The Spelling Differences between American and British English

1. The Spelling Differences between American and British English History of English Language Professor Michael Cheng Presenter Helen Cheng

2. Historical Origins • English spelling was standardized after the publishing of influential dictionaries • British-Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) • American- Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

3. Samuel Johnson • A Dictionary of the English Language • aks. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) • The pre-eminent English dictionary before the OED • “one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship” • Deduce to the origin • Illustrate with literary quotations • Provide Multiple definitions • With illustrations

4. Noah Webster A Compendious Dictionary of the EnglishLanguage (1806) • Introducing American spelling and words • American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) • Expanding to 70,000 entries • Spelling reform

5. Spelling Reform • based on the Webster’s combined vision of logic and aesthetics • principle of uniformity: words that were alike, nouns and their derivatives, should be spelled alike. (e.g. musick=>music (musical)) • respell anomalous British spellings(e.g. gaol/jail)

6. Common Spelling Differences between BrE and AmE • Greek Spelling: -our/-or; -se/-ce; -re/-er • Latin-derived Spelling: -ise/-ize; -yse/-yze; -ogue/-og • Doubled Consonants: -ll • Dropped “e”

7. Greek Spelling-ise/-ize • British usage: both –ise(more frequent) and –ize (Oxford spelling) e.g. organise, realise, and recognise • American usage: –ize e.g. organize, realize, and recognize • Originated from Greek -ιζειν, Latin -izāre; with the pronunciation /z/ • -ise was influenced by the special French spelling in -iser

8. Latin-derived Spellingunstressed –our/-or • Nowadays=> -our for British English and -or for American English e.g. colour/color, labour/labor, and flavour/flavor • Derived from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative –or • Borrowed into English from early Old French ending -or or -ur • After the Norman Conquest =>-our in Anglo-French in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation • After the Renaissance, some such borrowings from Latin =>original -or • In16th and early 17th century some British scholars => -or for words from Latin and -our for French loans

9. Doubled Consonants • General rule: when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel to words with final stressed syllable and ending with a single vowel followed by a single consonant • The British English “l” doubling is required for all inflections (-ed, -ing, -er, -est) and noun suffixes -er and –or e.g. counsellor, cruellest, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller, and travelling • In American usage, the spelling of words is unchanged when they form the main part (root) of other words e.g. wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment

10. Dropped “e” • British English: usually keep silent e when adding suffixes except it is unnecessary to indicate pronunciation (e.g. believable,bluish) • American English: usually eliminate silent e except for some ambiguous cases (e.g. die=>dying vs. dye=>dyeing) e.g. likeable/likable, ageing/aging, arguement/ argument

11. Conclusion • Language serves as an indicator of cultural and social differences • Language is changing with time and space • The variants of a single language makes it diverse