American and British English spelling differences
Encyclopedia
One of the ways in which American English and British English differ
is in spelling.
. Current British English
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
's A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), whereas many American English
spellings follow Noah Webster
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
(or Anglo-French
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
was named after Captain James Cook
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
's Coast Starlight
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
, follows British usage.
There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
, number, October
, oyster, perimeter
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
from for the unit of length
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
, hexameter
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
mall in Frisco, Texas
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
, and Centre College
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
in Sheffield
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
. In 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
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
and the WHO
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
/colonization.
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
, The Daily Telegraph
and The Economist
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
, the Biochemical Journal
and The Times Literary Supplement
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
, amoeba
, anaemia
, anaesthesia
, caesium, diarrhoea
, encyclopaedia
, faeces
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
, oesophagus
, oestrogen
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
, paediatric. Oenology
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
and archaeology
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
, in which the simplified form palestra
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
, homoeopathy
, mediaeval, and foetus
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
into Latin
as and . The ligatures
æ
and œ
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has imported words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a single e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma. In others, it is retained in all varieties: for example, phoenix
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph/ does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom
, toe. The British form aeroplane
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
in the air and on the oceans
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable" | Notes
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One of the ways in which American English and British English differ
is in spelling.
. Current British English
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
's A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), whereas many American English
spellings follow Noah Webster
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
(or Anglo-French
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
was named after Captain James Cook
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
's Coast Starlight
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
, follows British usage.
There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
, number, October
, oyster, perimeter
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
from for the unit of length
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
, hexameter
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
mall in Frisco, Texas
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
, and Centre College
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
in Sheffield
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
. In 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
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
and the WHO
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
/colonization.
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
, The Daily Telegraph
and The Economist
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
, the Biochemical Journal
and The Times Literary Supplement
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
, amoeba
, anaemia
, anaesthesia
, caesium, diarrhoea
, encyclopaedia
, faeces
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
, oesophagus
, oestrogen
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
, paediatric. Oenology
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
and archaeology
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
, in which the simplified form palestra
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
, homoeopathy
, mediaeval, and foetus
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
into Latin
as and . The ligatures
æ
and œ
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has imported words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a single e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma. In others, it is retained in all varieties: for example, phoenix
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph/ does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom
, toe. The British form aeroplane
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
in the air and on the oceans
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
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One of the ways in which American English and British English differ
is in spelling.
. Current British English
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
's A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), whereas many American English
spellings follow Noah Webster
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
(or Anglo-French
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
was named after Captain James Cook
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
's Coast Starlight
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
, follows British usage.
There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
, number, October
, oyster, perimeter
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
from for the unit of length
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
, hexameter
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
mall in Frisco, Texas
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
, and Centre College
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
in Sheffield
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
. In 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
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
and the WHO
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
/colonization.
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
, The Daily Telegraph
and The Economist
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
, the Biochemical Journal
and The Times Literary Supplement
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
, amoeba
, anaemia
, anaesthesia
, caesium, diarrhoea
, encyclopaedia
, faeces
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
, oesophagus
, oestrogen
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
, paediatric. Oenology
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
and archaeology
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
, in which the simplified form palestra
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
, homoeopathy
, mediaeval, and foetus
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
into Latin
as and . The ligatures
æ
and œ
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has imported words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a single e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma. In others, it is retained in all varieties: for example, phoenix
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph/ does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom
, toe. The British form aeroplane
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
in the air and on the oceans
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
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American and British English differences
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English and American English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
is in spelling.
Historical origins
In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionariesDictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. Current British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's A Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
(1755), whereas many American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
spellings follow Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
Simplified Spelling Board
The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of its inconsistencies...
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
(or Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
-our, -or
Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. ) end in -or in American English (cf. ). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: e.g. contour, velour, paramour and troubadour are spelled thus the same everywhere.Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
Pergola
A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
False cognate
False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
- may be dropped, as for example in honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious and invigorate;
- may be either dropped or retained, as for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rise); or
- may be retained, as for example in ).
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
Wedding invitation
A wedding invitation is a letter asking the recipient to attend a wedding. It is typically written in formal, third-person language and mailed five to eight weeks before the wedding date....
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
was named after Captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
's Coast Starlight
Coast Starlight
The Coast Starlight is a passenger train operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States. It runs from King Street Station in Seattle, Washington, to Union Station in Los Angeles, California. The train's name was formed as a merging of two of Southern Pacific's train names, the Coast...
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
Savory (herb)
Satureja is a genus of aromatic plants of the family Lamiaceae, related to rosemary and thyme. There are about 30 species called savories, of which Summer savory and Winter savory are the most important in cultivation.-Description:...
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
Rigour
Rigour or rigor has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism...
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
Rigor (medicine)
Rigor is a shaking occurring during a high fever. It occurs because cytokines and prostaglandins are released as part of an immune response and increase the set point for body temperature in the hypothalamus....
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
New Zealand English
New Zealand English is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and...
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, follows British usage.
-re, -er
In British usage, some words of French, Latin or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /ə˞/. Most of these words have the ending -er in the United States. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings all have -er in American spelling.There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
December
December is the 12th and last month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.December starts on the same day as September every year and ends on the same day as April every year.-Etymology:...
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
November
November is the 11th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with the length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar...
, number, October
October
October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old Roman calendar, October retained its name after January and February were inserted into the calendar that had originally been created by the...
, oyster, perimeter
Perimeter
A perimeter is a path that surrounds an area. The word comes from the Greek peri and meter . The term may be used either for the path or its length - it can be thought of as the length of the outline of a shape. The perimeter of a circular area is called circumference.- Practical uses :Calculating...
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
September
September is the 9th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with a length of 30 days.September in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of March in the Northern Hemisphere....
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
Measuring instrument
In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item...
from for the unit of length
Metre
The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
Pentameter
Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...
, hexameter
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre is a shopping mall located at the intersection of SH 289 and SH 121 in Frisco, Texas . It contains six major department store anchors, a 24-screen movie theater, an NHL size ice arena, and a total of 165 tenants renting over gross leasable area.The mall is open Monday through...
mall in Frisco, Texas
Frisco, Texas
Frisco is an affluent city in Collin and Denton Counties in the U.S. state of Texas and a rapidly growing suburb of Dallas. As of the 2010 Census, 116,989 people were living in Frisco up from 33,714 in the previous census. Frisco was the fastest growing city in the United States in 2009, and also...
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
Centreville, Illinois
Centreville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States of America. The population was 5,951 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Centreville is located at ....
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the population was 153,990....
, and Centre College
Centre College
Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, USA, a community of approximately 16,000 in Boyle County south of Lexington, KY. Centre is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution. Centre was founded by Presbyterian leaders, with whom it maintains a loose...
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment is a leisure and entertainment complex in the Don Valley in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It was built on land previously occupied by steel mills near what is now Meadowhall and the Sheffield Arena...
in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
-ce, -se
American English and British English both retain the noun/verb distinction in advice / advise and device / devise (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb), but American English has abandoned the distinction with licence / licenseLicense
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
-xion, -ction
The spelling connexionConnexion
Connexion or Connexions may refer to:* Connexionalism, a system of ecclesiastical polity* Connexion by Boeing, an in-flight online connectivity service* PhyQuest Connexion, a risk-reduction reporting system...
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)
American and Canadian spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, realizeRealize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
Realize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
British National Corpus
The British National Corpus is a 100-million-word text corpus of samples of written and spoken English from a wide range of sources. It was compiled as a general corpus in the field of corpus linguistics...
. In 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
Macquarie Dictionary
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics...
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
and the WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
Colonisation
Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...
/colonization.
British usage
British English using -ize is known as Oxford spellingOxford spelling
Oxford spelling is the spelling used by Oxford University Press . It can be recognized for its use, as in American English, of the suffix -ize instead of -ise. For instance, organization, privatize and recognizable are used instead of organisation, privatise and recognisable...
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
Fowler's Modern English Usage
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , by Henry Watson Fowler , is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing...
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
and The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, the Biochemical Journal
Biochemical Journal
The Biochemical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which covers all aspects of biochemistry, as well as cell and molecular biology...
and The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
- Some words take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the "appraise" sense)
- Others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, improvise, incise, merchandise (noun), revise, rise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise, and wise.
- One special case is the verb prise (meaning to force or lever), which is spelled prize in the US and prise everywhere else, including Canada, although in North American English it is almost always replaced by pry, a back-formation from or alteration of prise.
-yse, -yze
The distribution of -yse and -yze endings, as in analyse / analyze, is different from -ise / -ize: -yse is British and -yze is American. Thus, in British English analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, and paralyse, but in American English analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, and paralyze.Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum
The Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum is a dictionary compiled by philologist John Kersey, which was first published in London in 1708.It was the third dictionary he had edited, after his 1702 A New English Dictionary and his 1706 revision of Edward Phillips' 1658 dictionary The New World of English...
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary was a dictionary compiled by Nathan Bailey and first published in London in 1721. It was the most popular English dictionary of the eighteenth century. As an indicator of its popularity it reached its 20th edition in 1763 and its 27th edition in 1794....
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
Lysis
Lysis refers to the breaking down of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic mechanisms that compromise its integrity. A fluid containing the contents of lysed cells is called a "lysate"....
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
-ogue, -og
Some words of Greek origin, a few of which derive from Greek λόγος or αγωγός, can end either in -ogue or in -og: analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), demagog(ue), pedagog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), synagog(ue) etc. In the UK (and generally in the Commonwealth), the -ogue endings are the standard. In the US, catalog has a slight edge over catalogue (the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging v catalogued and cataloguing); 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 boxDialog box
In a graphical user interface of computers, a dialog box is a type of window used to enable reciprocal communication or "dialog" between a computer and its user. It may communicate information to the user, prompt the user for a response, or both...
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
Simplification of ae and oe
Many words are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English, but a single e in American English. The sound in question is /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ɨ/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, amoeba
Amoeba
Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...
, anaemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
, anaesthesia
Anesthesia
Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...
, caesium, diarrhoea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
, encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, faeces
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, oesophagus
Esophagus
The esophagus is an organ in vertebrates which consists of a muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach. During swallowing, food passes from the mouth through the pharynx into the esophagus and travels via peristalsis to the stomach...
, oestrogen
Estrogen
Estrogens , oestrogens , or œstrogens, are a group of compounds named for their importance in the estrous cycle of humans and other animals. They are the primary female sex hormones. Natural estrogens are steroid hormones, while some synthetic ones are non-steroidal...
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, paediatric. Oenology
Oenology
Oenology,[p] œnology , or enology is the science and study of all aspects of wine and winemaking except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. “Viticulture & oenology” is a common designation for training programmes and research centres that include both the...
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
Palaestra
The palaestra was the ancient Greek wrestling school. The events that did not require a lot of space, such as boxing and wrestling, were practised there...
, in which the simplified form palestra
Palestra
The Palestra, also known as the Cathedral of College Basketball, is a historic arena and the home gym of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. Located at 215 South 33rd St...
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster
Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language .Merriam-Webster Inc. has been a...
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, homoeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, mediaeval, and foetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as
Ligature (typography)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms", where the specific shape of a letter depends on...
æ
Æ
Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Icelandic...
and œ
Œ
Œ œŒ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French...
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example,
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph
Maelstrom
A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...
, toe. The British form aeroplane
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
Aerosol
Technically, an aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are clouds, and air pollution such as smog and smoke. In general conversation, aerosol usually refers to an aerosol spray can or the output of such a can...
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
Commonwealth usage
In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae as well, just as in the neighbouring United States. In Australia and 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.This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
in the air and on the oceans
Canadian Forces Maritime Command
The Royal Canadian Navy , is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the unified Canadian Forces. Operating 33 warships and several auxiliary vessels, the Royal Canadian Navy consists of 8,500 Regular Force and 5,100 Primary Reserve sailors, supported by...
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
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 (see digraph). Generally, this occurs only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a single vowel followed by a single 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, apparently because of Noah Webster. The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still regarded as acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.- The British English doubling is required for all inflections (-ed, -ing, -er, -est) and for the noun suffixes -er and -or. Therefore, British English usage is cancelled, counsellor, cruellest, labelled, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller, and travelling. Americans usually use canceled, counselor, cruelest, labeled, modeling, quarreled, signaling, traveler, and traveling.
- The word parallel keeps a single -l- in British English, as in American English (paralleling, unparalleled), to avoid the unappealing cluster -llell-.
- Words with two vowels before a final l are also spelled with -ll- in British English before a suffix when the first vowel either acts as a consonant (equalling and initialled; in the United States, equaling or initialed), or belongs to a separate syllable (British fu•el•ling and di•alled; American fu•el•ing and di•aled).
- British woollen is a further exception due to the double vowel (American: woolen). Also, wooly is accepted in American English, though woolly dominates in both systems.
- Endings -ize /-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l in British English; for example, normalise, dualism, novelist, and devilish.
- Exceptions: tranquillise; duellist, medallist, panellist, and sometimes triallist in British English.
- For -ous, British English has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but the "ll" in marvellous and libellous.
- For -ee, British English has libellee.
- For -age, British English has pupillagePupillageA pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, is the barrister's equivalent of the training contract that a solicitor undertakes...
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 alteration occurs in the source language, which was often Latin. (Examples: bimetallism, cancellation, chancellor, crystallize, excellent, tonsillitis, and raillery.)
- All forms of English have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling (notice the stress difference); revealing, fooling (note the double vowel before the l); and hurling (consonant before the l).
- Canadian and Australian English largely follow British usage.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
Secondary stress
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word; the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary'. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the stressed syllable: the nun in ...
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
- British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
- British jewellery; American jewelry. The standard pronunciations (ˈ) do not reflect this difference. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in the UK. Canada has both, but jewellery is more often used. Likewise, the Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and the United States has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry retailer.
Doubled in American English
Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans usually use a double l. In American usage, the spelling of words is usually not changed when they form the main part (not prefix or suffix) of other words, especially in newly formed words and in words whose main part is in common use. Words exhibiting this spelling difference includewil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
Tolbooth
Tolbooth or tollbooth may refer to:* Tolbooth, a traditional Scottish 'town hall' for the administration of burghs, usually providing a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail.* Toll house, a place where road usage tolls are collected...
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Dropped e
British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not. Generally speaking, British English drops it in only some cases in which it is unnecessary to indicate pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where necessary.- British prefers ageing, American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). For the noun or verb "route", British English often uses routeing, but in America 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 military. (e.g. "Attacus was the router of the Huns at ....")
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
- 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 forms of the language retain the silent e when it is necessary to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, such as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both usually retain the "e" after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable. ("These rights are unabridgeable.")
- Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in America, only the latter in the UK. Similarly for the word lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in America and the latter prevails in the UK except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. The similar situation holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both forms of English prefer fledglingFledglingFledgling or Fledglings may refer to:* Curtiss Fledgling, a trainer aircraft* Fergie's Fledglings, a group of Manchester United players recruited under the management of Alex Ferguson...
to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. - The word "blue" always drops the "e" when forming "bluish" or "bluingBluingBluing may refer to:* Bluing , household product used to improve the appearance of fabrics* Bluing , passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust...
".
Different spellings for different meanings
- dependant or dependent: British dictionaries distinguish between dependent (adjective) and dependant (noun). In the US, dependent is usual for both noun and adjective, notwithstanding that dependant is also an acceptable variant for the noun form in the US.
- disc or disk: Traditionally, disc used to be British and disk American. Both spellings are etymologically sound (Greek diskos, Latin discus), although disk is earlier. In computing, disc is used for optical discs (e.g. a CD, Compact Disc; DVD, Digital Versatile/Video Disc), by choice of the group that coined and trademarked the name Compact Disc, while disk is used for products using magnetic storage (e.g. hard disks or floppy diskFloppy diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s, also known as diskettes). For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the US and the Commonwealth. Solid-state devices also use the spelling "disk". - enquiry or inquiry: According to Fowler, inquiry should be used in relation to a formal inquest, and enquiry to the act of questioning. Many (though not all) British writers maintain this distinction; the OED, on the other hand, lists inquiry and enquiry as equal alternatives, in that order. Some British dictionaries, such as Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, present the two spellings as interchangeable variants in the general sense, but prefer inquiry for the "formal inquest" sense. In the US, only inquiry is commonly used; the title of The National EnquirerThe National EnquirerThe National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
, as a proper name, is an exception. In Australia, inquiry and enquiry are often interchangeable, but inquiry prevails in writing. Both are current in Canada, where enquiry is often associated with scholarly or intellectual research. - ensure or insure: In the UK (and Australia), the word ensure (to make sure, to make certain) has a distinct meaning from the word insure (often followed by against – to guarantee or protect against, typically by means of an "insurance policy"). The distinction is only about a century old, and this helps explain why in (North) America ensure is just a variant of insure, more often than not. According to Merriam-Webster's usage notes, ensure and insure "are interchangeable in many contexts where they indicate the making certain or [making] inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee
ensured the safety of the refugees>, while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand insure the success of the party>." - insurance or assurance: In the business of risk transfer, American English speakers will normally refer to life insurance or fire insurance. In British English, "assurance" refers to risk associated with certainty, such as covering death (death is inevitable), whereas "insurance" refers to uncertainty (such as a home insurance policy). In British English "life insurance" is used for a policy covering uncertainty (for example, a pianist's hands may be covered under "life insurance"). Canadian speakers remain more likely than US speakers to use assurance.
- matt or matte: In the UK, matt refers to a non-glossy surface, and matte to the motion-picture techniqueMatte (filmmaking)Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
; in the US, matte covers both. - programme or program: The British programme is a 19th-century French version of program. Program first appeared in Scotland in the 17th century and is the only spelling found in the US. The OED entry, written around 1908 and listing both spellings, said program was preferable, since it conformed to the usual representation of the Greek as in anagram, diagram, telegram etc. In British English, program is the common spelling for computer programs, but for other meanings programme is used. In Australia, program has been endorsed by government writing standards for all senses since the 1960s, although programme is also seen; see also the name of The Micallef Program(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford DictionaryCanadian Oxford DictionaryThe Canadian Oxford Dictionary is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it quickly became the standard dictionary reference for Canadian English. Until September 2008, Oxford maintained a permanent staff of lexicographers in Canada, led by...
makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme. However, some Canadian government documents nevertheless use programme in all senses of the word – and also to match the spelling of the French equivalent. - tonne or ton: in the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the spelling tonneTonneThe tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
refers to the metric unit (1000 kilograms), whereas in the US the same unit is referred to as a metric ton. The unqualified tonTonThe ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
usually refers to the long tonLong tonLong ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
(2240 pounds (1,016 kg)) in the UK and to the short tonShort tonThe short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...
(2000 pounds (907.2 kg)) in the US (but note that the tonne and long ton differ by only 1.6%, and are roughly interchangeable when accuracy is not critical; ton and tonne are usually pronounced the same in speech).
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures , is an international standards organisation, one of three such organisations established to maintain the International System of Units under the terms of the Metre Convention...
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
Different spellings for different pronunciations
In a few cases, essentially the same wordLexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable" | Notes
|- valign="top"
|
One of the ways in which American English and British English differ
American and British English differences
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English and American English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
is in spelling.
Historical origins
In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionariesDictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. Current British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's A Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
(1755), whereas many American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
spellings follow Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
Simplified Spelling Board
The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of its inconsistencies...
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
(or Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
-our, -or
Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. ) end in -or in American English (cf. ). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: e.g. contour, velour, paramour and troubadour are spelled thus the same everywhere.Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
Pergola
A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
False cognate
False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
- may be dropped, as for example in honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious and invigorate;
- may be either dropped or retained, as for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rise); or
- may be retained, as for example in ).
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
Wedding invitation
A wedding invitation is a letter asking the recipient to attend a wedding. It is typically written in formal, third-person language and mailed five to eight weeks before the wedding date....
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
was named after Captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
's Coast Starlight
Coast Starlight
The Coast Starlight is a passenger train operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States. It runs from King Street Station in Seattle, Washington, to Union Station in Los Angeles, California. The train's name was formed as a merging of two of Southern Pacific's train names, the Coast...
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
Savory (herb)
Satureja is a genus of aromatic plants of the family Lamiaceae, related to rosemary and thyme. There are about 30 species called savories, of which Summer savory and Winter savory are the most important in cultivation.-Description:...
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
Rigour
Rigour or rigor has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism...
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
Rigor (medicine)
Rigor is a shaking occurring during a high fever. It occurs because cytokines and prostaglandins are released as part of an immune response and increase the set point for body temperature in the hypothalamus....
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
New Zealand English
New Zealand English is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and...
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, follows British usage.
-re, -er
In British usage, some words of French, Latin or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /ə˞/. Most of these words have the ending -er in the United States. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings all have -er in American spelling.There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
December
December is the 12th and last month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.December starts on the same day as September every year and ends on the same day as April every year.-Etymology:...
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
November
November is the 11th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with the length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar...
, number, October
October
October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old Roman calendar, October retained its name after January and February were inserted into the calendar that had originally been created by the...
, oyster, perimeter
Perimeter
A perimeter is a path that surrounds an area. The word comes from the Greek peri and meter . The term may be used either for the path or its length - it can be thought of as the length of the outline of a shape. The perimeter of a circular area is called circumference.- Practical uses :Calculating...
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
September
September is the 9th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with a length of 30 days.September in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of March in the Northern Hemisphere....
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
Measuring instrument
In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item...
from for the unit of length
Metre
The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
Pentameter
Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...
, hexameter
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre is a shopping mall located at the intersection of SH 289 and SH 121 in Frisco, Texas . It contains six major department store anchors, a 24-screen movie theater, an NHL size ice arena, and a total of 165 tenants renting over gross leasable area.The mall is open Monday through...
mall in Frisco, Texas
Frisco, Texas
Frisco is an affluent city in Collin and Denton Counties in the U.S. state of Texas and a rapidly growing suburb of Dallas. As of the 2010 Census, 116,989 people were living in Frisco up from 33,714 in the previous census. Frisco was the fastest growing city in the United States in 2009, and also...
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
Centreville, Illinois
Centreville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States of America. The population was 5,951 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Centreville is located at ....
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the population was 153,990....
, and Centre College
Centre College
Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, USA, a community of approximately 16,000 in Boyle County south of Lexington, KY. Centre is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution. Centre was founded by Presbyterian leaders, with whom it maintains a loose...
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment is a leisure and entertainment complex in the Don Valley in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It was built on land previously occupied by steel mills near what is now Meadowhall and the Sheffield Arena...
in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
-ce, -se
American English and British English both retain the noun/verb distinction in advice / advise and device / devise (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb), but American English has abandoned the distinction with licence / licenseLicense
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
-xion, -ction
The spelling connexionConnexion
Connexion or Connexions may refer to:* Connexionalism, a system of ecclesiastical polity* Connexion by Boeing, an in-flight online connectivity service* PhyQuest Connexion, a risk-reduction reporting system...
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)
American and Canadian spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, realizeRealize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
Realize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
British National Corpus
The British National Corpus is a 100-million-word text corpus of samples of written and spoken English from a wide range of sources. It was compiled as a general corpus in the field of corpus linguistics...
. In 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
Macquarie Dictionary
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics...
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
and the WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
Colonisation
Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...
/colonization.
British usage
British English using -ize is known as Oxford spellingOxford spelling
Oxford spelling is the spelling used by Oxford University Press . It can be recognized for its use, as in American English, of the suffix -ize instead of -ise. For instance, organization, privatize and recognizable are used instead of organisation, privatise and recognisable...
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
Fowler's Modern English Usage
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , by Henry Watson Fowler , is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing...
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
and The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, the Biochemical Journal
Biochemical Journal
The Biochemical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which covers all aspects of biochemistry, as well as cell and molecular biology...
and The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
- Some words take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the "appraise" sense)
- Others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, improvise, incise, merchandise (noun), revise, rise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise, and wise.
- One special case is the verb prise (meaning to force or lever), which is spelled prize in the US and prise everywhere else, including Canada, although in North American English it is almost always replaced by pry, a back-formation from or alteration of prise.
-yse, -yze
The distribution of -yse and -yze endings, as in analyse / analyze, is different from -ise / -ize: -yse is British and -yze is American. Thus, in British English analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, and paralyse, but in American English analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, and paralyze.Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum
The Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum is a dictionary compiled by philologist John Kersey, which was first published in London in 1708.It was the third dictionary he had edited, after his 1702 A New English Dictionary and his 1706 revision of Edward Phillips' 1658 dictionary The New World of English...
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary was a dictionary compiled by Nathan Bailey and first published in London in 1721. It was the most popular English dictionary of the eighteenth century. As an indicator of its popularity it reached its 20th edition in 1763 and its 27th edition in 1794....
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
Lysis
Lysis refers to the breaking down of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic mechanisms that compromise its integrity. A fluid containing the contents of lysed cells is called a "lysate"....
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
-ogue, -og
Some words of Greek origin, a few of which derive from Greek λόγος or αγωγός, can end either in -ogue or in -og: analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), demagog(ue), pedagog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), synagog(ue) etc. In the UK (and generally in the Commonwealth), the -ogue endings are the standard. In the US, catalog has a slight edge over catalogue (the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging v catalogued and cataloguing); 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 boxDialog box
In a graphical user interface of computers, a dialog box is a type of window used to enable reciprocal communication or "dialog" between a computer and its user. It may communicate information to the user, prompt the user for a response, or both...
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
Simplification of ae and oe
Many words are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English, but a single e in American English. The sound in question is /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ɨ/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, amoeba
Amoeba
Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...
, anaemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
, anaesthesia
Anesthesia
Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...
, caesium, diarrhoea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
, encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, faeces
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, oesophagus
Esophagus
The esophagus is an organ in vertebrates which consists of a muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach. During swallowing, food passes from the mouth through the pharynx into the esophagus and travels via peristalsis to the stomach...
, oestrogen
Estrogen
Estrogens , oestrogens , or œstrogens, are a group of compounds named for their importance in the estrous cycle of humans and other animals. They are the primary female sex hormones. Natural estrogens are steroid hormones, while some synthetic ones are non-steroidal...
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, paediatric. Oenology
Oenology
Oenology,[p] œnology , or enology is the science and study of all aspects of wine and winemaking except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. “Viticulture & oenology” is a common designation for training programmes and research centres that include both the...
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
Palaestra
The palaestra was the ancient Greek wrestling school. The events that did not require a lot of space, such as boxing and wrestling, were practised there...
, in which the simplified form palestra
Palestra
The Palestra, also known as the Cathedral of College Basketball, is a historic arena and the home gym of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. Located at 215 South 33rd St...
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster
Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language .Merriam-Webster Inc. has been a...
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, homoeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, mediaeval, and foetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as
Ligature (typography)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms", where the specific shape of a letter depends on...
æ
Æ
Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Icelandic...
and œ
Œ
Œ œŒ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French...
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example,
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph
Maelstrom
A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...
, toe. The British form aeroplane
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
Aerosol
Technically, an aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are clouds, and air pollution such as smog and smoke. In general conversation, aerosol usually refers to an aerosol spray can or the output of such a can...
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
Commonwealth usage
In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae as well, just as in the neighbouring United States. In Australia and 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.This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
in the air and on the oceans
Canadian Forces Maritime Command
The Royal Canadian Navy , is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the unified Canadian Forces. Operating 33 warships and several auxiliary vessels, the Royal Canadian Navy consists of 8,500 Regular Force and 5,100 Primary Reserve sailors, supported by...
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
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 (see digraph). Generally, this occurs only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a single vowel followed by a single 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, apparently because of Noah Webster. The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still regarded as acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.- The British English doubling is required for all inflections (-ed, -ing, -er, -est) and for the noun suffixes -er and -or. Therefore, British English usage is cancelled, counsellor, cruellest, labelled, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller, and travelling. Americans usually use canceled, counselor, cruelest, labeled, modeling, quarreled, signaling, traveler, and traveling.
- The word parallel keeps a single -l- in British English, as in American English (paralleling, unparalleled), to avoid the unappealing cluster -llell-.
- Words with two vowels before a final l are also spelled with -ll- in British English before a suffix when the first vowel either acts as a consonant (equalling and initialled; in the United States, equaling or initialed), or belongs to a separate syllable (British fu•el•ling and di•alled; American fu•el•ing and di•aled).
- British woollen is a further exception due to the double vowel (American: woolen). Also, wooly is accepted in American English, though woolly dominates in both systems.
- Endings -ize /-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l in British English; for example, normalise, dualism, novelist, and devilish.
- Exceptions: tranquillise; duellist, medallist, panellist, and sometimes triallist in British English.
- For -ous, British English has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but the "ll" in marvellous and libellous.
- For -ee, British English has libellee.
- For -age, British English has pupillagePupillageA pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, is the barrister's equivalent of the training contract that a solicitor undertakes...
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 alteration occurs in the source language, which was often Latin. (Examples: bimetallism, cancellation, chancellor, crystallize, excellent, tonsillitis, and raillery.)
- All forms of English have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling (notice the stress difference); revealing, fooling (note the double vowel before the l); and hurling (consonant before the l).
- Canadian and Australian English largely follow British usage.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
Secondary stress
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word; the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary'. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the stressed syllable: the nun in ...
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
- British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
- British jewellery; American jewelry. The standard pronunciations (ˈ) do not reflect this difference. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in the UK. Canada has both, but jewellery is more often used. Likewise, the Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and the United States has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry retailer.
Doubled in American English
Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans usually use a double l. In American usage, the spelling of words is usually not changed when they form the main part (not prefix or suffix) of other words, especially in newly formed words and in words whose main part is in common use. Words exhibiting this spelling difference includewil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
Tolbooth
Tolbooth or tollbooth may refer to:* Tolbooth, a traditional Scottish 'town hall' for the administration of burghs, usually providing a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail.* Toll house, a place where road usage tolls are collected...
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Dropped e
British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not. Generally speaking, British English drops it in only some cases in which it is unnecessary to indicate pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where necessary.- British prefers ageing, American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). For the noun or verb "route", British English often uses routeing, but in America 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 military. (e.g. "Attacus was the router of the Huns at ....")
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
- 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 forms of the language retain the silent e when it is necessary to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, such as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both usually retain the "e" after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable. ("These rights are unabridgeable.")
- Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in America, only the latter in the UK. Similarly for the word lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in America and the latter prevails in the UK except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. The similar situation holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both forms of English prefer fledglingFledglingFledgling or Fledglings may refer to:* Curtiss Fledgling, a trainer aircraft* Fergie's Fledglings, a group of Manchester United players recruited under the management of Alex Ferguson...
to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. - The word "blue" always drops the "e" when forming "bluish" or "bluingBluingBluing may refer to:* Bluing , household product used to improve the appearance of fabrics* Bluing , passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust...
".
Different spellings for different meanings
- dependant or dependent: British dictionaries distinguish between dependent (adjective) and dependant (noun). In the US, dependent is usual for both noun and adjective, notwithstanding that dependant is also an acceptable variant for the noun form in the US.
- disc or disk: Traditionally, disc used to be British and disk American. Both spellings are etymologically sound (Greek diskos, Latin discus), although disk is earlier. In computing, disc is used for optical discs (e.g. a CD, Compact Disc; DVD, Digital Versatile/Video Disc), by choice of the group that coined and trademarked the name Compact Disc, while disk is used for products using magnetic storage (e.g. hard disks or floppy diskFloppy diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s, also known as diskettes). For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the US and the Commonwealth. Solid-state devices also use the spelling "disk". - enquiry or inquiry: According to Fowler, inquiry should be used in relation to a formal inquest, and enquiry to the act of questioning. Many (though not all) British writers maintain this distinction; the OED, on the other hand, lists inquiry and enquiry as equal alternatives, in that order. Some British dictionaries, such as Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, present the two spellings as interchangeable variants in the general sense, but prefer inquiry for the "formal inquest" sense. In the US, only inquiry is commonly used; the title of The National EnquirerThe National EnquirerThe National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
, as a proper name, is an exception. In Australia, inquiry and enquiry are often interchangeable, but inquiry prevails in writing. Both are current in Canada, where enquiry is often associated with scholarly or intellectual research. - ensure or insure: In the UK (and Australia), the word ensure (to make sure, to make certain) has a distinct meaning from the word insure (often followed by against – to guarantee or protect against, typically by means of an "insurance policy"). The distinction is only about a century old, and this helps explain why in (North) America ensure is just a variant of insure, more often than not. According to Merriam-Webster's usage notes, ensure and insure "are interchangeable in many contexts where they indicate the making certain or [making] inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee
ensured the safety of the refugees>, while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand insure the success of the party>." - insurance or assurance: In the business of risk transfer, American English speakers will normally refer to life insurance or fire insurance. In British English, "assurance" refers to risk associated with certainty, such as covering death (death is inevitable), whereas "insurance" refers to uncertainty (such as a home insurance policy). In British English "life insurance" is used for a policy covering uncertainty (for example, a pianist's hands may be covered under "life insurance"). Canadian speakers remain more likely than US speakers to use assurance.
- matt or matte: In the UK, matt refers to a non-glossy surface, and matte to the motion-picture techniqueMatte (filmmaking)Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
; in the US, matte covers both. - programme or program: The British programme is a 19th-century French version of program. Program first appeared in Scotland in the 17th century and is the only spelling found in the US. The OED entry, written around 1908 and listing both spellings, said program was preferable, since it conformed to the usual representation of the Greek as in anagram, diagram, telegram etc. In British English, program is the common spelling for computer programs, but for other meanings programme is used. In Australia, program has been endorsed by government writing standards for all senses since the 1960s, although programme is also seen; see also the name of The Micallef Program(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford DictionaryCanadian Oxford DictionaryThe Canadian Oxford Dictionary is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it quickly became the standard dictionary reference for Canadian English. Until September 2008, Oxford maintained a permanent staff of lexicographers in Canada, led by...
makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme. However, some Canadian government documents nevertheless use programme in all senses of the word – and also to match the spelling of the French equivalent. - tonne or ton: in the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the spelling tonneTonneThe tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
refers to the metric unit (1000 kilograms), whereas in the US the same unit is referred to as a metric ton. The unqualified tonTonThe ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
usually refers to the long tonLong tonLong ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
(2240 pounds (1,016 kg)) in the UK and to the short tonShort tonThe short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...
(2000 pounds (907.2 kg)) in the US (but note that the tonne and long ton differ by only 1.6%, and are roughly interchangeable when accuracy is not critical; ton and tonne are usually pronounced the same in speech).
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures , is an international standards organisation, one of three such organisations established to maintain the International System of Units under the terms of the Metre Convention...
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
Different spellings for different pronunciations
In a few cases, essentially the same wordLexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable" | Notes
|- valign="top"
|
One of the ways in which American English and British English differ
American and British English differences
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English and American English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
is in spelling.
Historical origins
In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionariesDictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. Current British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's A Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
(1755), whereas many American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
spellings follow Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board
Simplified Spelling Board
The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of its inconsistencies...
, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
(or Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
) spellings of certain words proved to be decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on present-day American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also retained some older forms.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, the preferred spellings include some American forms and some British, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign forms.
-our, -or
Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. ) end in -or in American English (cf. ). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: e.g. contour, velour, paramour and troubadour are spelled thus the same everywhere.Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
and the ending was -or or -ur. After the Norman Conquest, the ending became -our in Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or, though has been used occasionally in English since the 15th century. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
, but also applied to earlier French borrowings. After the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r
Pergola
A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...
meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate
False cognate
False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....
of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin (e.g. ) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.
Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain, and others where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour; inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but selected the version best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources: he favored French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, " appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's original draft it is spelt ." Examples such as scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is . and were equally frequent until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the normal spelling as a person's name.
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 (for example in ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
- may be dropped, as for example in honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious and invigorate;
- may be either dropped or retained, as for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rise); or
- may be retained, as for example in ).
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (for example, , etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
Exceptions
American usage, in most cases, retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, not Latin or French. is occasionally used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. The adjective glamorous usually omits the first "u". is a somewhat common variant of in the US. The British spelling is very common for (and ) in the formal language of wedding invitation
Wedding invitation
A wedding invitation is a letter asking the recipient to attend a wedding. It is typically written in formal, third-person language and mailed five to eight weeks before the wedding date....
s in the US. The name of the has a u in it since this spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
was named after Captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
's ship, . The special car on Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
's Coast Starlight
Coast Starlight
The Coast Starlight is a passenger train operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States. It runs from King Street Station in Seattle, Washington, to Union Station in Los Angeles, California. The train's name was formed as a merging of two of Southern Pacific's train names, the Coast...
train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.
The name of the herb savory
Savory (herb)
Satureja is a genus of aromatic plants of the family Lamiaceae, related to rosemary and thyme. There are about 30 species called savories, of which Summer savory and Winter savory are the most important in cultivation.-Description:...
is thus spelt everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour
Rigour
Rigour or rigor has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism...
ˈ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor
Rigor (medicine)
Rigor is a shaking occurring during a high fever. It occurs because cytokines and prostaglandins are released as part of an immune response and increase the set point for body temperature in the hypothalamus....
(often ˈ) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelt thus everywhere.
Commonwealth usage
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, though the most notable countrywide use of -or is for the , which was named in hono(u)r of the . Aside from that, -our is almost universal. New Zealand English
New Zealand English
New Zealand English is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and...
, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, follows British usage.
-re, -er
In British usage, some words of French, Latin or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /ə˞/. Most of these words have the ending -er in the United States. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings all have -er in American spelling.There are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. Many words spelt with -re in Modern French are spelt with -er in both British and American usage; among these are chapter, December
December
December is the 12th and last month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.December starts on the same day as September every year and ends on the same day as April every year.-Etymology:...
, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November
November
November is the 11th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with the length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar...
, number, October
October
October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old Roman calendar, October retained its name after January and February were inserted into the calendar that had originally been created by the...
, oyster, perimeter
Perimeter
A perimeter is a path that surrounds an area. The word comes from the Greek peri and meter . The term may be used either for the path or its length - it can be thought of as the length of the outline of a shape. The perimeter of a circular area is called circumference.- Practical uses :Calculating...
(but not "parametre"), powder, proper, September
September
September is the 9th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with a length of 30 days.September in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of March in the Northern Hemisphere....
, sober and tender.
The ending -cre, as in acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.
After other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: and after -v; , eagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g; and euchre, ochre and after -ch. In the United States, ogre, ochre, and euchre are standard; and are usually spelt as and ; and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.
The e preceding the r is retained in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, , which are, naturally, respectively in British usage. is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance derive from enter, which has not been spelt entre for centuries.
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument
Measuring instrument
In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item...
from for the unit of length
Metre
The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...
. However, while "" is often -re, pentameter
Pentameter
Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...
, hexameter
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...
etc. are always -er.
Exceptions
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. ""); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses throughout its "", "Movies" and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the proposal of the American National Theatre, eventually to be founded and inaugurated in autumn 2007, was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National "; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C. features the more common American spelling in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.
In many instances, places in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre
Stonebriar Centre is a shopping mall located at the intersection of SH 289 and SH 121 in Frisco, Texas . It contains six major department store anchors, a 24-screen movie theater, an NHL size ice arena, and a total of 165 tenants renting over gross leasable area.The mall is open Monday through...
mall in Frisco, Texas
Frisco, Texas
Frisco is an affluent city in Collin and Denton Counties in the U.S. state of Texas and a rapidly growing suburb of Dallas. As of the 2010 Census, 116,989 people were living in Frisco up from 33,714 in the previous census. Frisco was the fastest growing city in the United States in 2009, and also...
, the cities of Rockville Centre, New York and Centreville, Illinois
Centreville, Illinois
Centreville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States of America. The population was 5,951 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Centreville is located at ....
, Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County, Pennsylvania
Centre County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the population was 153,990....
, and Centre College
Centre College
Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, USA, a community of approximately 16,000 in Boyle County south of Lexington, KY. Centre is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution. Centre was founded by Presbyterian leaders, with whom it maintains a loose...
in Kentucky. Sometimes these places were named before spelling changes took effect but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation. An apparent example of the use of Center in the United Kingdom is the Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment
Valley Centertainment is a leisure and entertainment complex in the Don Valley in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It was built on land previously occupied by steel mills near what is now Meadowhall and the Sheffield Arena...
in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, although this is in fact a portmanteau of and entertainment.
For British , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling but the American Heritage Dictionary prefers the -er spelling.
More recent French loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double-entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more or less frequently 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, due in part to American influences. Proper names, particularly names incorporating the word Centre/Center, are an occasional source of exceptions, such as, for example, Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall.
-ce, -se
American English and British English both retain the noun/verb distinction in advice / advise and device / devise (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb), but American English has abandoned the distinction with licence / licenseLicense
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s) that British spelling retains. American English uses license and practice for both meanings.
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly 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 usage generally follows British.
-xion, -ction
The spelling connexionConnexion
Connexion or Connexions may refer to:* Connexionalism, a system of ecclesiastical polity* Connexion by Boeing, an in-flight online connectivity service* PhyQuest Connexion, a risk-reduction reporting system...
is now rare in everyday British usage, its employment declining as knowledge of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
declines, and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the word actually derives from Latin forms in -xio-. The American usage derives from Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
who discarded the -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with such verbs as connect.
Complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection usually is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in US English as an alternative to complexioned, but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.
-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)
American and Canadian spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, realizeRealize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
, and recognize. British usage is split between both -ize and -ise (organize / organise, realize
Realize
Realize or realise may refer to:* "Realize" , by Colbie Caillat* "Realize" * "Realize", a song by X-Wife from Side Effects* "Realize/Take a Chance" , a single by Melody....
/ realise, recognize / recognise), and the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus
British National Corpus
The British National Corpus is a 100-million-word text corpus of samples of written and spoken English from a wide range of sources. It was compiled as a general corpus in the field of corpus linguistics...
. In 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
Macquarie Dictionary
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics...
.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
and the WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, and this resulted in the coexistence of the -ize spelling in older legislative acts and the -ise spelling in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation
Colonisation
Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...
/colonization.
British usage
British English using -ize is known as Oxford spellingOxford spelling
Oxford spelling is the spelling used by Oxford University Press . It can be recognized for its use, as in American English, of the suffix -ize instead of -ise. For instance, organization, privatize and recognizable are used instead of organisation, privatise and recognisable...
, and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize. It firmly deprecates usage of -ise for words of Greek origin, stating, "[T]he suffix..., whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It maintains "... some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition." Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.
The Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, on the other hand, has long favoured -ise, as do some other references, including Fowler's Modern English Usage
Fowler's Modern English Usage
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , by Henry Watson Fowler , is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing...
.
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly viewed in Britain as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in the UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
and The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
. Meanwhile, -ize is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, the Biochemical Journal
Biochemical Journal
The Biochemical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which covers all aspects of biochemistry, as well as cell and molecular biology...
and The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
.
Exceptions
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
- Some words take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the "appraise" sense)
- Others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, improvise, incise, merchandise (noun), revise, rise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise, and wise.
- One special case is the verb prise (meaning to force or lever), which is spelled prize in the US and prise everywhere else, including Canada, although in North American English it is almost always replaced by pry, a back-formation from or alteration of prise.
-yse, -yze
The distribution of -yse and -yze endings, as in analyse / analyze, is different from -ise / -ize: -yse is British and -yze is American. Thus, in British English analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, and paralyse, but in American English analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, and paralyze.Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that period – John Kersey
Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum
The Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum is a dictionary compiled by philologist John Kersey, which was first published in London in 1708.It was the third dictionary he had edited, after his 1702 A New English Dictionary and his 1706 revision of Edward Phillips' 1658 dictionary The New World of English...
's of 1702, Nathan Bailey
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary was a dictionary compiled by Nathan Bailey and first published in London in 1721. It was the most popular English dictionary of the eighteenth century. As an indicator of its popularity it reached its 20th edition in 1763 and its 27th edition in 1794....
's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -yse or -yze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō "I release". Instead they come from the noun form lysis
Lysis
Lysis refers to the breaking down of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic mechanisms that compromise its integrity. A fluid containing the contents of lysed cells is called a "lysate"....
with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
from the French analysiser, which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
-ogue, -og
Some words of Greek origin, a few of which derive from Greek λόγος or αγωγός, can end either in -ogue or in -og: analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), demagog(ue), pedagog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), synagog(ue) etc. In the UK (and generally in the Commonwealth), the -ogue endings are the standard. In the US, catalog has a slight edge over catalogue (the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging v catalogued and cataloguing); 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 boxDialog box
In a graphical user interface of computers, a dialog box is a type of window used to enable reciprocal communication or "dialog" between a computer and its user. It may communicate information to the user, prompt the user for a response, or both...
in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia analogue is used, but just as in the US analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The dropping of the "ue" is mandatory in forming such related words as "analogy", "analogous", and "analogist".
Simplification of ae and oe
Many words are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English, but a single e in American English. The sound in question is /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ɨ/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, amoeba
Amoeba
Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...
, anaemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
, anaesthesia
Anesthesia
Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...
, caesium, diarrhoea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
, encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, faeces
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, oesophagus
Esophagus
The esophagus is an organ in vertebrates which consists of a muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach. During swallowing, food passes from the mouth through the pharynx into the esophagus and travels via peristalsis to the stomach...
, oestrogen
Estrogen
Estrogens , oestrogens , or œstrogens, are a group of compounds named for their importance in the estrous cycle of humans and other animals. They are the primary female sex hormones. Natural estrogens are steroid hormones, while some synthetic ones are non-steroidal...
, orthopaedic, palaeontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, paediatric. Oenology
Oenology
Oenology,[p] œnology , or enology is the science and study of all aspects of wine and winemaking except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. “Viticulture & oenology” is a common designation for training programmes and research centres that include both the...
is acceptable in American English but is regarded as a minor variant of enology.
The spelling foetal is a Britishism based on a false etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling "fetus" reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.
Exceptions to the American simplification rule include aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology, respectively, as well as the stronger case of palaestra
Palaestra
The palaestra was the ancient Greek wrestling school. The events that did not require a lot of space, such as boxing and wrestling, were practised there...
, in which the simplified form palestra
Palestra
The Palestra, also known as the Cathedral of College Basketball, is a historic arena and the home gym of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. Located at 215 South 33rd St...
is a variant described by Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster
Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language .Merriam-Webster Inc. has been a...
as "chiefly Brit[ish]."
Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
, homoeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, mediaeval, and foetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
(though the British medical community, as well as at least one authoritative source, consider this variant to be unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling was actually fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
).
The Ancient Greek diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s <αι> and <οι> were transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as
Ligature (typography)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms", where the specific shape of a letter depends on...
æ
Æ
Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Icelandic...
and œ
Œ
Œ œŒ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French...
were introduced when the sounds became monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example,
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
, and usually subpoena. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph
Maelstrom
A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...
, toe. The British form aeroplane
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol
Aerosol
Technically, an aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are clouds, and air pollution such as smog and smoke. In general conversation, aerosol usually refers to an aerosol spray can or the output of such a can...
). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet. For instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception being French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them sometimes ("ae" is rare, but "oe" is the normal representation of the sound u, while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ). The languages Danish, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, Norwegian and some others retain the original ligatures. In German, through umlauts
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
, is retained as its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut. These words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe). Similarly, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".
Commonwealth usage
In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae as well, just as in the neighbouring United States. In Australia and 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.This shortening is natural, especially since the Canadian Forces
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
in the air and on the oceans
Canadian Forces Maritime Command
The Royal Canadian Navy , is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the unified Canadian Forces. Operating 33 warships and several auxiliary vessels, the Royal Canadian Navy consists of 8,500 Regular Force and 5,100 Primary Reserve sailors, supported by...
are frequently involved in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.
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 (see digraph). Generally, this occurs only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a single vowel followed by a single 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, apparently because of Noah Webster. The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still regarded as acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.- The British English doubling is required for all inflections (-ed, -ing, -er, -est) and for the noun suffixes -er and -or. Therefore, British English usage is cancelled, counsellor, cruellest, labelled, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller, and travelling. Americans usually use canceled, counselor, cruelest, labeled, modeling, quarreled, signaling, traveler, and traveling.
- The word parallel keeps a single -l- in British English, as in American English (paralleling, unparalleled), to avoid the unappealing cluster -llell-.
- Words with two vowels before a final l are also spelled with -ll- in British English before a suffix when the first vowel either acts as a consonant (equalling and initialled; in the United States, equaling or initialed), or belongs to a separate syllable (British fu•el•ling and di•alled; American fu•el•ing and di•aled).
- British woollen is a further exception due to the double vowel (American: woolen). Also, wooly is accepted in American English, though woolly dominates in both systems.
- Endings -ize /-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l in British English; for example, normalise, dualism, novelist, and devilish.
- Exceptions: tranquillise; duellist, medallist, panellist, and sometimes triallist in British English.
- For -ous, British English has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but the "ll" in marvellous and libellous.
- For -ee, British English has libellee.
- For -age, British English has pupillagePupillageA pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, is the barrister's equivalent of the training contract that a solicitor undertakes...
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 alteration occurs in the source language, which was often Latin. (Examples: bimetallism, cancellation, chancellor, crystallize, excellent, tonsillitis, and raillery.)
- All forms of English have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling (notice the stress difference); revealing, fooling (note the double vowel before the l); and hurling (consonant before the l).
- Canadian and Australian English largely follow British usage.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress
Secondary stress
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word; the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary'. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the stressed syllable: the nun in ...
or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in the 1920s, are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
- British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
- British jewellery; American jewelry. The standard pronunciations (ˈ) do not reflect this difference. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in the UK. Canada has both, but jewellery is more often used. Likewise, the Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and the United States has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry retailer.
Doubled in American English
Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans usually use a double l. In American usage, the spelling of words is usually not changed when they form the main part (not prefix or suffix) of other words, especially in newly formed words and in words whose main part is in common use. Words exhibiting this spelling difference includewil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", occasionally using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not transparent or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelt this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare. The Scottish tolbooth
Tolbooth
Tolbooth or tollbooth may refer to:* Tolbooth, a traditional Scottish 'town hall' for the administration of burghs, usually providing a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail.* Toll house, a place where road usage tolls are collected...
is cognate with toll booth, but it has a specific distinct sense.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.
Dr Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.
Dropped e
British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not. Generally speaking, British English drops it in only some cases in which it is unnecessary to indicate pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where necessary.- British prefers ageing, American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). For the noun or verb "route", British English often uses routeing, but in America 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 military. (e.g. "Attacus was the router of the Huns at ....")
Both forms of English retain the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
- 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 forms of the language retain the silent e when it is necessary to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, such as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both usually retain the "e" after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable. ("These rights are unabridgeable.")
- Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in America, only the latter in the UK. Similarly for the word lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in America and the latter prevails in the UK except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. The similar situation holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both forms of English prefer fledglingFledglingFledgling or Fledglings may refer to:* Curtiss Fledgling, a trainer aircraft* Fergie's Fledglings, a group of Manchester United players recruited under the management of Alex Ferguson...
to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. - The word "blue" always drops the "e" when forming "bluish" or "bluingBluingBluing may refer to:* Bluing , household product used to improve the appearance of fabrics* Bluing , passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust...
".
Different spellings for different meanings
- dependant or dependent: British dictionaries distinguish between dependent (adjective) and dependant (noun). In the US, dependent is usual for both noun and adjective, notwithstanding that dependant is also an acceptable variant for the noun form in the US.
- disc or disk: Traditionally, disc used to be British and disk American. Both spellings are etymologically sound (Greek diskos, Latin discus), although disk is earlier. In computing, disc is used for optical discs (e.g. a CD, Compact Disc; DVD, Digital Versatile/Video Disc), by choice of the group that coined and trademarked the name Compact Disc, while disk is used for products using magnetic storage (e.g. hard disks or floppy diskFloppy diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s, also known as diskettes). For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the US and the Commonwealth. Solid-state devices also use the spelling "disk". - enquiry or inquiry: According to Fowler, inquiry should be used in relation to a formal inquest, and enquiry to the act of questioning. Many (though not all) British writers maintain this distinction; the OED, on the other hand, lists inquiry and enquiry as equal alternatives, in that order. Some British dictionaries, such as Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, present the two spellings as interchangeable variants in the general sense, but prefer inquiry for the "formal inquest" sense. In the US, only inquiry is commonly used; the title of The National EnquirerThe National EnquirerThe National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
, as a proper name, is an exception. In Australia, inquiry and enquiry are often interchangeable, but inquiry prevails in writing. Both are current in Canada, where enquiry is often associated with scholarly or intellectual research. - ensure or insure: In the UK (and Australia), the word ensure (to make sure, to make certain) has a distinct meaning from the word insure (often followed by against – to guarantee or protect against, typically by means of an "insurance policy"). The distinction is only about a century old, and this helps explain why in (North) America ensure is just a variant of insure, more often than not. According to Merriam-Webster's usage notes, ensure and insure "are interchangeable in many contexts where they indicate the making certain or [making] inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee
ensured the safety of the refugees>, while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand insure the success of the party>." - insurance or assurance: In the business of risk transfer, American English speakers will normally refer to life insurance or fire insurance. In British English, "assurance" refers to risk associated with certainty, such as covering death (death is inevitable), whereas "insurance" refers to uncertainty (such as a home insurance policy). In British English "life insurance" is used for a policy covering uncertainty (for example, a pianist's hands may be covered under "life insurance"). Canadian speakers remain more likely than US speakers to use assurance.
- matt or matte: In the UK, matt refers to a non-glossy surface, and matte to the motion-picture techniqueMatte (filmmaking)Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
; in the US, matte covers both. - programme or program: The British programme is a 19th-century French version of program. Program first appeared in Scotland in the 17th century and is the only spelling found in the US. The OED entry, written around 1908 and listing both spellings, said program was preferable, since it conformed to the usual representation of the Greek as in anagram, diagram, telegram etc. In British English, program is the common spelling for computer programs, but for other meanings programme is used. In Australia, program has been endorsed by government writing standards for all senses since the 1960s, although programme is also seen; see also the name of The Micallef Program(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford DictionaryCanadian Oxford DictionaryThe Canadian Oxford Dictionary is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it quickly became the standard dictionary reference for Canadian English. Until September 2008, Oxford maintained a permanent staff of lexicographers in Canada, led by...
makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme. However, some Canadian government documents nevertheless use programme in all senses of the word – and also to match the spelling of the French equivalent. - tonne or ton: in the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the spelling tonneTonneThe tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
refers to the metric unit (1000 kilograms), whereas in the US the same unit is referred to as a metric ton. The unqualified tonTonThe ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
usually refers to the long tonLong tonLong ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
(2240 pounds (1,016 kg)) in the UK and to the short tonShort tonThe short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...
(2000 pounds (907.2 kg)) in the US (but note that the tonne and long ton differ by only 1.6%, and are roughly interchangeable when accuracy is not critical; ton and tonne are usually pronounced the same in speech).
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standardised American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures , is an international standards organisation, one of three such organisations established to maintain the International System of Units under the terms of the Metre Convention...
is "metre". This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.
Different spellings for different pronunciations
In a few cases, essentially the same wordLexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
{|class="wikitable sortable"
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable" | Notes
|- valign="top"
|
|| || , originally a French loanword with a different meaning, is the older spelling. The oldest recorded uses of the spelling are British. According to the OED, " became the standard American term (replacing ) 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, outnumbers by more than 7:1 in the UK. The case is similar for the British and American , although both of these terms are now obsolete. 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 (āēr). 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, is more common than , although is not unknown, especially in parts of French Canada (where it is, however, used only in English – the French term is avion, and the French word aéroplane designates 19th-century flying machines).
|- valign="top"
| || || The spelling 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 was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of metallic elements. Canada uses and Australia and New Zealand , according to their respective dictionaries.
|- valign="top"
| arse || ass || In vulgar senses "buttocks
" ("anus
"/"wretch"/"idiot"); unrelated sense "donkey
" is ass
in both. Arse is very rarely used in the US, though understood.
|- valign="top"
| || || The 19th century had the spelling pronounced to rhyme with move. Subsequently, a pronunciation spelling
was adopted in America, while in Britain a spelling pronunciation
was adopted.
|- valign="top"
| bogeyman || boogeyman or boogerman || It is pronounced ˈ in the UK, so that the American form, boogeyman /ˈbʊɡimæn/, is reminiscent of the 1970s disco dancing "boogie
" to the British ear. Boogerman /bʊɡɚmæn/ is common in the Southern US and gives an association with the slang term booger for Nasal mucus while the mainstream American spelling of boogeyman does not.
|- valign="top"
| brent || brant || For the species of goose.
|- valign="top"
| carburettor || carburetor || UK; US.
|- valign="top"
| charivari || shivaree, charivari || In America, where both terms are mainly regional, charivari is usually pronounced as shivaree, which is also found in Canada and Cornwall
, and is a corruption of the French word.
|- valign="top"
| coupé || coupe || For a two-door car; the horse-drawn carriage is coupé in both (meaning "cut"); unrelated "cup"/"bowl" is always coupe. In the United States, the "e" is accented when it is used as a foreign word.
|- valign="top"
| eyrie || aerie || This noun (not to be confused with the adjective eerie) rhymes with weary and hairy respectively. Both spellings and pronunciations occur in America.
|- valign="top"
| fillet || fillet, filet || Meat or fish. Pronounced the French way (approximately) 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 use the US spelling "filet" for their Filet-O-Fish
.
|- valign="top"
| furore || furor || Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loan-word that replaced the Latinate form in the UK in the following century, and is usually pronounced with a voiced e. The Canadian the same as the American, and Australia has both.
|- valign="top"
| grotty || grody || Clippings
of grotesque; both are slang terms from the 1960s.
|- valign="top"
| haulier || hauler || Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling.
|- valign="top"
| jemmy || jimmy || In the sense "crowbar
".
|- valign="top"
| moustache || mustache || In America, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary, the British spelling is an also-ran, yet the pronunciation with second-syllable stress is a common variant. In Britain the second syllable is usually stressed.
|- valign="top"
| mum(my) || mom(my) || Mother. Mom is sporadically regionally found in the UK (e.g. in West Midlands English
). Some British dialects have mam, and this is often used in Northern English, Irish English, and Welsh English
. 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.
|- valign="top"
| naïvety || naïveté || The American spelling is from French, and American speakers generally approximate the French pronunciation as /nɑːiːv(ɨ)ˈteɪ/, whereas the British spelling is nativised, as also the pronunciation /nɑːˈiːv(ɨ)ti/. In the UK, naïveté is a minor variant, used about 20% of the time in the British National Corpus; in America, naivete and naiveté are marginal variants, and naivety is almost unattested.
|- valign="top"
| pyjamas || pajamas || The 'y' represents the pronunciation of the original Urdu "pāy-jāma", and in the 18th century spellings such as "paijamahs" and "peijammahs" appeared: this is reflected in the pronunciation p (with the first syllable rhyming with "pie") offered as an alternative in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Both "pyjamas" and "pajamas" are also known from the 18th century, but the latter became more or less confined to the US. Canada follows both British and American usage, with both forms commonplace.
|- valign="top"
| pernickety || persnickety || Persnickety is a late 19th-century American alteration of the Scots word pernickety.
|- valign="top"
| quin || quint || Abbreviations of quintuplet.
|- valign="top"
| scallywag || scalawag || In the United States (where the word originated, as scalawag), scallywag is not unknown.
|- valign="top"
| sledge || sled ||
|- valign="top"
| speciality || specialty || In British English the standard usage is speciality, but specialty occurs in the field of medicine
, and also as a legal term for a contract
under seal. In Canada, specialty prevails. In Australia both are current.
|- valign="top"
| titbit || tidbit || According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest form was "tyd bit", and the alteration to "titbit" was probably under the influence of the obsolete word "tit", meaning a small horse or girl.
|- valign="top"
| whilst || while || Penguin Working Words recommends while only, and notes that whilst is old-fashioned. Cambridge Guide to English Usage and M-W's Webster's Guide to English Usage comment on its regional character, and note that it is rare in American usage. It is thus safer to use only while in international English. (See the article While
for further sources deprecating the use of whilst, and cautioning about uses of while.)
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable"|Remarks
|- valign="top"
|ache || ache,
ake ||
|- valign="top"
|acre || acre,
aker ||
|- valign="top"
|adze || adz,
adze ||
|- valign="top"
|annexe || annex || To annex is the verb in both British and American usage; however, when speaking of an annex(e) – the noun referring to an extension of a main building, not a military or political conquest, which would be an annexation – the root word is usually spelled with an -e at the end in the UK, but in the US it is not.
|- valign="top"
|artefact || artifact || In British usage, artefact is the main spelling and artifact a minor variant. In American English, artifact is the usual spelling. Canadians prefer artifact and Australians artefact, according to their respective dictionaries. Artefact reflects Arte-fact(um), the Latin source.
|- valign="top"
|artisan || artisan,
artizan ||
|- valign="top"
|axe || ax,
axe || Both the noun and verb. The word comes from Old English æx. In the US, both spellings are acceptable and commonly used. The Oxford English Dictionary
states that "the spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which became prevalent in the 19th century; but it ["ax"] is now disused in Britain".
|- valign="top"
|brasier || brasier,
||
|- valign="top"
|camomile, chamomile || chamomile, camomile || The word derives, via French and Latin, from Greek χαμαίμηλον ("earth apple"). The more common British spelling "camomile", corresponding to the immediate French source, is the older in English, while the spelling "chamomile" more accurately corresponds to the ultimate Latin and Greek source. In the UK, according to the OED, "the spelling cha- is chiefly in pharmacy, after Latin; that with ca- is literary and popular". In the US chamomile dominates in all senses.
|- valign="top"
|cheque || check || In bank
ing. Hence pay cheque and paycheck. Accordingly, the North American term for what is known as a current account or cheque account in the UK is spelled chequing account in Canada and checking account in the US. Some American financial institutions, notably American Express
, prefer cheque, but this is merely a trademarking affectation.
|- valign="top"
|chequer || checker || As in chequerboard/checkerboard, chequered/checkered flag etc. In Canada as in the US.
|- valign="top"
|chilli || chili,
chile || The original Mexican Spanish
word is spelled chile. In Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, chile and chilli are given as also variants.
|- valign="top"
|cipher, cypher|| cipher ||
|- valign="top"
|cosy || cozy || In all senses (adjective, noun, verb).
|- valign="top"
|dyke || dike ||
|- valign="top"
|domicile || domicile,
domicil ||
|- valign="top"
|doughnut|| doughnut, donut || In the US, both are used, with donut indicated as a variant of doughnut. In the UK, donut is indicated as an American variant for doughnut.
|- valign="top"
|draught || draft || British English usually uses draft for all senses as the verb; for a preliminary version of a document; for an order of payment (bank draft), and for military conscription (although this last meaning is not as common as in American English). It uses draught for drink from a cask (draught beer
); for animals used for pulling heavy loads (draught horse); for a current of air; for a ship's minimum depth of water to float
; and for the game draughts
, known as checkers in America. It uses either draught or draft for a plan or sketch (but almost always draughtsman in this sense; a draftsman drafts legal documents). American English uses draft in all these cases, including draftsman (male or female) (although in regard to drinks, draught is sometimes found). Canada uses both systems; in Australia, draft is used for technical drawings, is accepted for the "current of air" meaning, and is preferred by professionals in the nautical sense. The pronunciation is always the same for all meanings within a dialect (RP /ˈdrɑːft/, General American /ˈdræft/). The spelling draught is older; draft appeared first in the late 16th century.
|- valign="top"
|gauge || gage
gauge || Both spellings have existed since Middle English.
|- valign="top"
|gauntlet || gauntlet, gantlet || When meaning "ordeal", in the phrase running the ga(u)ntlet
, some American style guide
s prefer gantlet. This spelling is unused in Britain and less usual in America than gauntlet. The word is an alteration of earlier gantlope by folk etymology with gauntlet ("armored glove")
, always spelled thus.
|- valign="top"
|gazelle || gazelle,
gazel ||
|- valign="top"
|glycerine || glycerin, glycerine || Scientists use the term glycerol
, but both spellings are used sporadically in the US.
|- valign="top"
|grey || gray || Grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century, pace Dr Johnson and others, and it is but a minor variant in American English, according to dictionaries. Canadians tend to prefer grey. The non-cognate greyhound
was never grayhound. Both Grey and Gray are found in proper names everywhere in the English-speaking world. The two spellings are of equal antiquity, and the Oxford English Dictionary states that "each of the current spellings has some analogical support".
|- valign="top"
|hearken || harken ||
|- valign="top"
|jail,
gaol || jail || In the UK, gaol and gaoler are used sometimes, apart from literary usage, chiefly to describe a medieval building and guard. Both spellings go back to Middle English: gaol was a loanword from Norman French, while jail was a loanword from central (Parisian) French. In Middle English the two spellings were associated with different pronunciations. In current English the word, however spelt, is always given the pronunciation originally associated only with the jail spelling ('). The survival of the gaol spelling in British English is "due to statutory and official tradition".
|- valign="top"
|kerb || curb || For the noun designating the edge of a roadway (or the edge of a British pavement/ American sidewalk/ Australian footpath). Curb is the older spelling, and in the UK and US it is still the proper spelling for the verb meaning restrain.
|- valign="top"
| (kilo)gram,
|| (kilo)gram || (Kilo)gramme is used sometimes in the UK but never in the US. (Kilo)gram is the only spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
|- valign="top"
|liquorice || licorice || The American spelling is nearer to the Old French source licorece, which is ultimately from Greek glykyrrhiza. The British spelling was influenced by the unrelated word liquor. Licorice prevails in Canada and it is common in Australia, but it is rarely found in the UK. Liquorice is all but nonexistent in the US. ("Chiefly British", according to dictionaries).
|- valign="top"
|mollusc || mollusk, mollusc || The related adjective is normally molluscan in all forms of English.
|- valign="top"
|mould || mold || In all senses of the word. The American spelling is the older of the two. In Canada, both words have wide currency. When speaking of the noun describing a form for casting a shape, the US will also use the "mould" spelling, but defaults to "mold" when referring to the fruiting bodies of tiny fungi.
|- valign="top"
|moult || molt ||
|- valign="top"
|neurone, neuron || neuron ||
|- valign="top"
|omelette || omelet,
omelette || The omelet spelling is the older of the two, in spite of the etymology (French omelette). Omelette prevails in Canada and in Australia.
|- valign="top"
|opaque || opaque,
opake || The opake spelling has existed since Middle English and was used in Webster's dictionaries.
|- valign="top"
|partisan || partisan,
partizan ||
|- valign="top"
|phantasm || phantasm,
fantasm ||
|- valign="top"
|phantom || phantom,
fantom || The fantom spelling is the older of the two and has existed since Middle English.
|- valign="top"
|phoney || phony || The American spelling is the older of the two. The word originated in America and made its widespread appearance in Britain during the Phoney War. Phony is famously used often in The Catcher in the Rye
.
|- valign="top"
|plough || plow || Both spellings have existed since Middle English. The OED records several dozen variants. In the UK, plough has been the standard spelling for about 300 years. Although plow was Noah Webster's pick, plough continued to have some currency in the US, as the entry in Webster's Third (1961) implies. Newer dictionaries label plough as "chiefly British". The word snowplough/snowplow, originally an Americanism, predates Webster's reform and was first recorded as snow plough. Canada has both plough and plow, although snowplough is much rarer there than snowplow. In the US, "plough" sometimes describes a horsedrawn kind while "plow" refers to a gasoline (petrol) powered kind.
|- valign="top"
|rack and ruin || wrack and ruin || Several words like "rack" and "wrack" have been conflated, with both spellings thus accepted as variants for senses connected to torture (orig. rack
) and ruin (orig. wrack, cf. wreck) In "(w)rack and ruin", the W-less variant is now prevalent in the UK but not the US.
|- valign="top"
|rhyme || rhyme,
rime ||
|- valign="top"
|sceptic (-al, -ism) || skeptic (-al, -ism) || The American spelling, akin to Greek, is the earliest known spelling in English. It was preferred by Fowler, and is used by many Canadians, where it is the earlier form. Sceptic also pre-dates the European settlement of the US, and it follows the French sceptique and Latin scepticus. In the mid-18th century, Dr Johnson's dictionary listed skeptic without comment or alternative, but this form has never been popular in the UK; sceptic, an equal variant in the old Webster's Third (1961), has now become "chiefly British". Australians generally follow the British usage (with the notable exception of the Australian Skeptics
). All of these versions are pronounced with a hard "c", though in French that letter is silent and the word is pronounced like septique.
|- valign="top"
|smoulder || smolder || The American spelling is the older of the two and has existed since Middle English.
|- valign="top"
|stead(fast) || stead(fast),
sted(fast) ||
|- valign="top"
|storey || story || Level of a building. The plurals are storeys and stories respectively. The letter "e" is used in the UK and Canada to differentiate between levels of buildings and a story as in a literary work. Story is the earlier spelling. The Oxford English Dictionary states that this word is "probably the same word as story[in its meaning of "narrative"] though the development of sense is obscure.
|- valign="top"
|sulphate || sulfate,
sulphate ||
|- valign="top"
|sulphur || sulfur,
sulphur || Sulfur is the international standard in the sciences (IUPAC), and it is supported by the UK's RSC
. During the Middle English period the word was spelt with an f. However, sulphur was preferred by Dr Johnson. It is still used by British and Irish scientists, and it is still actively taught in British and Irish schools. It prevails in Canada and Australia, and it is also found in some American place names (e.g. Sulphur
, Louisiana and White Sulphur Springs
, West Virginia). American English usage guides suggest sulfur for technical usage, and both sulphur and sulfur in common usage and in literature. The variation between f and ph spellings is also found in the word's ultimate source: Latin sulfur, sulphur.
|- valign="top"
|telegram,
telegramme || telegram || Telegramme is used sometimes in the UK but never in the US.
|- valign="top"
|through || through,
thru ||
|- valign="top"
|throughout || throughout,
thruout ||
|- valign="top"
|towards,
toward || toward,
towards ||
|- valign="top"
|tyre || tire || The outer portion of a wheel. In Canada as in the US. Tire is the older spelling, but both were used in the 15th and 16th centuries (for a metal tire). Tire became the settled spelling in the 17th century but tyre was revived in the UK in the 19th century for rubber / pneumatic tyres, possibly because it was used in some patent documents, though many continued to use tire for the iron variety. The Times
newspaper was still using tire as late as 1905. For the verb meaning "to grow weary" both American and British English use only the tire spelling.
|- valign="top"
|vice || vise, vice || The two-jawed workbench tool
. Americans and Canadians retain the very old distinction between vise (the tool) and vice (the sin, and also the Latin prefix meaning a "deputy"), both of which are vice in the UK and Australia. Thus, Americans have Vice-Admiral, Vice-President, and Vice-Principal, but never Vise- for any one of these.
|- valign="top"
|vineyard || vineyard,
vinyard ||
|- valign="top"
|visor || visor,
vizor ||
|- valign="top"
|woe(ful) || woe(ful),
wo(ful)
|- valign="top"
|yoghurt,
yogurt || yogurt,
yoghurt || Yoghurt is an also-ran in the US, as is yoghourt in the UK. Although the Oxford Dictionaries have always preferred yogurt, in current British usage yoghurt seems to be prevalent. In Canada, yogurt prevails, despite the Canadian Oxford preferring yogourt, which has the advantage of being bilingual (English and French). In Australia as in the UK. Whatever the spelling is, the word has different pronunciations: in the UK /ˈjɒɡɚt/ or /ˈjoʊɡɚt/, only /ˈjoʊɡɚrt/ in America, Ireland, and Australia. The word comes from the Turkish language
word yoğurt. The voiced velar fricative
represented by ğ in the modern Turkish (Latinic) alphabet
was traditionally written gh in romanizations of the Ottoman Turkish (Arabic) alphabet
used before 1928.
|}
, whereas American English discourages the use of hyphens in compounds where there is no compelling reason, so counterattack
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 (such as editor-in-chief). Commander-in-chief is dominant in all forms of English.
formed as proper acronyms are often rendered in title case by Commonwealth writers, but usually as upper case by Americans: for example, Nasa / NASA
or Unicef / UNICEF. This does not apply to most pure initialisms, such as US, IBM
, or PRC (the People's Republic of China). However, it is occasionally done for some in the UK, such as Pc (Police Constable
).
Contractions
, where the final letter is present, are often written in British English without full stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St, Ave). Abbreviation
s where the final letter is not present generally do take full stops/periods (such as vol., etc., i.e., ed.); British English shares this convention with the French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Ave., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., and Jr., always require periods. Some initials are usually upper case in America but lower case in Britain: liter/litre
and its compounds ("2 L or 25 mL" vs "2 l or 25 ml"); and ante meridiem and post meridiem
(10 P.M. or 10 PM vs 10 p.m. or 10 pm). Both AM/PM and a.m./p.m. are acceptable in American English, though AM/PM is more common.
s, also called inverted commas, is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single quotation marks (') and double quotation marks ("). As a general rule, British usage has in the past usually preferred single quotation marks for ordinary use, but double quotation marks are now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotation marks.
The convention used to be, and in American English still is, to put full stops (periods) and commas inside the quotation marks, irrespective of the sense. British English has moved away from this style while American English has retained it. 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. Moreover, formal British English practice requires a closing full stop to be put inside the quotation marks if the quoted item is a complete sentence that ends where the main sentence ends, but it is common to see the stop outside the closing quotation marks.
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958 the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and...
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, outnumbers by more than 7:1 in the UK. The case is similar for the British and American , although both of these terms are now obsolete. 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 (āēr). Thus, the prefix appears in aeronautics
Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of airflight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft and rocketry within the atmosphere...
, aerostatics
Aerostatics
Aerostatics is the study of gases that are not in motion. The corresponding study of gases in motion is called aerodynamics. It is a subfield of fluid statics.Aerostatics studies density allocation, especially in air...
, aerodynamics
Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air, particularly when it interacts with a moving object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with...
, aeronautical engineering and so on, while the second occurs invariably in aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
, airport
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...
, airliner
Airliner
An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft for transporting passengers and cargo. Such aircraft are operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers in commercial...
, airmail
Airmail
Airmail is mail that is transported by aircraft. It typically arrives more quickly than surface mail, and usually costs more to send...
etc. In Canada, is more common than , although is not unknown, especially in parts of French Canada (where it is, however, used only in English – the French term is avion, and the French word aéroplane designates 19th-century flying machines).
|- valign="top"
| || || The spelling is the international standard in the sciences according to the IUPAC recommendations. Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet FRS MRIA was a British chemist and inventor. He is probably best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine...
, the element's discoverer, first proposed the name alumium, and then later aluminum. The name was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of metallic elements. Canada uses and Australia and New Zealand , according to their respective dictionaries.
|- valign="top"
| arse || ass || In vulgar senses "buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
" ("anus
Anus
The anus is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may be one or more of: matter which the animal cannot digest,...
"/"wretch"/"idiot"); unrelated sense "donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
" is ass
Ass
Ass may refer to:* The mammal Equus africanus asinus better known as the Donkey** Asinus subgenus* North American English informal term for buttocks* áss, one of the Æsir in Norse mythology* Ass , by Badfinger...
in both. Arse is very rarely used in the US, though understood.
|- valign="top"
| || || The 19th century had the spelling pronounced to rhyme with move. Subsequently, a pronunciation spelling
Pronunciation spelling
A pronunciation spelling of a word is a spelling different from the standard spelling, used to emphasize a particular pronunciation of the word. The spelling uses the regular spelling rules of the language. Most are nonce coinages, but some have become standardised, e.g...
was adopted in America, while in Britain a spelling pronunciation
Spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is a pronunciation that, instead of reflecting the way the word was pronounced by previous generations of speakers, is a rendering in sound of the word's spelling.-Examples of English words with common spelling pronunciations:...
was adopted.
|- valign="top"
| bogeyman || boogeyman or boogerman || It is pronounced ˈ in the UK, so that the American form, boogeyman /ˈbʊɡimæn/, is reminiscent of the 1970s disco dancing "boogie
Boogie
Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded...
" to the British ear. Boogerman /bʊɡɚmæn/ is common in the Southern US and gives an association with the slang term booger for Nasal mucus while the mainstream American spelling of boogeyman does not.
|- valign="top"
| brent || brant || For the species of goose.
|- valign="top"
| carburettor || carburetor || UK; US.
|- valign="top"
| charivari || shivaree, charivari || In America, where both terms are mainly regional, charivari is usually pronounced as shivaree, which is also found in Canada and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, and is a corruption of the French word.
|- valign="top"
| coupé || coupe || For a two-door car; the horse-drawn carriage is coupé in both (meaning "cut"); unrelated "cup"/"bowl" is always coupe. In the United States, the "e" is accented when it is used as a foreign word.
|- valign="top"
| eyrie || aerie || This noun (not to be confused with the adjective eerie) rhymes with weary and hairy respectively. Both spellings and pronunciations occur in America.
|- valign="top"
| fillet || fillet, filet || Meat or fish. Pronounced the French way (approximately) 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
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
in the UK use the US spelling "filet" for their Filet-O-Fish
Filet-O-Fish
The Filet-O-Fish is a fish sandwich sold by the international fast food chain store McDonald's.-Product description:...
.
|- valign="top"
| furore || furor || Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loan-word that replaced the Latinate form in the UK in the following century, and is usually pronounced with a voiced e. The Canadian the same as the American, and Australia has both.
|- valign="top"
| grotty || grody || Clippings
Clipping (morphology)
In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts . Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."...
of grotesque; both are slang terms from the 1960s.
|- valign="top"
| haulier || hauler || Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling.
|- valign="top"
| jemmy || jimmy || In the sense "crowbar
Crowbar (tool)
A crowbar, a wrecking bar, pry bar, or prybar, or sometimes a prise bar or prisebar, and more informally a jimmy, jimmy bar, jemmy or gooseneck is a tool consisting of a metal bar with a single curved end and flattened points, often with a small fissure on one or both ends for removing nails...
".
|- valign="top"
| moustache || mustache || In America, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary, the British spelling is an also-ran, yet the pronunciation with second-syllable stress is a common variant. In Britain the second syllable is usually stressed.
|- valign="top"
| mum(my) || mom(my) || Mother. Mom is sporadically regionally found in the UK (e.g. in West Midlands English
West Midlands English
West Midlands English is a group of dialects of the English language. The accent has experienced ridicule within the UK for its unusual sound. The accent is a result of extensive migration to the region during the Industrial revolution...
). Some British dialects have mam, and this is often used in Northern English, Irish English, and Welsh English
Welsh English
Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh...
. In the American region of New England, especially in the case of the Boston accent
Boston accent
The Boston dialect is the dialect characteristic of English spoken in the city of Boston and much of eastern Massachusetts. The accent and closely related accents can be heard commonly in an area stretching into much of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and areas of south-western Nova Scotia...
, 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.
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| naïvety || naïveté || The American spelling is from French, and American speakers generally approximate the French pronunciation as /nɑːiːv(ɨ)ˈteɪ/, whereas the British spelling is nativised, as also the pronunciation /nɑːˈiːv(ɨ)ti/. In the UK, naïveté is a minor variant, used about 20% of the time in the British National Corpus; in America, naivete and naiveté are marginal variants, and naivety is almost unattested.
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| pyjamas || pajamas || The 'y' represents the pronunciation of the original Urdu "pāy-jāma", and in the 18th century spellings such as "paijamahs" and "peijammahs" appeared: this is reflected in the pronunciation p (with the first syllable rhyming with "pie") offered as an alternative in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Both "pyjamas" and "pajamas" are also known from the 18th century, but the latter became more or less confined to the US. Canada follows both British and American usage, with both forms commonplace.
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| pernickety || persnickety || Persnickety is a late 19th-century American alteration of the Scots word pernickety.
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| quin || quint || Abbreviations of quintuplet.
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| scallywag || scalawag || In the United States (where the word originated, as scalawag), scallywag is not unknown.
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| sledge || sled ||
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| speciality || specialty || In British English the standard usage is speciality, but specialty occurs in the field of medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, and also as a legal term for a contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
under seal. In Canada, specialty prevails. In Australia both are current.
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| titbit || tidbit || According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest form was "tyd bit", and the alteration to "titbit" was probably under the influence of the obsolete word "tit", meaning a small horse or girl.
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| whilst || while || Penguin Working Words recommends while only, and notes that whilst is old-fashioned. Cambridge Guide to English Usage and M-W's Webster's Guide to English Usage comment on its regional character, and note that it is rare in American usage. It is thus safer to use only while in international English. (See the article While
While
"While" is a word in the English language that functions both as a noun and as a subordinating conjunction. Its meaning varies largely based on its intended function, position in the phrase and even the writer or speaker's regional dialect...
for further sources deprecating the use of whilst, and cautioning about uses of while.)
|}
Miscellaneous spelling differences
In the table below, the more common spellings are on top.{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! UK !! US !! class="unsortable"|Remarks
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|ache || ache,
ake ||
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|acre || acre,
aker ||
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|adze || adz,
adze ||
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|annexe || annex || To annex is the verb in both British and American usage; however, when speaking of an annex(e) – the noun referring to an extension of a main building, not a military or political conquest, which would be an annexation – the root word is usually spelled with an -e at the end in the UK, but in the US it is not.
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|artefact || artifact || In British usage, artefact is the main spelling and artifact a minor variant. In American English, artifact is the usual spelling. Canadians prefer artifact and Australians artefact, according to their respective dictionaries. Artefact reflects Arte-fact(um), the Latin source.
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|artisan || artisan,
artizan ||
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|axe || ax,
axe || Both the noun and verb. The word comes from Old English æx. In the US, both spellings are acceptable and commonly used. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
states that "the spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which became prevalent in the 19th century; but it ["ax"] is now disused in Britain".
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|brasier || brasier,
||
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|camomile, chamomile || chamomile, camomile || The word derives, via French and Latin, from Greek χαμαίμηλον ("earth apple"). The more common British spelling "camomile", corresponding to the immediate French source, is the older in English, while the spelling "chamomile" more accurately corresponds to the ultimate Latin and Greek source. In the UK, according to the OED, "the spelling cha- is chiefly in pharmacy, after Latin; that with ca- is literary and popular". In the US chamomile dominates in all senses.
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|cheque || check || In bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
ing. Hence pay cheque and paycheck. Accordingly, the North American term for what is known as a current account or cheque account in the UK is spelled chequing account in Canada and checking account in the US. Some American financial institutions, notably American Express
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
, prefer cheque, but this is merely a trademarking affectation.
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|chequer || checker || As in chequerboard/checkerboard, chequered/checkered flag etc. In Canada as in the US.
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|chilli || chili,
chile || The original Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
word is spelled chile. In Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, chile and chilli are given as also variants.
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|cipher, cypher|| cipher ||
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|cosy || cozy || In all senses (adjective, noun, verb).
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|dyke || dike ||
|- valign="top"
|domicile || domicile,
domicil ||
|- valign="top"
|doughnut|| doughnut, donut || In the US, both are used, with donut indicated as a variant of doughnut. In the UK, donut is indicated as an American variant for doughnut.
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|draught || draft || British English usually uses draft for all senses as the verb; for a preliminary version of a document; for an order of payment (bank draft), and for military conscription (although this last meaning is not as common as in American English). It uses draught for drink from a cask (draught beer
Draught beer
Draught beer is beer served from a cask or a pressurised keg.-History of draught:Until Joseph Bramah patented the beer engine in 1785, beer was served directly from the barrel and carried to the customer. The Old English word for carry was dragen which developed into a series of related words,...
); for animals used for pulling heavy loads (draught horse); for a current of air; for a ship's minimum depth of water to float
Draft (hull)
The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...
; and for the game draughts
Draughts
Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque...
, known as checkers in America. It uses either draught or draft for a plan or sketch (but almost always draughtsman in this sense; a draftsman drafts legal documents). American English uses draft in all these cases, including draftsman (male or female) (although in regard to drinks, draught is sometimes found). Canada uses both systems; in Australia, draft is used for technical drawings, is accepted for the "current of air" meaning, and is preferred by professionals in the nautical sense. The pronunciation is always the same for all meanings within a dialect (RP /ˈdrɑːft/, General American /ˈdræft/). The spelling draught is older; draft appeared first in the late 16th century.
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|gauge || gage
gauge || Both spellings have existed since Middle English.
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|gauntlet || gauntlet, gantlet || When meaning "ordeal", in the phrase running the ga(u)ntlet
Running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet is a form of physical punishment wherein a captive is compelled to run between two rows—a gauntlet—of soldiers who strike him as he passes.-Etymology:...
, some American style guide
Style guide
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field...
s prefer gantlet. This spelling is unused in Britain and less usual in America than gauntlet. The word is an alteration of earlier gantlope by folk etymology with gauntlet ("armored glove")
Gauntlet (gloves)
Gauntlet is a name for several different styles of glove, particularly those with an extended cuff covering part of the forearm. Gauntlets exist in many forms, ranging from flexible fabric and leather gloves, to mail and fully articulated plate armour....
, always spelled thus.
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|gazelle || gazelle,
gazel ||
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|glycerine || glycerin, glycerine || Scientists use the term glycerol
Glycerol
Glycerol is a simple polyol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is widely used in pharmaceutical formulations. Glycerol has three hydroxyl groups that are responsible for its solubility in water and its hygroscopic nature. The glycerol backbone is central to all lipids...
, but both spellings are used sporadically in the US.
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|grey || gray || Grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century, pace Dr Johnson and others, and it is but a minor variant in American English, according to dictionaries. Canadians tend to prefer grey. The non-cognate greyhound
Greyhound
The Greyhound is a breed of sighthound that has been primarily bred for coursing game and racing, and the breed has also recently seen a resurgence in its popularity as a pedigree show dog and family pet. It is a gentle and intelligent breed...
was never grayhound. Both Grey and Gray are found in proper names everywhere in the English-speaking world. The two spellings are of equal antiquity, and the Oxford English Dictionary states that "each of the current spellings has some analogical support".
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|hearken || harken ||
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|jail,
gaol || jail || In the UK, gaol and gaoler are used sometimes, apart from literary usage, chiefly to describe a medieval building and guard. Both spellings go back to Middle English: gaol was a loanword from Norman French, while jail was a loanword from central (Parisian) French. In Middle English the two spellings were associated with different pronunciations. In current English the word, however spelt, is always given the pronunciation originally associated only with the jail spelling ('). The survival of the gaol spelling in British English is "due to statutory and official tradition".
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|kerb || curb || For the noun designating the edge of a roadway (or the edge of a British pavement/ American sidewalk/ Australian footpath). Curb is the older spelling, and in the UK and US it is still the proper spelling for the verb meaning restrain.
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| (kilo)gram,
|| (kilo)gram || (Kilo)gramme is used sometimes in the UK but never in the US. (Kilo)gram is the only spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
|- valign="top"
|liquorice || licorice || The American spelling is nearer to the Old French source licorece, which is ultimately from Greek glykyrrhiza. The British spelling was influenced by the unrelated word liquor. Licorice prevails in Canada and it is common in Australia, but it is rarely found in the UK. Liquorice is all but nonexistent in the US. ("Chiefly British", according to dictionaries).
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|mollusc || mollusk, mollusc || The related adjective is normally molluscan in all forms of English.
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|mould || mold || In all senses of the word. The American spelling is the older of the two. In Canada, both words have wide currency. When speaking of the noun describing a form for casting a shape, the US will also use the "mould" spelling, but defaults to "mold" when referring to the fruiting bodies of tiny fungi.
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|moult || molt ||
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|neurone, neuron || neuron ||
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|omelette || omelet,
omelette || The omelet spelling is the older of the two, in spite of the etymology (French omelette). Omelette prevails in Canada and in Australia.
|- valign="top"
|opaque || opaque,
opake || The opake spelling has existed since Middle English and was used in Webster's dictionaries.
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|partisan || partisan,
partizan ||
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|phantasm || phantasm,
fantasm ||
|- valign="top"
|phantom || phantom,
fantom || The fantom spelling is the older of the two and has existed since Middle English.
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|phoney || phony || The American spelling is the older of the two. The word originated in America and made its widespread appearance in Britain during the Phoney War. Phony is famously used often in The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
.
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|plough || plow || Both spellings have existed since Middle English. The OED records several dozen variants. In the UK, plough has been the standard spelling for about 300 years. Although plow was Noah Webster's pick, plough continued to have some currency in the US, as the entry in Webster's Third (1961) implies. Newer dictionaries label plough as "chiefly British". The word snowplough/snowplow, originally an Americanism, predates Webster's reform and was first recorded as snow plough. Canada has both plough and plow, although snowplough is much rarer there than snowplow. In the US, "plough" sometimes describes a horsedrawn kind while "plow" refers to a gasoline (petrol) powered kind.
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|rack and ruin || wrack and ruin || Several words like "rack" and "wrack" have been conflated, with both spellings thus accepted as variants for senses connected to torture (orig. rack
Rack (torture)
The rack is a torture device consisting of a rectangular, usually wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied...
) and ruin (orig. wrack, cf. wreck) In "(w)rack and ruin", the W-less variant is now prevalent in the UK but not the US.
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|rhyme || rhyme,
rime ||
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|sceptic (-al, -ism) || skeptic (-al, -ism) || The American spelling, akin to Greek, is the earliest known spelling in English. It was preferred by Fowler, and is used by many Canadians, where it is the earlier form. Sceptic also pre-dates the European settlement of the US, and it follows the French sceptique and Latin scepticus. In the mid-18th century, Dr Johnson's dictionary listed skeptic without comment or alternative, but this form has never been popular in the UK; sceptic, an equal variant in the old Webster's Third (1961), has now become "chiefly British". Australians generally follow the British usage (with the notable exception of the Australian Skeptics
Australian Skeptics
The Australian Skeptics is a non-profit organisation based in Australia which investigates paranormal and pseudoscientific claims using scientific methodologies.-History:...
). All of these versions are pronounced with a hard "c", though in French that letter is silent and the word is pronounced like septique.
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|smoulder || smolder || The American spelling is the older of the two and has existed since Middle English.
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|stead(fast) || stead(fast),
sted(fast) ||
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|storey || story || Level of a building. The plurals are storeys and stories respectively. The letter "e" is used in the UK and Canada to differentiate between levels of buildings and a story as in a literary work. Story is the earlier spelling. The Oxford English Dictionary states that this word is "probably the same word as story
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|sulphate || sulfate,
sulphate ||
|- valign="top"
|sulphur || sulfur,
sulphur || Sulfur is the international standard in the sciences (IUPAC), and it is supported by the UK's RSC
Royal Society of Chemistry
The Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences." It was formed in 1980 from the merger of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new...
. During the Middle English period the word was spelt with an f. However, sulphur was preferred by Dr Johnson. It is still used by British and Irish scientists, and it is still actively taught in British and Irish schools. It prevails in Canada and Australia, and it is also found in some American place names (e.g. Sulphur
Sulphur, Louisiana
Sulphur is a city in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 22,512 at the 2000 census. Sulphur is a suburb of Lake Charles, and is part of the Lake Charles Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
, Louisiana and White Sulphur Springs
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
White Sulphur Springs is a city in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,444 at the 2010 census.-Geography:White Sulphur Springs is located at ....
, West Virginia). American English usage guides suggest sulfur for technical usage, and both sulphur and sulfur in common usage and in literature. The variation between f and ph spellings is also found in the word's ultimate source: Latin sulfur, sulphur.
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|telegram,
telegramme || telegram || Telegramme is used sometimes in the UK but never in the US.
|- valign="top"
|through || through,
thru ||
|- valign="top"
|throughout || throughout,
thruout ||
|- valign="top"
|towards,
toward || toward,
towards ||
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|tyre || tire || The outer portion of a wheel. In Canada as in the US. Tire is the older spelling, but both were used in the 15th and 16th centuries (for a metal tire). Tire became the settled spelling in the 17th century but tyre was revived in the UK in the 19th century for rubber / pneumatic tyres, possibly because it was used in some patent documents, though many continued to use tire for the iron variety. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper was still using tire as late as 1905. For the verb meaning "to grow weary" both American and British English use only the tire spelling.
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|vice || vise, vice || The two-jawed workbench tool
Vise (tool)
A vise or vice is a mechanical screw apparatus used for holding or clamping a work piece to allow work to be performed on it with tools such as saws, planes, drills, mills, screwdrivers, sandpaper, etc. Vises usually have one fixed jaw and another, parallel, jaw which is moved towards or away from...
. Americans and Canadians retain the very old distinction between vise (the tool) and vice (the sin, and also the Latin prefix meaning a "deputy"), both of which are vice in the UK and Australia. Thus, Americans have Vice-Admiral, Vice-President, and Vice-Principal, but never Vise- for any one of these.
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|vineyard || vineyard,
vinyard ||
|- valign="top"
|visor || visor,
vizor ||
|- valign="top"
|woe(ful) || woe(ful),
wo(ful)
|- valign="top"
|yoghurt,
yogurt || yogurt,
yoghurt || Yoghurt is an also-ran in the US, as is yoghourt in the UK. Although the Oxford Dictionaries have always preferred yogurt, in current British usage yoghurt seems to be prevalent. In Canada, yogurt prevails, despite the Canadian Oxford preferring yogourt, which has the advantage of being bilingual (English and French). In Australia as in the UK. Whatever the spelling is, the word has different pronunciations: in the UK /ˈjɒɡɚt/ or /ˈjoʊɡɚt/, only /ˈjoʊɡɚrt/ in America, Ireland, and Australia. The word comes from the Turkish language
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
word yoğurt. The voiced velar fricative
Voiced velar fricative
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various spoken languages. It is not found in English today, but did exist in Old English...
represented by ğ in the modern Turkish (Latinic) alphabet
Turkish alphabet
The Turkish alphabet is a Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language. This alphabet represents modern Turkish pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy...
was traditionally written gh in romanizations of the Ottoman Turkish (Arabic) alphabet
Ottoman Turkish alphabet
The Ottoman Turkish alphabet was the version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the time of the Ottoman Empire and in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, until the adoption of the new Turkish alphabet, derived from the Latin script, on...
used before 1928.
|}
Compounds and hyphens
British English often prefers hyphenated compounds, such as counter-attackCounter-Attack
Counter-Attack is a 1945 war film starring Paul Muni and Marguerite Chapman as two Russians trapped in a collapsed building with seven enemy German soldiers during World War II...
, whereas American English discourages the use of hyphens in compounds where there is no compelling reason, so counterattack
Counterattack
A counterattack is a tactic used in response against an attack. The term originates in military strategy. The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy in attack and the specific objectives are usually to regain lost ground or to destroy attacking enemy units.It is...
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 (such as editor-in-chief). Commander-in-chief is dominant in all forms of English.
- any more or anymore: In sense "any longer", the single-word form is usual in North America and Australia but unusual elsewhere, at least in formal writing. Other senses always have the two-word form; thus Americans distinguish "I couldn't love you anymore [so I left you]" from "I couldn't love you any more [than I already do]". In Hong Kong EnglishHong Kong EnglishHong Kong English may refer to two different yet interrelated concepts. The first concept refers to the variation or dialect of the English language used in Hong Kong. The second concept refers to the accent and elements as a result of its use by Cantonese speakers.For the first meaning, Hong Kong...
, any more is always two words. - for ever or forever: Traditional British English usage makes a distinction between for ever, meaning for eternity (or a very long time into the future), 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 contemporary 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 (although forever in the sense of "continually" is comparatively rare in American English, having been displaced by always).
- near by or nearby: Some British writers make the distinction between the adverbial near by, which is written as two words, as in, "No one was near by"; and the adjectival nearby, which is written as one, as in, "The nearby house". In American English, the one-word spelling is standard for both forms.
Acronyms and abbreviations
Proper namesProper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
formed as proper acronyms are often rendered in title case by Commonwealth writers, but usually as upper case by Americans: for example, Nasa / NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
or Unicef / UNICEF. This does not apply to most pure initialisms, such as US, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, or PRC (the People's Republic of China). However, it is occasionally done for some in the UK, such as Pc (Police Constable
Policing in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland ....
).
Contractions
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
, where the final letter is present, are often written in British English without full stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St, Ave). Abbreviation
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...
s where the final letter is not present generally do take full stops/periods (such as vol., etc., i.e., ed.); British English shares this convention with the French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Ave., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., and Jr., always require periods. Some initials are usually upper case in America but lower case in Britain: liter/litre
Litre
pic|200px|right|thumb|One litre is equivalent to this cubeEach side is 10 cm1 litre water = 1 kilogram water The litre is a metric system unit of volume equal to 1 cubic decimetre , to 1,000 cubic centimetres , and to 1/1,000 cubic metre...
and its compounds ("2 L or 25 mL" vs "2 l or 25 ml"); and ante meridiem and post meridiem
12-hour clock
The 12-hour clock is a time conversion convention in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods called ante meridiem and post meridiem...
(10 P.M. or 10 PM vs 10 p.m. or 10 pm). Both AM/PM and a.m./p.m. are acceptable in American English, though AM/PM is more common.
Punctuation
The use of quotation markQuotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
s, also called inverted commas, is very slightly complicated by the fact that there are two types: single quotation marks (') and double quotation marks ("). As a general rule, British usage has in the past usually preferred single quotation marks for ordinary use, but double quotation marks are now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotation marks.
The convention used to be, and in American English still is, to put full stops (periods) and commas inside the quotation marks, irrespective of the sense. British English has moved away from this style while American English has retained it. 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. Moreover, formal British English practice requires a closing full stop to be put inside the quotation marks if the quoted item is a complete sentence that ends where the main sentence ends, but it is common to see the stop outside the closing quotation marks.
See also
- Australian EnglishAustralian EnglishAustralian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
- Canadian EnglishCanadian EnglishCanadian English is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians , and more than 28 million are fluent in the language...
- English in the Commonwealth of Nations
- English orthographyEnglish orthographyEnglish orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
- Hiberno-EnglishHiberno-EnglishHiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
- New Zealand EnglishNew Zealand EnglishNew Zealand English is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and...
- Scottish EnglishScottish EnglishScottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
- South African EnglishSouth African EnglishThe term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
External links
