Introduction

being a former Englishman living in the United States, the differences between English and American English comes up quite regularly, and I thought I'd jot some thoughts down to explain this. American English is distinct from English but mostly understandable by all English speakers. The biggest differences are the colloquialisms and differing words for some items. As most English people have been brought up on American TV sit-coms and Hollywood movies, the English can understand Americans much better than the other way around.

Noah Webster took the English language and tried to simplify some of the spellings for the colonials, so Simplified English would be an appropriate name for American English. It should be noted that other English speaking countries (such as Australia and Canada) overwhelmingly use the English spellings, and do not use the Simplified English spellings. However, there are some exceptions.

It should also be noted that all languages evolve over time, including spellings.

This article will go over the common differences in spelling by category, and have a non-exhaustive list of examples for each case. I used the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for English, and Merriam Webster (MW) Dictionary for Simplified English.

Also, fair warning. I thought I was a reasonable speller before researching this article, but I now find myself second guessing the spelling of most words!

Update: Having done a first pass of derived words, there are many words that I'm not sure are valid anymore; or least used very infrequently. Also, this project turned out to be larger than expected, so I'll label as work in progress and revisit in the future. The MW dictionary mentions some words as 'the common British spelling of' and others as 'variants'; I'll endeavour to note those in the future.

-our to -or

This is the most commonly noted difference, and is derived from Middle English, Old French, and Latin. The items in bold are when the derived words no longer follow the standard rules of English, and adopt Simplified English. In many cases, these are very rarely used words.

Cases where this rule is not applied for both English and Simplified English. The lack of -our in English tends to use -or when the word refers to a person and not a thing e.g. tenor or ancestor (I'm sure there's a grammatical term for this, but I do not know it.)

-ise to -ize

This is another commonly noted difference which is applied inconsistently. The OED seems to prefer the Z version of these words, which I find strange. The letter 'Z' in Scrabble is worth 10 points, and this variation of the spelling makes the letter much more frequent.

These are some known exceptions.

-yse to -yze

Related to changing -ise to -ize, there are also some examples where -yse is changed to -yze.

-ll to -l

Quite often, Simplified English will remove an 'L' that is sometimes added in English. It seems that MW accepts both versions of the spelling in most cases.

Most examples are the past participle version of the word.

Undoubling

Simplified English seems to have something against consecutive letters (or should that be leters?) Here are some examples.

-ence to -ense

This simplification seems to only be applied very rarely - offence, defence, and pretence. There are more counter-examples that examples (that I can find).

-re to -er

Most often noted in metric measurements - such as metre. A meter is a measuring device (such as a thermometer) and not a unit of length.

-logue to -log

These word derived from the Latin (-logus) and the French (-logue). I can't seem to locate when and where the -ue was removed for Simplified English.

-y- to -i-

This one is a seemingly arbitrary change. The y version of tyre is used to differentiate between 'the protective rubber like material around a wheel' and 'to become weak from exertion'.

Counterexample.

ae to e

This is derived originally from the Greek (ai), and then from the Latin (ae) and sometimes used as a digraph (a combination of 2 letters). Using 'paed-' to refer to a child (e.g. a paediatrician) differentiates from 'ped-' based words which derives from foot.

Counterexamples. Also, proper names tend to keep the digraph e.g. Caesar.

oe to e

Another example of the Greek and Latin roots being dropped.

Counterexample. Also, proper names tend to keep the classical spelling e.g. Phoenix, Oedipus.

Keeping the e

The e is kept in some words to ease pronunciation by softening the preceding consonant. e.g. The 'e' in bingeing means the 'g' is pronounced as in 'hinge' and not as in 'ringing'.

Counterexample.

-t to -ed

A less frequently used English contraction is to use -t for the past participle rather than -ed. This is becoming less common.

Miscellaneous

These are some differences that don't fit into any generic category, but several are quite close. e.g. the -ou- to -o- in mould and moult. Some spellings ending in '-gramme' get shortened to 'gram' and some with '-lette' become '-let'. Simplified English seems to remove an 'i' when there are many syllables e.g. 'Aluminium' and 'speciality'

Storey refers to the number of floors in a building whereas story refers to a narrative. These are spelt the same in Simplified English.

Rare

These are very rare and I have almost never seen these.

-l to -ll

I've always used the versions with the double l.

Practise and License

English uses the 's' version for the verb, and 'c' version for the noun. e.g. The men practised at the football practice. The burden of licensing is to discourage someone from getting a licence. Simplified English uses the 'c' version in both cases.

Collective nouns are plural

Collective nouns are treated as singular in Simplified English, but as it refers to a group, they are plural in English. The same applies to companies and teams as they refer to a set of people. e.g. A murder of crows are quite annoying. Microsoft are a big company. The McLaren Formula One team are going to be the constructor's champions this year.

Floor numbers in multi-storey buildings

The first floor in English is called the second floor in Simplified English. The ground floor is the same level as the ground, then the first floor is first storey above that. In Simplified English, the first floor is the same level as the ground, and the second floor is the 'story' above that.

References