Linguistic commentary on unit 7.

American and British spelling derives from the same common stock but has diverged since American Revolution in a number of ways. Nevertheless, the main patterns of orthography remained the same.

Only few spelling differences concern the initial positions of letters (e.g. gaol – jail, curb – kerb). Most of British-American spelling differences occur in medial or final word positions. Let us regard some of them, the most permanent ones:

1. in American English the final ‘e’ is removed from verbs before adding ‘-ing’ and in nouns before the suffix ‘-able’, in correct British English this is not done. Compare: routeing (British) – routing (American), blameable (British) – blamable (American). However, American practice of dropping the ‘e’ has become quite common in British English;

2. British English preserves ‘e’ in words when adding ‘-ment’ while American English tends to drop it: judgement (British) – judgment (American), abridgement (British) – abridgment (American);

3. if a verb ends in a single ‘l’, then when adding suffixes ‘-ing’, ‘-ed’, ‘-er’ this ‘l’ is doubled in British English and not doubled in America: signaller, signalling, signalled (British) – signaler, signaling, signaled (American);

4. American English tends to prefer ‘-ize’ and ‘-ization’ whereas British English prefers ‘-ise’ and ‘-isation’: realize, realization (American) – realise, realisation (British). But there are some words which can be written only with ‘z’ and vice versa: prize (the verb ‘to prise’ has absolutely a different meaning), size, rise, wise, advise, exercise, revise, surprise, advertise, televise, compromise, supervise, despise, devise, disguise, enterprise, improvise. Though recently even these words can sometimes be spelt with ‘z’ instead of ‘s’;

5. parts of British words ‘our’ and ‘oul’ are usually spelt as ‘or’ and ‘ol’ in American English: colour (British) – color (American), favour (British) – favor (American), moult (British) – molt (American), etc.;

6. American ‘-er’ as a word ending is in some words equivalent to ‘-re’ in British English: theatre (British) – theater (American), centre (British) – center (American);

7. words ending in ‘-gue’ in British lose ‘-ue’ and end just in ‘-g’: analogue (British) – analog (American);

8. sometimes British ‘c’ can be substituted by ‘s’ in America: defence (British) – defense (American);

9. words ending in ‘-tte’ and ‘-mme’ in British tend to end in ‘-t’ and ‘-m’ in American English: omelette (British) – omelet (American). Apart is the word ‘program’. For long this way of spelling was regarded as an American one, but now it is used in Great Britain too and relates to information technologies: program music, program trading, etc. The spelling ‘programme’ is used in BrE in the meaning of “a schedule of activities, procedures, etc to be followed; a radio or TV performance or production”;

10. in some classical borrowings British spellings have combinations ‘oe’ and ‘ae’ while Americans spellings have only ‘e’: archaeology (British) – archeology (American), manoeuvre (British) – maneuver (American);

11. Americans tend to write compounds as single words: secondhand (American) – second-hand, second hand (British), fellowman (American) – fellow-man, fellow man (British).

However, there are some individual words which are spelt differently in AmE and in BrE: cozy, skeptic, gray, jail, aluminum, draft, jewelry, mustache, pajamas, specialty, story (=floor), thru, tire (American) – cosy, sceptic, grey, gaol, aluminium, draught, jewellery, moustache, pyjamas, speciality, storey, through, tyre (British).