Britishisms

Recognizing British English Versus American English Spellings

Welcome to a week or a couple of weeks of low-effort essays while I prepare for a week of traveling followed by a week of work obligations culminating in a fabulous (work) party. I’ve been going through my list of available topics looking for Shelf Lifes that are fun (to read) and easy (to write and also to read) and I dredged this one up from a sub-list cataloged as “topics for a rainy day.” 

A fun Catherine fact is I dated a British person for a while—actually a small handful of British people in rapid succession—while I was living in Los Angeles. Like Washington DC, LA attracts a lot of people who are not from there; nobody there is from there. When you live there you meet people from all over. But anyway, I was dating this British person and he was visiting from London and staying with me for a bit and we had a Trader Joe’s by us. They don’t have Trader Joe’s in England I guess because he really liked going to Trader Joe’s to do the shopping. Which was fine by me because although Trader Joe’s is the most charming of all the grocery stores, I still hate going to the grocery store (even if the store is charming).

So one day he comes back to my place from Trader Joe’s with groceries and unpacks them and puts them away and then we went off and did whatever fun stuff we were going to do that evening and the next morning I was in the kitchen and I saw he had left the eggs he bought out on the counter and they had been out overnight. I was like “oh that’s a shame, he forgot to put the eggs in the fridge and now they’ve been at room temp for 12 hours so they’re bad.” And I threw the eggs away.

Next time he comes back from Trader Joe’s, same thing, I wake up the next morning and the eggs are on the counter again and I’m like. “Dang, he must really have his head in the clouds. How embarrassing to waste two dozen eggs like this. Next time he goes to the store I’ll check behind him to make sure he put everything away.” And I threw the eggs away.

Next time he comes back from Trader Joe’s I go into the kitchen while he’s unpacking to remind him to put the eggs in the fridge but before I can he goes, “Hey don’t throw my eggs away this time please.” And I go, “I threw them out because you left them on the counter overnight the last two times.” He looked at me like I had three heads and then he goes: “Where was I supposed to put them?” And I said, “In the fridge?” And he said:

“Why would you keep eggs in the refrigerator? That’s ridiculous.”

Long story short, this turned into a wild shouting match because obviously eggs have to be stored in the fridge and I was convinced of this with 150 percent certainty, as it is a great tradition in these great United States of America to take eggs out of the fridge a bit before Halloween to let them get really nasty before you throw them at the homes of people who give out subpar candy. But he was also convinced with 150 percent certainty that eggs do not have to be stored in the fridge, having been storing his eggs on the counter and eating them with no problems for his entire life.

This was ultimately resolved when we learned (I forget how) that eggs in the US are washed before sale, which removes a natural protective coating they have on them when they come out of the bird. Eggs in the UK are not washed before sale and have the original cloaca coating on them. If they have been washed and have no coating, they must be refrigerated. If they have not been washed and have the coating, they need not be refrigerated. In that way, we were both right. Although I want to say for the record that as we were at that time in the USA and not the UK I was slightly more right.

All this to say: British people! They’re not just like us!

Okay, where I’m going with this is toward British and American variant spellings of things, but I have to add just one more prefatory note, which is: Enforcing arbitrary spelling rules is colonialism and there’s no reason to do it in like casual conversation—or at all, really.

Some publishing houses will have a preference for British spellings over American or vice versa. Some publishing houses will have no preference and will follow the author’s usage, although if there’s a mix of British and American spellings in the same manuscript they will probably standardize them one way or the other. In that case they may ask the author which spelling guideline they prefer or the editor may just standardize in favor of the one the author has used more—that is, if you’ve used 75 percent British spellings and 25 percent American spellings, they’ll just change the American spellings to British to make it consistent.

I’ve worked for publishing companies that assert a preference and I’ve worked for publishing companies that don’t and that follow the author’s usage, standardizing only for consistency. I discovered doing this type of work that oftentimes when you change a spelling from British to American or from American to British, the author will not understand why you made this change because they did not understand that these were British versus American spellings of the same word; they thought these were all just interchangeable spellings.

Worth noting that when I say “British English” or “speakers of British English” I don’t just mean people in Great Britain, or The British Isles, or the United Kingdom, or England (all those being distinct things); Canadian English and Australian English share a lot of the same spellings as British English so don’t get at me. I mean “generally non-American ancestrally-white-people English.”

To sum up, it doesn’t really matter if you’re using British versus American spellings when you write (definitely not when you draft, and almost certainly not even when you revise and edit) because if your publisher cares, they’ll fix it. That said, for your information as an author I’m sharing some of the common spelling variations with guidance on which is which. This can come in handy if you’re wondering why your editor keeps changing “towards” to “toward,” if you’re writing a character that speaks in Britishisms, or if you’re self-editing for self-publication and you want to be really persnickety about it. Again, enforcing these kinds of spelling rules is colonial. 

(Hey, you know who knows like everything there is to know about colonialism? The British.)

Drop the “S”

Words ending with the letters -ward are spelled differently in British versus American English. American English omits the “s” as in: toward, onward, forward, backward, and so on. British English includes an “s” on the end of those words, as in: towards, onwards, forwards, backwards, and so on. 

As a rule, if you’re using the British spelling with an “s,” make sure you use it for all words ending in -ward and not, like, half of them. Likewise, if you’re using the American spelling with no “s,” use it consistently.

Note that, as far as I know, the adjective untoward is an exception to this rule; it is always untoward with no “s” in both British and American English.

“S” Versus “Z”

Not only do Brits add an “s” where Americans do fine without, but they also use an “s” where Americans use a “z” in words that end with -ize (or -ise). They just really love mashing the letter “s” into words it doesn’t belong in, for reasons I do not fathom. For instance, Americans use analyze while British English speakers use analyse. British English speakers would use capitalise where American English speakers would use capitalize. (For what it’s worth, only British American speakers will say “capital!” as an exclamation of delight.)

In my opinion this is representative of British English users being more stoic and American English users being more dramatic.

To “U” or Not to “U”

As with putting an “s” on the end of words ending in -ward for no reason, British English speakers also like to put a “u” in between the “o” and the “r” in words ending -or. For instance, British English speakers use colour and rigour while Americans use color and rigor.

Watch out for some exceptions to this rule, too. For instance, rigor mortis never has a “u,” whether you are British or American. Conversely, glamour always has a “u.”

The Stately “-st”

This one messes a lot of people up. British English users sometimes like to put the suffix -st on the end of prepositions, chief examples being whilst (British) versus while (American); amongst (British) versus among (American); and amidst (British) versus amid (American). I’ve had a number of people argue to me that these are actually different words and not variant spellings; friend, they are variant spellings. American English never uses whilst or amongst or amidst—although American authors keep trying it.

These British variants sound to American ears like they’re just a bit fancier or more formal than their American variants so authors like to use them to sound more formal or authoritative. 

Exception to the rule: Against and again are not variant spellings of the same word; again means “one more time” and against means “in opposition to” in both British and American English.

I’ve yet never seen anyone use towardst but I would not put it past an American author to try it to sound extra official.

One-Offs

Here I’m going to share a few odd-words-out and one-offs that can trip up American English speakers who are unfamiliar with British English. One spelling variant but mostly words that mean something different in British versus American English in a way that can be awkward if used unknowingly. I mean everybody already knows that the car’s boot means its trunk, and nobody cares; the ones I will share are more unusual and can actually embarrass you.

British English doubles the “l” in the words cancelled and cancelling, where Americans use canceled and canceling.

The word pants to mean the article of clothing that covers your bottom half is an American usage, where British uses trousers. In British English, pants means underwear.

The word plums to mean the fruit has no weird connotations in American English but can be used as slang for testicles in British English.

Fanny means butt in American English (like your fanny pack, which you wear on your hip or against your butt) but it means vagina in British English, so watch out.

A geezer in American English is an elderly person but in British English is a really cool person. My ex and I had trouble figuring this out because we were both using this word to refer to Michael Caine, who is both elderly and cool.

Finally, I think most people know this but “a nappy” in British English refers to a diaper (like for a baby) while in American English nappy is an adjective that refers to hair texture, often the texture of Black people’s hair. The phrase “nappy hair” can earn you a really weird look from a British person.

---

If you have questions that you'd like to see answered in Shelf Life, ideas for topics that you'd like to explore, or feedback on the newsletter, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you.

For more information about who I am, what I do, and, most important, what my dog looks like, please visit my website.

After you have read a few posts, if you find that you're enjoying Shelf Life, please recommend it to your word-oriented friends.