American and British English spelling differences information
Comparison between U.S. and UK English spelling
For broader coverage of this topic, see Comparison of American and British English.
For related guidelines on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English.
British and American spellings around the world:
British analyse/centre/defence/labour/organise (organize in Oxford spelling)/programme (exception: computer program) dominant; English is an official or majority language
American analyze/center/defense/labor/organize/program dominant; English is an official or majority language
Canadian analyze/centre/defence/labour/organize/program dominant; English is one of two official languages along with French
Australian analyse/centre/defence/labour (but Labor Party)/organise/program dominant; English is an official or majority language
English is not an official language; British spelling is dominant.
English is not an official language; American spelling is dominant.
Inconsistent use of US and British spelling
Comparison of American and British English
American English
British English
Keyboards
Grammar
Speech
Standard accents
Word pronunciations
Spelling
Vocabulary
Glossary of American terms not widely used in the United Kingdom
Glossary of British terms not widely used in the United States
List of garments having different names in American and British English
Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English:
(A–L
M–Z)
Works
Works with different titles in the UK and US
v
t
e
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/English in the Commonwealth of Nations date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828.[1] Webster's efforts at spelling reform were effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between the American and British varieties of English. However, English-language spelling reform has rarely been adopted otherwise. As a result, modern English orthography varies only minimally between countries and is far from phonemic in any country.
^David Micklethwait (1 January 2005). Noah Webster and the American Dictionary. McFarland. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-7864-2157-2.
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