British and American Spelling

This section of Exploring English describes British and American spelling conventions.

American spellings differ only slightly from British spellings for a few words. The trend in American spelling is to drop letters that are not needed in a word, such as the 'u' in 'colour'.

One spelling convention is not more correct than the other. Just keep in mind who is going to read your writing: use American spellings for American readers, use British spellings for Canadian and other Commonwealth readers. A good dictionary will indicate both American and British spellings when there is a difference.

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Last Modified April 08, 2003