style guide: spelling

Spelling in English is difficult. It is hard to predict a word’s spelling – the letters used to write it – from how it is pronounced.

By far the best way to improve your spelling is to read a lot. Then when you misspell a word it will look strange to you and you will know to look it up.

Why English spelling is difficult:

1. The Christian missionaries taught the English to write their language with Latin letters. A bad fit: English has far more sounds than Latin.
2. Spelling in general follows the way words were said in London in the middle 1400s. Yes. That was when government offices and printers began to make spelling a fixed thing. Since 1700 spelling has barely changed at all.
3. Foreign words, of which there are many in English, often keep their original spelling.

There are three broad systems of spelling that come from the three great dictionaries – Johnson’s, Webster’s and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED):

1. British: the Johnson spelling, used in the British Isles, Oceania, Middle East, South Africa, Singapore, by The Economist, the BBC, the Times, EU, OECD, OPEC and Al Jazeera.
   

   honour, recognise, analyse, theatre, likeable, traveller, fulfil, dialogue, practise, burnt, foetus and haemorrhage

2. American: the Webster spelling, used in America, Europe, Latin America, East Asia and Israel, by CNN, the New York Times, AP, Reuters and the Wikipedia.
   

   honor, recognize, analyze, theater, likable, traveler, fulfill, dialog, practice, burned, fetus and hemorrhage

3. OED: the Oxford spelling, used by the British presses of Oxford, Cambridge and Penguin, the United Nations, ISO, Amnesty, Nature, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Orwell and Fowler’s.
   

   honour, recognize, analyse, theatre, likeable, traveller, fulfil, dialogue, practise, burned, fetus and haemorrhage

I use the Oxford dictionary, so I will follow the OED spellings.

The three systems spell most words the same way, but there are differences as noted above. In computer circles these three systems are known as en-GB, en-US and en-GB-oed.

The Times of London used OED spellings till the 1980s.

Words that are often misspelled:
abscess, abseil, accommodation, accumulate, achieve, acquaint, acquire, address, advice (n), advise (v), ageing, aggressive, amateur, anaesthetic, annex (v), annexe (n), anoint, apartment, appal, appalling, aqueduct, archaeology, artefact, attach

bargain, beautiful, believe, besiege, biased, blatant, broccoli, buoyant

cappuccino, Caribbean, cemetery, commemorate, commitment, committee, comparative, compatible, confectionery, consensus, contemporary

deceive, definite, dependant (n), dependent (adj), despair, desperate, detach, device (n), devise (v), dilapidated, disappear, disappoint, discipline, dissect

ecstasy, eighth, embarrass, enthral, envelop (v), envelope (n), extraordinary, extrovert

February, fluorescent, fulfil

gauge, glamorous, guarantee, guard, guardian

hamster, harass, harassment, humorous, hygienic

idiosyncrasy, imaginative, independent, indispensable, inoculate, instalment, introvert, irrelevant, irresistible, itinerary

judgement

label, liaison, licence (n), license (v), lightning, liquefy

manoeuvre, medieval, Mediterranean, memento, millennium, millionaire, miniature, minuscule, mischievous, misspell, Muslim

necessary, niece

occasion, occurrence, omit

parallel, parliament, peculiar, permanent, persistent, pharaoh, pigeon, practice (n), practise (v), privilege, pronunciation

questionnaire

receive, recommend, refrigerator, responsible, restaurateur, rhythm, risotto

sacrilege, schedule, seize, separate, sheath (n), sheathe (v), siege, sieve, skilful, sponsor, successful, supersede, suppress, surprise

thief (n), thieve (v), threshold, tomorrow

until, unwieldy

vegetable, veterinary

weird, whinge, wholly, wilful, withhold, wreath (n), wreathe (v)

See also:

• style guide
• -ize and -ise
• Oxford spelling
• troublesome words
• hyphens
• OED
• Americanisms