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American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.

Historical origins

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In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Current British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755), whereas many American English spellings follow Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828.

Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the US 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 decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa. While in many cases American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, on the other hand it has also often retained older forms.

The spelling systems of Commonwealth countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, however, while most spelling is "British", many "American" spellings are also used. Additional information on Canadian and Australian spelling is provided throughout the article.

Go fuck yourself

Latin-derived spellings

Go fuck yourself

Go fuck yourself

Go fuck yourself

Go fuck yourself

Greek spellings

Go fuck yourself

Go fuck yourself

Go fuck yourself

Compounds and hyphens

British English often prefers hyphenated compounds, such as counter-attack, 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).

• any more or anymore: In sense "any longer", the single-word form is usual in North America and Australia but unusual in the UK, at least in formal writing. Other senses always have the two-word form; thus Americans distinguish "I couldn't love you anymore " from "I couldn't love you any more ".
• for ever or forever: Traditional British 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 in all senses.
• 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.

Go fuck yourself

Dropped e

British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not.

• British prefers ageing, American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). UK often routeing; US usually routing (for route; rout makes routing everywhere). Both systems retain the silent e in dyeing, singeing, swingeing, to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging. In contrast, bathe and the British bath both form bathing. UK often whingeing, US less so; whinge is chiefly British. Both systems vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
• Before -able, UK prefers likeable, liveable, rateable, saleable, sizeable, unshakeable, where US prefers to drop the -e; but UK as US prefers breathable, curable, datable, lovable, movable, notable, provable, quotable, scalable, solvable, usable, and those where the root is polysyllabic, like believable or decidable. Both systems retain the silent e when necessary to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both retain e after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable.
• Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in the US, only the latter in the UK. Similarly for lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement can be found everywhere, although the former strongly prevails in the US and the latter prevails in the UK except in law, where judgment is standard. Similarly for abridgment. Both prefer fledgling to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling.
• The informal Briticisms moreish (causing a desire for more of something) and blokeish usually retain e; more established words like slavish and bluish usually do not.

Different spellings, different connotations

• artefact or 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.
• 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) while disk is used for products using magnetic storage (e.g. hard disk and floppy disk; short for diskette). For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the US and the Commonwealth.
• 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. 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 inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee <the government has ensured the safety of the refugees>, while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand <careful planning should insure the success of the party>.
• matt or matte: In the UK, matt refers to a non-glossy surface, and matte to the motion-picture technique; 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 style for all senses since the 1960s, although programme is also common; see also the name of The Micallef Program(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme; many Canadian government documents use programme in all senses of the word also to match the spelling of the French equivalent.
• tonne or ton: in the UK, the spelling tonne refers to the metric unit (1000 kg), whereas in the US the same unit is referred to as a metric ton. Unqualified ton usually refers to the long ton (2,240 lb) in the UK, and to the short ton (2,000 lb) in the US.

See also meter/metre, for which the British English distinction between etymologically related forms with different meanings was obviated in the regularization of American spellings.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Proper names 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 initialisms, such as USA or HTML; though it is occasionally done for some, such as Pc (Police Constable).

Contractions, where the final letter is present, are often written in British English without stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St). Abbreviations where the final letter is not present generally do take stops/periods (such as vol., etc., ed.); British English shares this convention with French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Mr., Mrs., and Dr. always require stops/periods.

Miscellaneous spelling differences

See also

• Australian English
• Canadian English
• South African English
• English orthography (spelling)
• Spelling reform
• The Chicago Manual of Style

References

• Burchfield, R. W. (Editor); Fowler, H. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-869126-2
• Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series). Oxford Press. ISBN 0-19-860506-4.
• Hargraves, Orin (2003). Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515704-4
• Mencken, H. L. (1921), "Chapter 8. American Spelling > 1. The Two Orthographies", The American language: An inquiry into the development of English in the United States (2nd ed., rev. and enl. ed.), New York: A.A. Knopf, ISBN 1-58734-087-9
• Nicholson, Margaret; (1957). "A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage". Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vols. (1989) Oxford University Press.
• Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
• Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961; repr. 2002) Merriam-Webster, Inc.

External links

• Hart's Rules
• The Chicago Manual of Style
• The Guardian style guide
• Word substitution list, by the Ubuntu English (United Kingdom) Translators team

Notes

1. Peters, p. 258
2. Peters, p. 41.
3. Oxford English Dictionary, for ever.
4. AskOxford: forever. Retrieved 24 June 2008. Cf. Peters, p. 214.
5. For example, The Times, The Guardian, The Economist. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
6. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English
7. Peters, p. 22.
8. Peters, p. 480. Also National Routeing Guide
9. ^ British National Corpus
10. Peters, p. 7
11. Peters, p. 303.
12. "blokeish". [[Concise Oxford English Dictionary|Concise OED]]. Retrieved 2007-04-10. {{cite book}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
13. Oxford English Dictionary, artefact.
14. Peters, p. 49.
15. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. March 2009.
16. Merriam-Webster Online. (Accessed 30 December 2007)
17. Howarth, Lynne C (1999-06-14). ""Executive summary" from review of "International Standard Bibliographic Description for Electronic Resources"". American Library Association. Retrieved 2007-04-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
18. Peters, p. 282.
19. http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?title=21st&query=inquiry
20. Peters, p. 285
21. Merriam-Webster Online. (Accessed 30 December 2007)
22. Peters, p. 340.
23. ^ Peters, p. 443.
24. Marsh, David (14 July 2004). The Guardian Stylebook. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1843549913. Retrieved 2007-04-09. acronyms: take initial cap: Aids, Isa, Mori, Nato
25. See for example "Pc bitten on face in Tube attack". BBC. 2007-03-31. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
26. ^ Peters, p. 104.
27. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Retrieved 2009-4-19.
28. Merriam-Webster Online. (Accessed 1 January 2008)
29. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (Accessed 1 January 2008)
30. "draught". Concise OED. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
31. Peters, p. 165.
32. Oxford English Dictionary, draught.
33. Garner, Bryan A. (1998). A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. New York: OUP. p. 313. ISBN 0195078535.
34. "gauntlet". Concise OED. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
35. Peters, p. 235
36. tiscali.reference. Retrieved on 2007-03-10.
37. Ernout, Alfred (2001). Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine. Paris: Klincksieck. p. 362. ISBN 2252033592. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
38. Peters, p. 321.
39. Peters, p. 360
40. Peters, p. 392.
41. Oxford English Dictionary, phoney, phony
42. Peters, p. 449.
43. Oxford English Dictionary, plough, plow.
44. Peters, p. 230.
45. Maven's word of the day: rack/wrack
46. Cald Rack
47. Peters, p. 502.
48. Oxford English Dictionary, sceptic, skeptic.
49. Royal Society of Chemistry 1992 policy change
50. "The spelling sulfur predominates in United States technical usage, while both sulfur and sulphur are common in general usage. British usage tends to favor sulphur for all applications. The same pattern is seen in most of the words derived from sulfur." Usage note, Merriam-Webster Online. (Accessed 1 January 2008)
51. The contrasting spellings of the chemical elements Al and S mean that the American spelling aluminum sulfide becomes aluminum sulphide in Canada, and as aluminium sulphide in older UK usage.
52. Peters, p. 553.
53. Peters, p. 556.
54. Peters, p. 587. Yogourt is an accepted variant in French of the more normal Standard French yaourt.
55. Merriam-Webster Online – Yogurt entry

• American and British English differences
• English spelling