Different Spellings For Different Pronunciations
In a few cases, essentially the same word has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation. However, in most cases the pronunciation of the words is the same.
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 (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
| UK | US | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| aeroplane | airplane | Aeroplane, originally a French loanword with a different meaning, is the older spelling. The oldest recorded uses of the spelling airplane are British. According to the OED, "irplane became the standard American term (replacing aeroplane) after this was adopted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1916. Although A. Lloyd James recommended its adoption by the BBC in 1928, it has until recently been no more than an occasional form in British English." In the British National Corpus, aeroplane outnumbers airplane by more than 7:1 in the UK. The case is similar for the British aerodrome and American airdrome, although both of these terms are now obsolete. Aerodrome is used merely as a technical term in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The prefixes aero- and air- both mean air, with the first coming from the Ancient Greek word ἀήρ (āēr). Thus, the prefix appears in aeronautics, aerostatics, aerodynamics, aeronautical engineering and so on, while the second occurs invariably in aircraft, airport, airliner, airmail etc. In Canada, airplane is more common than aeroplane, although aeroplane is not unknown, especially in parts of French Canada (where it is, however, used only in English – the French term is avion, and the French word aéroplane designates 19th-century flying machines). |
| aluminium | aluminum | The spelling aluminium is the international standard in the sciences according to the IUPAC recommendations. Humphry Davy, the element's discoverer, first proposed the name alumium, and then later aluminum. The name aluminium was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of metallic elements. Canada uses aluminum and Australia and New Zealand aluminium, according to their respective dictionaries. |
| arse | ass | In vulgar senses "buttocks" ("anus"/"wretch"/"idiot"); unrelated sense "donkey" is ass in both. Arse is very rarely used in the US, though often understood. |
| behove | behoove | The 19th century had the spelling behove pronounced to rhyme with move. Subsequently, a pronunciation spelling was adopted in America, while in Britain a spelling pronunciation was adopted. |
| bogeyman | boogeyman or boogerman | It is pronounced /ˈboʊɡimæn/ BOH-gee-man in the UK, so that the American form, boogeyman /ˈbʊɡimæn/, is reminiscent of the 1970s disco dancing "boogie" to the British ear. Boogerman /bʊɡɚmæn/ is common in the Southern US and gives an association with the slang term booger for Nasal mucus while the mainstream American spelling of boogeyman does not. |
| brent | brant | For the species of goose. |
| carburettor | carburetor | /ˌkɑrbəˈrɛtər/; /ˈkɑrbəreɪtər/. |
| charivari | shivaree, charivari | In America, where both terms are mainly regional, charivari is usually pronounced as shivaree, which is also found in Canada and Cornwall, and is a corruption of the French word. |
| coupé | coupe | For a two-door car; the horse-drawn carriage is coupé in both (meaning "cut"); unrelated "cup"/"bowl" is always coupe. In the United States, the "e" is accented when it is used as a foreign word. |
| eyrie | aerie | This noun (not to be confused with the adjective eerie) rhymes with weary and hairy respectively. Both spellings and pronunciations occur in America. |
| fillet | fillet, filet | Meat or fish. Pronounced the French way (approximately) in the US; Canada follows British pronunciation and distinguishes between fillet, especially as concerns fish, and filet, as concerns certain cuts of beef. McDonald's in the UK use the US spelling "filet" for their Filet-O-Fish. |
| furore | furor | Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loan-word that replaced the Latinate form in the UK in the following century, and is usually pronounced with a voiced e. The Canadian usage is the same as the American, and Australia has both. |
| grotty | grody | Clippings of grotesque; both are slang terms from the 1960s. |
| haulier | hauler | Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling. |
| jemmy | jimmy | In the sense "crowbar". |
| moustache | mustache | In America, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the British spelling is an also-ran, yet the pronunciation with second-syllable stress is a common variant. In Britain the second syllable is usually stressed. |
| mum(my) | mom(my) | Mother. Mom is sporadically regionally found in the UK (e.g. in West Midlands English). Some British dialects have mam, and this is often used in Northern English, Hiberno-English, and Welsh English. Scottish English may also use mam, ma or maw. In the American region of New England, especially in the case of the Boston accent, the British pronunciation of mum is often retained, while it is still spelled mom. In Canada, there are both mom and mum; Canadians often say mum and write mom. In Australia and New Zealand, mum is used. In the sense of a preserved corpse, mummy is always used. |
| naivety | naïveté | The American spelling is from French, and American speakers generally approximate the French pronunciation as /nɑːiːv(ɨ)ˈteɪ/, whereas the British spelling is nativised, as also the pronunciation /nɑːˈiːv(ɨ)ti/. In the UK, naïveté is a minor variant, used about 20% of the time in the British National Corpus; in America, naivete and naiveté are marginal variants, and naivety is almost unattested. |
| orientated | oriented | In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, it is common to use orientated (as in family-orientated), whereas in the US oriented is used exclusively (family-oriented). Both words have the same origins, coming from "orient" or its off-shoot "orientation". |
| pyjamas | pajamas | The 'y' represents the pronunciation of the original Urdu "pāy-jāma", and in the 18th century spellings such as "paijamahs" and "peijammahs" appeared: this is reflected in the pronunciation /paɪˈdʒɑːməz/ (with the first syllable rhyming with "pie") offered as an alternative in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Both "pyjamas" and "pajamas" are also known from the 18th century, but the latter became more or less confined to the US. Canada follows both British and American usage, with both forms commonplace. |
| pernickety | persnickety | Persnickety is a late 19th-century American alteration of the Scots word pernickety. |
| quin | quint | Abbreviations of quintuplet. |
| scallywag | scalawag | In the United States (where the word originated, as scalawag), scallywag is not unknown. |
| sledge | sled | |
| speciality | specialty | In British English the standard usage is speciality, but specialty occurs in the field of medicine, and also as a legal term for a contract under seal. In Canada, specialty prevails. In Australia and New Zealand both are current. |
| titbit | tidbit | According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest form was "tyd bit", and the alteration to "titbit" was probably under the influence of the obsolete word "tit", meaning a small horse or girl. |
| whilst | while | Penguin Working Words recommends while only, and notes that whilst is old-fashioned. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage and Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage comment on its regional character, and note that it is rare in American usage. It is thus safer to use only while in international English. (See the article While for further sources deprecating the use of whilst, and cautioning about uses of while.) |
Read more about this topic: American And British English Spelling Differences