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American and British English differences
British English (English UK) American English (English US)
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List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom List of British words not widely used in the United States List of words having different meanings in British and American English
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American and British English pronunciation differences
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American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.

The spelling systems of Commonwealth countries, 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.

Historical origins

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.

Spelling and pronunciation

In a few cases, essentially the same word has a different spelling which reflects a different pronunciation.

As well as the miscellaneous cases listed in the following table, the past tenses of some irregular verbs differ in both spelling and pronunciation, as with smelt (mainly UK) versus smelled (mainly US): see American and British English differences: Verb morphology.

Latin-derived spellings

-our, -or

Most words ending in unstressed -our in the United Kingdom (e.g., colour, flavour, honour, armour, rumour) end in -or in the United States (i.e., color, flavor, honor, armor, rumor). Where the vowel is unreduced, this does not occur: contour, paramour, troubadour, are spelled thus 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 and the ending was -or or -ur.²¹ After the Norman Conquest, the termination became -our in Anglo-French in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or,²² though color has been used occasionally in English since the fifteenth century.²³ The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French, but also applied to earlier French borrowings.²¹ After the Renaissance, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or termination; 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. color²³) 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.²⁴

Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the US. By contrast, Dr Johnson's 1755 dictionary used the -our spelling for all words still so spelled in Britain, as well as for emperour, errour, governour, horrour, tenour, terrour, and tremour, where the u has since been dropped. 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 favoured French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us."²⁵ 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, "honor 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 spelled honour. "²⁶ Examples such as color, flavor, behavior, harbor, or neighbor 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.²⁷ One notable exception is honor: honor and honour were equally frequent down to the 17th century,²⁸ 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, in British usage the u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (neighbourhood, humourless, savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalized (favourite, honourable, behaviourism); before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u can be dropped (honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious, invigorate), can be either dropped or retained (colo(u)ration, colo(u)rize), or can be retained (colourist).²¹ In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (favorite, savory, 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; saviour is a common variant of savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for "honour" (and "favour") on wedding invitations in the United States.²⁹ The Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u as it is named after Captain Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour.

The name of the herb savory is thus spelled everywhere, although the probably related adjective savo(u)ry, like savour, 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 (IPA: /ˈrɪgə(ɹ)/) has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (often IPA: /ˈraɪgɔː(ɹ)/) does not.

Commonwealth usage. Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie Provinces, though they are rarer in Eastern Canada.²⁴ In Australia, -or terminations enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions,²⁴ usually in local and regional newspapers, though -our is almost universal. The name of the Australian Labor Party, founded in 1891, is a remnant of this trend.

-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(ɹ)/. Most of these words have the ending -er in the US. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings theatre, goitre, litre, lustre, mitre, nitre, reconnoitre, saltpetre, spectre, centre, titre; calibre, fibre, sabre, and sombre all have -er in American spelling. The ending -cre, as in acre, lucre, massacre, 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: louvre, manoeuvre after -v-; meagre, ogre after -g-; euchre, ochre, sepulchre after -ch-. In the US, ogre and euchre are standard; manoeuvre and sepulchre are usually maneuver and sepulcher; and the other -re forms listed are variants of the equivalent -er form.

The e preceding the r is retained in US derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, which are, naturally, fibres, reconnoitred and centring respectively in British usage. It is dropped for other inflections, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry derives from enter, which has not been spelled entre for centuries.

The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of measurement. 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, water,³⁰ and Romance words like danger, quarter, river. Some -er words, like many -re words, have a cognate in Modern French spelled with -re: among these are chapter, December, diameter, disaster, enter, letter, member, minister, monster, number, oyster, powder, proper, sober, tender, filter, parameter.

Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of movies take place (i.e., "movie theaters"); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses theater throughout its "Theater", "Movies", and "Arts & Leisure" sections. In contrast, the spelling Theatre or theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre) (and elsewhere in the United States) and in listings and reviews in "The Theatre" section of The New Yorker. In 2003 the proposal of the American National Theatre (ANT), eventually to be founded and inaugurated in the fall of 2007, was referred to by the New York Times as the "American National Theater"; but the organization actually uses "re" in the spelling of its name.³¹³² The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., or The Kennedy Center, features the more common American spelling theater in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of The Kennedy Center.³³

In rare instances, places in the United States have Centre in their names (e.g., Newton Centre, Massachusetts and Rockville Centre, New York), named both before and after spelling reform, and there are also a few cases of the use of Center in the UK (e.g., Valley Centertainment in Sheffield), although this is in fact a portmanteau of the cent- of centre and -ertainment of entertainment.

For British accoutre(ment), US practice varies: Merriam-Webster prefers the -re spelling,³⁴ American Heritage the -er spelling.³⁵

More recent French loanwords retain an -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/ɹ(ə)/ rather than /ɚ/), as with double-entendre, genre, or oeuvre; however, the unstressed /ɚ/ 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.³⁶ The -re endings are standard throughout the Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized, as minor variants, only in Canada.

-ce, -se

Nouns ending in -ce with -se verb forms: American English and British English both retain the noun/verb distinction in advice / advise and device / devise, but American English has abandoned the distinction with licence / license and practice / practise (where the two words in each pair are homophones) that British spelling retains. American English uses practice and license for both meanings.

Also, 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.

-xion, -ction

The spellings connexion, inflexion, deflexion, reflexion, genuflexion are now somewhat rare in everyday British usage, but are not used at all in the US: the more common connection, inflection, deflection, reflection, genuflection have almost become the standard internationally. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spellings are more etymologically conservative, since these four words actually derive from Latin forms in -xio-. The US usage derives from Webster who discarded -xion in favour of -ction for analogy with such verbs as connect.³⁷

Connexion has found preference again amongst recent British government initiatives such as Connexions (the national careers and training scheme for school early leavers). Until the early 1980s, The Times of London also used connexion as part of its house style.³⁸ It is still used in legal texts and British Methodism retains the eighteenth century spelling connexion to describe its national organization, for historical reasons.

In both forms, complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection is not.³⁹ However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, can be used as an alternative to complexioned in the US,⁴⁰ but is quite unknown in this sense in the UK, although there is an extremely rare usage to mean complicated (OED). Note, however, that crucifiction is an error in either form of English; crucifixion is the correct spelling.

Greek spellings

-ise, -ize

American spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, recognize, and realize. British usage accepts both -ize and the more French-looking -ise (organise, recognise, realise). The -ize spelling is preferred by some authoritative British sources including the Oxford English Dictionary — which, until recently, did not list the -ise form of many words, even as an alternative — and Fowler's Modern English Usage. The OED firmly deprecates usage of "-ise", stating, "[T]he suffix…, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Gr[eek] -ιζειν, L[atin] -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."⁴¹ Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.⁴² Despite these denouncements, however, the -ize spelling is now rarely used in the UK in the mass media and newspapers, and is often incorrectly regarded as an Americanism.⁴³

The ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus.⁴⁴ The OED spelling (which can be indicated by the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed), and thus -ize, is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement. In Australia and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail; the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, among other sources, gives the -ise spelling first. The -ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the Macquarie Dictionary. Conversely, Canadian usage is essentially like American.⁴⁵ Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations.

The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflections such as colonisation/colonization.

Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not derive from Greek -ιζειν, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable; some verbs 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), whereas others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, chastise, circumcise, incise, excise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, exercise, franchise, improvise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, and televise. Finally, the verb prise (meaning to force or lever) is spelled prize in the US⁴⁶ and prise everywhere else,⁴⁷ including Canada,⁴⁸ although in North American English pry (a back-formation from or alteration of prise) is often used in its place.⁴⁹

-yse, -yze

The distribution of -yse and -yze endings, as in analyse / analyze, is different: the former is British, the latter American. Thus, UK analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, paralyse; US analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, paralyze. However, analyse was commonly spelled analyze from the first—the spelling preferred by Samuel Johnson; the word, which came probably from French analyser, on Greek analogy would have been analysize, from French analysiser, from which analyser was formed by haplology.⁵⁰ In Canada, -yze prevails; in Australia, -yse stands alone. Unlike -ise/-ize, neither of the endings has any resemblance to the Greek original ending. The Greek verb from which the word λύσις (lysis) (and thus all its compound words) derives, is λύειν (lyein).

-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 catalogue⁵¹ (note the inflected forms, catalogued and cataloging v 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,⁵² except for such expressions as dialog box in computing, which are also used in the UK. Finally, in Canada, New Zealand and Australia as well as the US analog has currency as a technical term⁵³ (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog computer" and many video game consoles might have an analog stick).

Simplification of ae (æ) and oe (œ)

Wikipedia could be spelt in three different ways in English, but the spelling of brand names is seldom altered from one English speaking country to another.

Many words are written with ae or oe in British English, but a single e in American English. The sound in question is /i/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ə/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): anaemia, anaesthesia, caesium, diarrhoea, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, paediatric. Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia, foetus (though the British medical community deems this variant unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling is actually fetus), homoeopathy, mediaeval. In American usage, aesthetics and archaeology prevail over esthetics and archeology,⁵⁴ while oenology is a minor variant of enology.

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 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.⁵⁵ In others, it is retained in all varieties: for example, phoenix, and usually subpoena.⁵⁶ 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. British aeroplane is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modelled on airship and aircraft. Airplane dates from 1907,⁵⁷ at which time aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.

Commonwealth usage. In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae as well; in Australia and elsewhere, British usage prevails, but the spellings with just e are increasingly used.⁵⁸ Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found.⁵⁹ In Canada, oe and ae are used occasionally in the academic and science communities.

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 is French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them ("ae" is rare and "oe" is the normal representation of the sound IPA: [u], while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ in IPA). Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and some other languages retain the original ligatures. German, through umlauts, retains its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut, 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".

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).⁶⁰

• 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.⁶¹ 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]".
• for ever or forever: Traditional British usage makes a distinction between for ever, meaning for eternity (or a very long time), as in "I have been waiting for you for ever"; and forever, meaning continually, always, as in "They are forever arguing".⁶² In contemporary British usage, however, forever prevails in the "for eternity" sense as well,⁶³ in spite of several style guides maintaining the distinction.⁶⁴ 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".⁶⁵ In American English the one-word spelling is standard for both forms.

Doubled consonants

Doubled in British English

The final consonant of an English word is sometimes doubled when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. Generally this occurs only when the word's final syllable ends with a single vowel followed by a single consonant, and the syllable is stressed; but in British English, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed.⁶⁶ This exception is no longer usual in American English, apparently because of Noah Webster.⁶⁷ The -ll- spellings are nonetheless 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 noun suffixes -er, -or. Therefore, British counsellor, cruellest, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller; American usually counselor, cruelest, modeling, quarreled, signaling, traveler.
  • parallel keeps a single -l- in British English, as in American English (paralleling, unparalleled), to avoid a cluster -llell-.
  • Words with two vowels before l are covered where the first either acts as a consonant (Br equalling, initialled; US usually equaling, initialed) or belongs to a separate syllable (Br fu•el•ling, di•alled; US usually fu•el•ing di•aled)
    • The distinction applies to victualler/victualer in spite of the irregular pronunciation IPA: /ˈvɪtlə(ɹ)/
    • British woollen is a further exception (US woolen); also, wooly is accepted in America though woolly dominates in both.⁶⁸
• Endings -ize/-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l in British English: normalise, dualism, novelist, devilish
  • Exceptions: tranquillise; duellist, medallist, panellist, sometimes triallist
• For -ous, British English has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but two in marvellous and libellous.
• For -ee, British English has libellee.
• For -age British English has pupillage but vassalage.
• American English has 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, often Latin. (Examples: bimetallism, cancellation, chancellor, crystallize, excellent, tonsillitis)
• But both dialects have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling (notice the stress difference); revealing, fooling (double vowel before the l); hurling (consonant before the l).
• Canadian and Australian English largely follow British usage.⁶⁶

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 US, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, introduced by the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s,⁶⁹ are common alongside kidnapped and worshipped, the only standard British spellings.

Miscellaneous:

• British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
• British jewellery; American jewelry. The standard pronunciations (UK IPA: /ˈdʒuː(ə)lri/, US IPA: /ˈdʒu(ə)lri/)⁷⁰ 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 most used. Likewise, Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and US 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. These include wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. In the UK ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l) and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l). Former spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now rare.⁷¹ The Scottish tolbooth is cognate with toll booth, but has a specific distinct sense.

The preceding words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Comparable cases where a single l occurs in American English include full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; null→annul, annulment; till→until; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain; and others where the connection is less transparent. Note that British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.

Dr Johnson wavered on this issue; his dictionary of 1755 lemmatizes distil and instill, downhil and uphill.⁷²

Dropped e

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

• British prefers ageing,⁷³ American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). UK often routeing;⁷⁴ 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,⁷⁵ where US prefers to drop the -e; but UK as US prefers breathable, curable, datable, lovable, movable, notable, provable, quotable, scalable, solvable, usable,⁷⁵ 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.⁷⁶ 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 UK⁷⁷ 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 blokeish⁷⁸ 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.⁷⁹ In American English, artifact is the usual spelling. Canadians prefer artifact and Australians artefact, according to their respective dictionaries.⁸⁰
• 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.⁸¹
• 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. floppy disk and hard disk; short for diskette).⁸² For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the US and the Commonwealth.
• enquiry or inquiry:⁸³ 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 [4], 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,⁸⁴ 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 <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>⁸⁵
• 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.⁸⁶
• 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,⁸⁷ 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.⁸⁷
• tonne or ton: in the UK, the spelling tonne refers to the unit of mass usually known as the metric ton in the US; the short ton and the long ton are always thus spelled; unqualified ton usually refers to the long ton in the UK and to the short ton in the US.

Compare also meter/metre, for which an older English written distinction between etymologically related forms with different meanings once existed, but 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.⁸⁸ This does not apply to most initialisms, such as USA or HTML; though it is occasionally done for some, such as Pc (Police Constable).⁸⁹

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
• English orthography (spelling)
• Spelling reform
• The Chicago Manual of Style

References

External links

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