American English vs. British English

There are several differences in the spelling conventions used between American English and British English. The following illustrates some of the more noted ones:

(a) Nouns ending in or in AE are spelled as our in BE (e.g. armor, behavior, color, tumor, humor, favor, harbor, honor, labor, parlor, vapor, odor, rigor, rumor, splendor, vigor). The following nouns, however, are spelt the same way in the two varieties: error, collector, glamour, terror.

(b) In several words, there is a transposition of r and e between the two varieties (the ending is -er in AE and -re in BE):

(c) Several words that have only -ize in AE may also have -ise in BE:

(d) Sometimes the AE unstressed prefix in- (e.g. inquire, insure) has the corresponding en- in BE (e.g. enquire, ensure). This is not observed in all instances; both varieties agree, for example, in encamp, enchant, endorse, enclose, enable, endanger, enliven, enlist. (Both inquire and insure also exist in BE, but with different meanings from enquire and ensure.)

(e) Several words have the change of s (AE) to c (BE); thus, -ense of nouns such as defense, license, offense are realized -ence in BE.

(f) In several words a simple letter representation corresponds to digraphs (two-letter combinations) in BE:

(g) The ending -og of AE is -ogue in BE:

(h) While, on the one hand, we observe consonant doubling in AE at the end of verbs such as appall, enthrall, instill, fulfill, there is a correspondence of single versus double consonants in the other direction in the unstressed syllables (there is a drop of the redundant consonant letter in AE):

(i) There are several words of different types that are spelt differently in the two varieties:

The following creative spelling is noted especially in newspaper headlines and in advertising in AE: