American and British English spelling differences

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

 

American medical text from 1814 showing the British English spellings still used at the time, such as "tumours", "colour", and "centres".

 

In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardised. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Today's 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 spelling reform supporters in England, the influence of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of words proved to be decisive. Later spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on today's American spellings and vice-versa. In many cases, American English strayed in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, but it has also kept some older spellings.

 

The spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared to other English-speaking nationalities. Australian spelling has also strayed somewhat from British spelling, with some American spellings incorporated as standard.

 

Latin-derived spellings

 

-our, -or

 

Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. colour, flavour, harbour, honour, humour, labour, neighbour, rumour) end in -or in American English (cf. color, flavor, harbor, honor, humor, labor, neighbor, rumor). 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 kind come from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or. These words were first borrowed into English from early Old French and the ending was spelt -or or -ur. After the Norman conquest of England, the ending became -our in Anglo-French in a bid to represent the Old French pronunciation, though color has sometimes been used in English since the 15th century.  The -our ending was not only used in English borrowings from Anglo-French, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used -or.  After the Renaissance, new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending and many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) went back to -or. 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 from Latin (e.g. color) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.

 

Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelt in Britain (like colour), and for words 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 chose the spelling best-derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". English speakers who moved to America took these habits with them and H. L. Mencken notes that "honor appears in the United States Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson's original draft it is spelt honour." In Britain, examples of color, flavor, behavior, harbor and neighbor barely appear in Old Bailey court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are numbered in thousands. One notable exception is honor. Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century; Honor still is, in the UK, the usual 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 neighbourhood, humourless and savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in favourite, honourable and behaviourism). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u: may be dropped, for example in honorary, honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious and invigorate;

may be either dropped or kept, for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rise); or

may be kept, for example in colourist.

 

In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all cases (for example, favorite, savory etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.

 

Exceptions

American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots, not Latin or French. Glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. Nevertheless, the adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". Saviour is a somewhat common variant of savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for honour (and favour) in the formal language of wedding invitations in the US. The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it as the spacecraft was named after Captain James Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour. The special car on Amtrak's Coast Starlight train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor.

 

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 /ˈrɪɡər/ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (often /ˈraɪɡɔr/)[citation needed] 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 throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and are still found in some regions, usually in local and regional newspapers, although in recent years most major Australian newspapers have switched from "-or" endings to "-our" endings. The most notable countrywide use of -or is for the Australian Labor Party, which was named in hono(u)r of the American labo(u)r movement.[14] Aside from that, -our is now almost universal. New Zealand English, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English, follows British usage.

 

-re, -er

 

In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /əɹ/. In American English, most of these words have the ending -er. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings calibre, centre, fibre, goitre, litre, lustre, manoeuvre, meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, reconnoitre, sabre, saltpetre, sepulchre, sombre, spectre, theatre and titre all have -er in American spelling.

 

Most English words that today use -er were spelt -re at one time or another. In American English, almost all of these have become -er, while in British English only some of them have. The former include chapter, December, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November, number, October, oyster, perimeter, parameter, powder, proper, September, sober and tender.

 

The e preceding the r is kept in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, which are fibres, reconnoitred and centring respectively in British English. Centring is an 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 deemed proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance come 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 outcome is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while "poetic metre" 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.

 

The ending -cre, as in acre, lucre, massacre and mediocre, is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/. The spellings ogre and euchre are also the same in both British and American English.

 

Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. "movie theaters"); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times would use theater in its entertainment section. However, 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 American National Theatre was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National Theater"; but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. has the more common American spelling theater in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.

 

Some placenames in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre mall, the cities of Rockville Centre and Centreville, Centre County and Centre College. Sometimes, these places were named before spelling changes but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation.

 

For British accoutre, the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling, but the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling.

 

More recent French loanwords keep the -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/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) often with some words, including cadre, macabre, maître d', Notre Dame, piastre, and timbre.

Commonwealth usage

 

The -re endings are mostly standard throughout the Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized as minor variants in Canada, partly due to American influence, and are sometimes used in proper names (such as Toronto's controversially-named Centerpoint Mall).

 

-ce, -se

 

For advice / advise and device / devise, American English and British English both keep the noun/verb distinction (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb). For licence / license or practice / practise, British English also keeps the noun/verb distinction (the two words in each pair are homophones with -[s] pronunciation, though). On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs (with -[s] pronunciation in both cases too).

American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English. Likewise, there are the American pretense and British pretence; but derivatives such as defensive, offensive, and pretension are always thus spelt in both systems.

 

Australian and Canadian usage generally follows British.

 

-xion, -ction

 

The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin lessens,and it is not used at all in America: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio-. The American usage comes from Webster, who ditched -xion in favor of -ction by analogy with verbs like connect.

 

Complexion (which comes from complex) is standard worldwide and complection is rare.However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in the US as an alternative to complexioned,but is not used in this way in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.

 

Greek-derived spellings

 

-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)

 

See also: Oxford spelling

American spelling usually accepts only -ize endings in words like organize, realize and recognize. British spelling uses 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 International Organization for Standardization and the World Health Organization. The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, meaning that -ize spellings are found in older legislative acts and -ise spellings 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 applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation/colonization.

 

British usage

British English using -ize is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 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 using -ise for words of Greek origin, saying, "[T]he suffix...whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -ιζειν, 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 says "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. Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage quotes the OED and recommends the -ize- spelling. Horace Hart in Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford also recommended -ize.

 

The Cambridge University Press, on the other hand, has long preferred -ise and many reference works, including the Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage, prefer -ise.

 

Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often (wrongly) seen in the UK as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in 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 come from Greek -ιζειν, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:

 

Some words take only the -z- form worldwide, for example 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- worldwide: advise, arise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, incise, revise, rise, supervise, surmise, televise, and wise.

 

One special case is the verb prise (meaning to force or lever), which is spelt 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 ending -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 17th- and 18th-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that time – 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 US. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.

 

English verbs ending in -lyse or -lyze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō ("I release"). Instead they come from the noun form λύσις lysis with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology from the French analysiser, which would be spelt analysise or analysize in English.

 

Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford states: "In verbs such as analyse, catalyse, paralyse, -lys- is part of the Greek stem (corresponding to the element -lusis) and not a suffix like -ize. The spelling -yze is therefore etymologically incorrect, and must not be used, unless American printing style is being followed".

 

-ogue, -og

 

British and Commonwealth English uses the ending -logue and -gogue while American English usually uses the ending -log and -gog for words like analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), demagog(ue), pedagog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), synagog(ue), etc. Catalogue is sometimes used in the US but catalog is more common (thus the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging vs. catalogued and cataloguing). Analog is standard for the adjective,[citation needed] but both analogue and analog are current for the noun; in all other cases the -gue endings strongly prevail, for example monologue, except for such expressions as dialog box in computing, which are also used in the UK. In Australia, analog is used in its technical and electronic sense, as in analog electronics. In Canada and New Zealand, analogue is used, but analog has some currency as a technical term (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).

 

The -ue is dropped worldwide when forming related words like analogy, analogous, and analogist.

 

ae and oe

 

Many words that are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English are written with an e in American English. The sound in question is /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ɨ/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): aesthetics, amoeba, anaemia, anaesthesia, archaeology, caesium, diarrhoea, encyclopaedia, faeces, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, palaeontology, paediatric. Oenology is acceptable in American English but is deemed a minor variant of enology.

 

Words that can be spelt either way in American English include aesthetics and archaeology (which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology), as well as palaestra, for which the simplified form palestra is described by Merriam-Webster as "chiefly Brit[ish]."

 

Words that can be spelt either way in British English include encyclopaedia, homoeopathy, mediaeval and foetus. The spellings foetus and foetal are Britishisms based on a mistaken etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide. The British medical community and The Economist newspaper deem foetus/foetal unacceptable for journal articles and the like.

 

The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as <ae> and <oe>. The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when the sounds became monophthongs, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has borrowed 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 lone e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma In others, it is kept 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 <ae>/<oe> 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-.

 

Commonwealth usage

In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae[citation needed], but oe and ae are sometimes found in the academic and scientific writing as well as government publications (for example the fee schedule of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). In Australia, encyclopedia and medieval are spelt with e rather than ae, as with American usage, and the Macquarie Dictionary also notes an growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide.  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.

 

In other languages

The American spelling is closer to the usage in a number of other languages using the Latin alphabet.[citation needed] 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 spelling of the sound [u], while written "u" represents either the sound [y] or [ʏ]). Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and some others keep 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). Likewise, Hungarian uses "é" as a replacement for "ae" (although it becomes "e" sometimes), and the special character "ő" (sometimes "ö") for "oe".

 

Doubled consonants

 

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 happens only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a lone vowel followed by a lone consonant. In British English, however, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed. This exception is no longer usual in American English, seemingly because of Noah Webster. The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still deemed acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.

 

The British English doubling is used for all inflections (-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 spelt 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 prevails 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 pupillage but vassalage.

 

American English sometimes has an unstressed -ll-, as in the UK, in some words where the root has -l. These are cases where the change happens in the source language, which was often Latin. (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 mostly follow British usage.

 

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:

British calliper or caliper; American caliper.

British jewellery; American jewelry. The standard pronunciations (/ˈdʒuːəlri/) 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 US has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry seller.

 

Doubled in American English 

Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans 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 with this spelling difference include 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", sometimes using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not clear 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 sometimes used 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 distinct meaning.

 

In both American and British usages, words normally spelt -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.

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 needed to show pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where needed.

 

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 keep 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 systems keep the silent e when it is needed to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, such as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both usually keep the "e" after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable ("These rights are unabridgeable").

 

Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in the US, only the latter in the UK. Likewise for the word lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in the US and the latter prevails in the UK except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. This also holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both systems prefer fledgling to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. Both acknowledgment, acknowledgement, abridgment and abridgement are used in Australia; the shorter forms are endorsed by Australian governments.

 

The word "blue" always drops the "e" when forming "bluish" or "bluing".

 

-ed and -t for past tense

 

In the UK (as well as Australia and New Zealand) it is common to end some past tense verbs with a "t" as in learnt or dreamt rather than learned or dreamed.

 

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 disks, 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 Enquirer, as a proper name, is an exception. In Australia, due to bad education, inquiry and enquiry are often interchangeable, but inquiry prevails in writing.[citation needed] Both are current in Canada, where enquiry is often associated with scholarly or intellectual research.

 

ensure or insure: In the UK (and Australia and New Zealand), 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. In American usage, insure may also be used in the former sense, but ensure may not be used in the latter sense. 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 <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>."

 

jail or gaol: Jail is used in USA, Canada and New Zealand solely, whereas the British spelling "gaol" is also exclusively used in Australia.

 

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. Assurance is also used for the legal names of several Canadian insurance companies, such as Canada Life Financial or Great-West Life.

 

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 the original 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 meanings since the 1960s, and is listed as the official spelling in the Macquarie Dictionary; see also the name of The The Micallef P(r)ogram(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme. However, some Canadian government documents nevertheless use programme for all meanings 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 tonne refers to the metric unit (1000 kilograms), whereas in the US the same unit is called a metric ton. The unqualified ton usually refers to the long ton (2,240 pounds (1,020 kg)) in the UK and to the short ton (2,000 pounds (910 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 standard 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.

 

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Different spellings for different pronunciations

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

 

 

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