for Standardization. The European Union's style guides require the usage of -ise. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal of the European Union, but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same applies to inflections and derivations such as colonised/''colonized and modernisation/modernization''.
Exceptions
- Some verbs take only an -ize form worldwide. In these, -ize is not a suffix, so does not ultimately come from Ancient Greek -ίζειν: for example, capsize, seize, size and prize.
- Some verbs take only -s- worldwide, though in many cases -z- was once an acceptable alternative: advertise, advise, arise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, improvise, incise, promise, reprise, revise, rise, surmise, surprise, televise, and wise..
- Some words spelled with -ize in American English are not used in British English. For example, from the noun burglar, the usual verb is formed by suffixation in American English but back-formation in British English.
- Conversely, the verb to prise is rarely used in North American English: pry is instead used, a back-formation from or alteration of prise to avoid confusion with the more common noun "prize". When it is used in Canada, it is spelled with an s, just as it is in British, Irish, Indian, Australian, New Zealand and European English, where its use is more common. However, the rare occurrences in the US have the spelling as prize even though it does not contain a suffix, so does not derive from -ίζειν. |Enterprize], in contrast with US ''-yze''
Analyse was the more common spelling in 17th- and 18th-century English. Some dictionaries of the time, however, preferred analyze, such as John Kersey's of 1702, Nathan Bailey's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson's of 1755. In Canada, -yze is preferred, but -yse is also very common. In South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, -yse is the prevailing form.
English verbs ending in either -lyse or -lyze are derived from the Greek noun wikt:λύσις lysis, with the -ise or -ize suffix added to it, and not the original verb form, whose stem is λυ- ly- without the -s/z- segment. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford states: "In verbs such as analyse, catalyse, paralyse, -lys- is part of the Greek stem and not a suffix like -ize. The spelling -yze is therefore etymologically incorrect, and must not be used, unless American printing style is being followed."
''-ogue'', ''-og''
British and other Commonwealth English use the ending -logue while American English commonly uses the ending -log for words like analog, catalog, homolog, etc., etymologically derived from Greek wikt:-λόγος -logos. The -gue spelling, as in catalogue, is used in the US, but catalog is more common. In contrast, dialogue, epilogue, prologue, and monologue are extremely common spellings compared to dialog etc. in American English, although both forms are treated as acceptable ways to spell the words.In American English, analog is the standard spelling for the adjective, while analogue is often preferred for the noun. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, analog is listed as the primary adjective form, while analogue is the principal noun form.
In Australia, analog is standard for the adjective, but both analogue and analog are current for the noun; in all other cases the -gue endings strongly prevail, for example monologue, except for such expressions as dialog box in computing, which are also used in other Commonwealth countries. In Australia, analog is used in its technical and electronic sense, as in analog electronics. In Canada and New Zealand, analogue is used, but analog has some currency as a technical term. The -ue is absent worldwide in related words like analogy, analogous, and analogist.
Words such as demagogue, pedagogue, and synagogue, from the Greek noun ἀγωγός agōgos, are more commonly spelled with ‑ue in American English, though the shorter forms demagog, pedagog, and synagog also exist and are accepted variants.
Both British and American English use the spelling -gue with a silent -ue for certain words that are not part of the -ogue set, such as tongue, plague, vague, and league. In addition, when the -ue is not silent, as in the words argue, ''ague and segue, all varieties of English use -gue.''
Doubled consonants
The plural of the noun bus is usually buses, with busses a minor American variant. Conversely, inflections of the verb bus usually double the s in British usage but not American usage. In Australia, both are common, with the American usage slightly more common.Doubled in British English
The final consonant of an English word is sometimes doubled in both American and British spelling when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel, for example strip/stripped, which prevents confusion with stripe/striped and shows the difference in pronunciation. Generally, this happens only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a lone vowel followed by a lone consonant. In British English, however, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed. This exception is no longer usual in American English, seemingly because of Noah Webster. The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still deemed acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.- The British English doubling is used for all inflections.
- ** British woollen is a further exception due to the double vowel. Also, wooly is accepted in American English, though woolly prevails in both systems.
- ** The verb surveil, a back-formation from surveillance, always makes surveilled, surveilling.
- Endings -ize/''-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l'' in British English; for example, devilish, dualism, normalise, and novelist.
- * Exceptions: duellist, medallist, panellist, tranquillise, and sometimes triallist in British English.
- For -ous, British English has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but the "ll" in libellous and marvellous.
- For -ee, British English has libellee.
- For -age, British English has pupillage but vassalage.
- American English sometimes has an unstressed -ll-, as in the UK, in some words where the root has -l. These are cases where the change happens in the source language, which was often Latin.
- All forms of English have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling ; revealing, fooling. The standard pronunciation does not reflect this difference, but the non-standard pronunciation does. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in the UK, and was still used by The Times into the mid-20th century. Canada has both, but jewellery is more often used. Likewise, the Commonwealth has jeweller and the US has jeweler for a jewelry seller.
Doubled in American English
In the UK, a single l'' is generally preferred over American forms distill, enroll, enthrall, and instill, although ll was formerly used; these are always spelled with ll in American usage. The former British spellings dulness, fulness, and instal are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth is cognate with tollbooth, but it has a distinct meaning.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example all→''almighty, altogether; full→handful, useful; well→welcome, welfare; chill→chilblain.
Both the British fulfil and the American fulfill never use -ll- in the middle.
Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatizes distil and instill, downhil and uphill''.
Dropped "e"
British English sometimes keeps a silent "e" when adding suffixes where American English does not. Generally speaking, British English drops it in only some cases in which it is needed to show pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where needed.- British prefers ageing, American usually aging. For the noun or verb "route", British English often uses routeing, but in the US, routing is used. The military term rout forms routing everywhere. However, all of these words form "router", whether used in the context of carpentry, data communications, or the military.
- Before -able, British English prefers likeable, liveable, rateable, saleable, sizeable, unshakeable, where American practice prefers to drop the "-e"; but both British and American English prefer breathable, curable, datable, lovable, movable, notable, provable, quotable, scalable, solvable, usable, and those where the root is polysyllabic, like believable or decidable. Both systems keep the silent "e" when it is needed to preserve a soft "c", "ch", or "g", such as in cacheable, changeable, traceable; both usually keep the "e" after "-dge", as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable.
- Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in the US, only the latter in the UK. Likewise for the word lodgment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in the US and the latter prevails in the UK except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. This also holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both systems prefer fledgling to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. Acknowledgment, acknowledgement, abridgment and abridgement are all used in Australia; the shorter forms are endorsed by the Australian Capital Territory Government. Apart from when the "e" is dropped and in the words mortgagor and gaol and some pronunciations of margarine, "g" can only be soft when followed by an "e", "i", or "y".
- The word "blue" always drops the "e" when forming "bluish" or "bluing".
Different spellings for different meanings
Different spellings for different pronunciations
In a few cases, essentially the same word has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation.As well as the miscellaneous cases listed in the following table, the past tenses of some irregular verbs differ in both spelling and pronunciation, as with smelt versus smelled .
| UK | US | Notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| wikt:aeroplane | wikt:airplane | Aeroplane, originally a French loanword with a different meaning, is the older spelling. The oldest recorded uses of the spelling airplane are British. According to the OED, "irplane became the standard American term after this was adopted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1916. Although A. Lloyd James recommended its adoption by the BBC in 1928, it has until recently been no more than an occasional form in British English." In the British National Corpus, aeroplane outnumbers airplane by more than 7:1 in the UK. The case is similar for the British aerodrome and American airdrome;''Aerodrome is used merely as a technical term in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The prefixes aero- and air- both mean air, with the first coming from the Ancient Greek word ἀήρ. Thus, the prefix appears in aeronautics, aerostatics, aerodynamics, aeronautical engineering and so on, while the second occurs invariably in aircraft, airport, airliner, airmail etc. In Canada, airplane is more common than aeroplane, although aeroplane is used as part of the regulatory term "ultra-light aeroplane". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| wikt:aluminium | wikt:aluminum | The spelling aluminium is the international standard in the sciences according to the IUPAC recommendations. Humphry Davy, the element's discoverer, first proposed the name alumium, and then later aluminum. The name aluminium was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of some metallic elements. Canada uses aluminum and Australia and New Zealand aluminium, according to their respective dictionaries although the Canadian trade association is called the 'Aluminium Association of Canada' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| wikt:ampoule | wikt:ampoule | The -poule spelling and pronunciation, which reflect the word's French origin, are common in both the US and the UK, with -pule and being rare variants in Britain. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| arse | ass | In vulgar senses "buttocks" ; unrelated sense "donkey" is ass in both. Arse is very rarely used in the US, though often understood, whereas both are used in British English. Arse is also used in Newfoundland. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| wikt:behove | wikt:behoove | The 19th century had the spelling behove pronounced to rhyme with move. Subsequently, a pronunciation spelling with doubled oo was adopted in the US, while in Britain a spelling pronunciation rhyming with rove was adopted. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| bogeyman | boogeyman, boogerman | The American form, boogeyman, is reminiscent of musical "boogie" to the British ear. Boogerman is common in the Southern US and suggests the slang term booger for nasal mucus while the mainstream American spelling of boogeyman does not, but aligns more closely with the British meaning where a bogey is also nasal mucus. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| brent | brant | For the species of goose. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| carburettor, carburetter , | carburetor | The word carburetor comes from the French carbure meaning "carbide". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| charivari | shivaree, charivari | In the US, both terms are mainly regional. The pronunciation of is also found in Canada and Cornwall, and is a corruption of the French word. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| closure | cloture | Motion in legislative or parliamentary procedure that quickly ends debate. Borrowed from the French clôture meaning "closure"; cloture remains the name used in the US. The American spelling was initially used when it was adopted into the UK in 1882 but was later changed to closure. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| eyrie | aerie, eyrie , | Not to be confused with the adjective eerie. Rhymes with weary and hairy respectively. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| fillet | fillet, filet | Pronounced the French way in the US; Canada follows British pronunciation and distinguishes between fillet, especially as concerns fish, and filet, as concerns certain cuts of beef. McDonald's in the UK and Australia use the US spelling "filet" for their Filet-O-Fish. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| fount, font | font | Fount was the standard British spelling for a metal type font ; lasted until the end of the metal type era and occasionally still seen. From French fondre, "to cast". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| furore | furor | Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loanword that replaced the Latinate form in the UK in the following century, and is usually pronounced with a voiced final e''. The Canadian usage is the same as the American, and Australia has both. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| grotty | grody, groady | Clippings of grotesque; both are slang terms from the 1960s. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| haulier | hauler | Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| jemmy | jimmy | In the sense "crowbar". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| moustache | mustache, moustache, | In the US, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the British spelling is an accepted variant, yet the pronunciation with second-syllable stress is a common variant. In Britain the second syllable is usually stressed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mum | mom | Mom is sporadically regionally found in the UK. Some British and Irish dialects have mam, and this is often used in Northern English, Hiberno-English, and Welsh English. Scottish English may also use mam, ma, or maw. In the American region of New England, especially in the case of the Boston accent, the British pronunciation of mum is often retained, while it is still spelled mom. In Canada, there are both mom and mum; Canadians often say mum and write mom. In Australia and New Zealand, mum is used. In the sense of a preserved corpse, mummy is always used. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| naivety, naïveté | naïveté | The American spelling is from French, and American speakers generally approximate the French pronunciation, whereas the British spelling conforms to English norms. In the UK, naïveté is a minor variant, used about 20% of the time in the British National Corpus; in the US, naivete and naiveté are marginal variants, and naivety is almost unattested. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| neurone | neuron | Canada and Australia generally use the American "neuron" according to their relevant dictionaries. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| orientated | oriented | In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, it is common to use orientated, whereas in the US, oriented is used exclusively. The same applies to the negative (disorientated, disoriented. Both words have the same origins, coming from "orient" or its offshoot "orientation". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pernickety | persnickety | Persnickety is a late 19th-century American alteration of the Scots word pernickety. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| plonk | plunk | As verb meaning "sit/set down carelessly". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| potter | putter | As verb meaning "perform minor agreeable tasks". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pyjamas | pajamasPast tense differencesIn the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, it is more common to end some past tense verbs with a "t" as in learnt or dreamt rather than learned or dreamed, though such spellings are also found in American English. However, in American English, burned and burnt have different usages.Several verbs have different past tenses or past participles in American and British English:
Compounds and hyphensBritish English often prefers hyphenated compounds, such as anti-smoking, whereas American English discourages the use of hyphens in compounds where there is no compelling reason, so antismoking is much more common. Many dictionaries do not point out such differences. Canadian and Australian usage is mixed, although Commonwealth writers generally hyphenate compounds of the form noun plus phrase, as in "If you are waiting for income tax to be abolished you will probably have to wait for ever"; and forever, meaning continually, always, as in "They are forever arguing". In British usage, however, forever prevails in the "for eternity" sense as well, in spite of several style guides maintaining the distinction. American writers usually use forever regardless of which sense they intend.
Some initials are usually upper case in the US but lower case in the UK: liter/litre and its compounds. Both AM/PM and a.m./p.m. are acceptable in American English, but US style guides overwhelmingly prefer ''a.m./p.m.'' PunctuationThe use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas or speech marks, is complicated by the fact that there are two kinds: single quotation marks and double quotation marks. British usage, at one stage in the recent past, preferred single quotation marks for ordinary use, but double quotation marks are again now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotation marks, as have Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English. It is the practice to alternate the type of quotation marks used where there is a quotation within a quotation.The convention used to be, and in American English still is, to put full stops and commas inside the quotation marks, irrespective of the sense. British style now prefers to punctuate according to the sense, in which punctuation marks only appear inside quotation marks if they were there in the original. Formal British English practice requires a full stop to be put inside the quotation marks if the quoted item is a full sentence that ends where the main sentence ends, but it is common to see the stop outside the ending quotation marks. Contractions where the final letter is present are often written in British English without full stops/periods. Abbreviations where the final letter is not present generally do take full stops/periods ; British English shares this convention with French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Ave., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., and Jr., usually require full stops/periods. Explanatory notesGeneral and cited sources
|