I don't know if showing the more complicated British spellings was the point of this quiz, but seriously, mate. Either way, in my opinion, English speakers should make a few simplifications for foreigners if they want to keep their language The Global Language. While Brits and Americans (and others such as Scots and Aussies) are fighting, Chinese is stepping up. At least Mandarin has only one official variety.
I thought there were multiple written versions of Mandarin, and even the "simplified" Mandarin is still mind-bogglingly complex. Though I agree written English is overdue for an overhaul. It should be replaced by some sort of International Stark, like in Ender's Game. At the very least clean up the spelling and alphabet. After that a simplified grammar would be helpful, too.
Making English a uniform language would mean destroying all the different versions of it across the world, including the regional ones within countries. This would be a great pity and will never happen because people like speaking it their own way.
I'm American and I was taught that storey is a section of a building, and story is what I tell my grandkids to bore them to death. Have those meanings changed?
Aluminium is a weird one, mostly because it's American's who break from the international standard and insist on a variant. Not that all the others are variants, it's just there's not an international standard like IUPAC.
America actually tried to change Aluminium to Alumina (Which is basically Aluminium Oxide -_-) and they threw a strop because Britain said no to the change so they insisted that they should change Sulphur to Sulfur... Every British chemist was FURIOUS.
I'd invite anyone who thinks either British or American English is "more pure" to undergo a reality check. Written English has only had standardised spellings since the production of the first dictionary, so the debate about correct versus incorrect is really just "I like this one more, so it must be better."
Except, you've proved your own argument wrong. The first English dictionary was published 1604. There's a 172 year gap between English Dictionaries and American independence. So, yes British English is, as you put it, more pure.
Oh, you mean this dictionary? Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, contayning and teaching the true writing and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French &c, in which are spellings such as ballance (balance), eccho (echo), franticke (frantic), ieopardie (jeopardy), maniacque (maniac), and ouall (oval), and includes US spellings like naturalize, solemnize, tyrannize, and vapor?
Maybe American english has just been made easier due to a low percentage of the population that actually speak English. (A higher percentage of the Dutch population speak English than that of the USA)
Clues should read "Meter (length)", "Check (bank account)", "Racket (sports)", "Curb (roadside)". In British a meter is a measuring device, like for how much electricity you've used, a racket can be a criminal enterprise or a loud noise, curb is the verb meaning to restrict or curtail and check has all sorts of other meanings on both sides of the Atlantic.
I didn't even realise (ha!) until reading the comments that people have thought that the question implies "story" means all forms of the word are spelt with the 'e'. And I didn't even think of the connotation of "to tire"! So, to my list add "story (floor of building)" and "tire (car part)".
I'm a proud British speller, but I do not align myself with any concept of British spelling being superior or even older than American spellings. I once read a stupid British author who singled out "gotten" as a "tedious Americanism". No doubt there are many barbarisms that America has imposed on the glorious English language, but "gotten" is not one of them. Apparently that author has forGOTTEN, not only that word but gotten's appearance in the King James Bible, right there at the start of Genesis (Eve: "I have gotten a man from the Lord"). And in any case it's a beautiful word, a real "cellar door" as Tolkien once said.
When I was at primary school, the word "got" was banned from any story we wrote. We had to use an alternative like "receive" or "became". The teacher was very good at expanding our vocabulary. And I still cringe when people use the word "got" even today!
In decades of reading and teaching in the UK, I can't recall seeing 'aeon' used, even though it might be grammatically correct. 'Eon', however, is relatively common.
As someone who was brought up in a British spelling environment, I think the spelling that Americans use is generally more phonetic and would make a better spelling standard for the language we call "English". The only exception would the American usage of 'Aluminum' which is just plain odd, since there is a scientifically internationally accepted standard there and that's Aluminium. Americans don't say Sodum, Lithum, Cadmum, or Strontum - so would American spellers latch on to an irregular spelling for just that one word?
There are several examples of this, for example, a meter is a measuring device, but a metre is a unit of distance, and a racket is a din, but a racquet is for playing tennis.
I'm a New Zealander (but I live in Australia) and I got them all correct, I'm quite proud considering that NZ has adopted many US spellings (though we'll probably never drop the u from colour and other like words).
Good quiz! However, I have a couple of comments: a) "pyjamas"/"pajamas" and "aluminium"/"aluminum" are not strictly speaking differences in spelling of the same words, but in use of words which slightly different and differently pronounced; b) I think it is unfortunate to include "story" and "check" into this list, because those are perfectly acceptable British spellings, even though only applicable for some usage of the American spelling.
Great quiz! I had no idea that a lot of these words were spelled differently. With regards to the debate occurring in the comments, I agree that that the "better" dialect is completely subjective. Living my entire life in the United States, it looks weird and incorrect when I see "realise" or "ageing," but I know that's just me.
I wonder how many people often berate Americans over their refusal to use metric whilst simultaneously insisting on retaining British spellings because.... tradition (ignoring the constant flux in spellings until relatively recent standardization). Plainly 'analyze' more accurately captures the pronunciation of that word than 'analyse'. Of course there are a few I'll stand firm on - 'aluminum' is just an odd American quirk, as no one else pronounces it that way.
Implying English is a language that is "read". Should they have changed "who" to hoo? "bought" to "bawt"? "laugh" to "larf"? American spellings are plainly more phonetically spelt than British spellings.
The problem with spelling English phonetically is that there are so many dialects. Take "Water". I (southern English) pronounce it "wawta"; Americans pronounce it "wahdr"; a Scot might pronounce it "wa'rr", or "Wo'rr" and so on. There are countless words which would present this problem - "Dahdr" or "Dawta" or "Do'rr" (daughter); "Satuhday", "Sadrrday" "Sa'ahdeey" "Sa'rrdeh" "Setuhdye" (Saturday). So whose phonetic spelling?
Just about the entire world, with the exception of the UK, USA (and possibly Australia and New Zealand) use the metric system. Why, according to comedian Trevor Noah, even drug dealers are now using metrics.
If you are British and spelling metre as meter and centre as center then you are clearly wrong and should question your schooling!
As for Storey, the clue is misleading. This spelling of storey refers to a floor in a building, not a tale. Same for check. To check something we spell it the same as you, cheque is a form of payment. We spell racket when describing a din the same, racquet refers to sports equipment.
But isn't the clue in the nature of the quiz? i.e. things what are spelt differently in US vs UK? It either ain't difficult or adds a bit of thinking required to work out which story / check / racket it refers to.
Apparently there is some official body in the US who determines these things (for court reporters, at least). I used to type court transcripts for a relative who was a court reporter and she had to go once a year for a grammar and spelling seminar to learn the changes governing their grammar and punctuation rules for official court documents. Over the course of many years we have lost commas, regained commas, seen spellings change and then change back, etc. Without changes we would all still be speaking Old English or one of the various dialects, and we wouldn't be able to understand people from different areas, even in the English-speaking world. Vive la difference as long as it doesn't become so different we can no longer communicate.
Americans changed the original spelling (directly linked to french or latin in the majority of those exemples) to fit their ill-pronounciation. TYPICAL ! FAKE NEWS !
Sir Humphry Davy made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium in 1812. So the American logic really falls because you've actually locked in neither the first or the final choice of the discoverer!
Historically, words that are derived from Greek or Roman roots should use the form/spelling -ize, -izing, -ization (and -yze in the case of analyze).
Words that are derived from modern romantic/French roots, such as advertise, are always spelled with an 's' rather than a 'z', even in the US.
The British started to shift towards the -ise, -ising, -isation spellings that prevail in the UK today in the late 19th and early 20th century: possibly because Greek and Latin started to become less important on the school curriculum, possibly because the "frenchification" of the language was more desirable (French had traditionally been a language of royal courts in earlier centuries, and so had a "classy" connotation).
Some British bodies - such as the Oxford University Press - favour the original, classic -ize spellings even today.
So, in that sense, the US form of these words is the original, and arguably correct spellings.
...Not sure it explains color, labor, favor, however.
In a former job a new American customer insisted on a contract with American spelling for all freight documentation.
Not wanting to get it wrong I asked if they meant American spelling of the English language but was told flatly 'we speak American, so spell it American'
It was hard trying to treat them seriously after that.
As a French guy, this quiz is actually quite easy because a lot of those words are in fact, borrowed from the French language, and in nearly all the cases, the British spelling is true to the original French one. For the other ones, you must not forget about Latin roots and Latin spellings œ and æ.
And yet they *absolutely do* exist in English. Proof? All the words that still include them in the English language (yes, they’re not the most-common spellings, but they’re still the most-accurate ones!)!
OED: "A man going up stairs for a day raises 205 chiliogrammes to the height of a chiliometre." I am appalled that you British have abandoned this traditional spelling.
I'm English, and honestly, the American spellings are better. Much more logical, and easier for L1 and L2 speakers alike. The only ones I can understand are aeroplane, aluminium, and titbit, since that's how we say it here. As for the rest - just have a reform. It's a fundamentally broken system (if you could call it a 'system' at all - it's verging on logographic.) Most other European languages do it regularly, so we definitely can.
My god, it's amazing how a fun quiz can attract so much rhetoric and at times anger. We are all different, the world would be boring if we were all similar and, do you know what, I guessed that 'tire' was used to be the vehicular definition and not an example of lethargy.
The sad fact here in Britain is that a huge number of the younger population (and an increasing number of older indigenes) can't spell, use grammar (especially apostrophes) or even communicate properly.
Americans and Brits use different spellings and sometimes even different words. That's life! No-one is right or wrong (except maybe where jam/jelly is concerned!)
I am English. I agree American spellings are often better, but was brought up to use the English spellings. The strange spellings depend on the origin of the word, whether Latin, Greek, French or whatever. I however use "chile" and have no idea what Behoove means.
I'm an aussie right, and I just remembered my favourite american mix up moment. I was a hotel room looking around the room (with my computer open), and my american colleague walks in saying "what's up?"
I respond with "Can't find a powerpoint"
He walks out and returns with powerpoint open with on his computer
Though my family lineage is largely English, I must make the point that many of the American spellings are simpler, and thus facilitate communication more easily. Also, since Americans now far out-number Brits, the new-world spellings would be preferred in a purely democratic sense.
You may be forgetting that, were just half of Commonwealth members able to speak English (and preferential to British English) they would still outnumber Americans by about 350%.
'A lexicographer's business is solely to collect, arrange, and define the words that usage presents to his hands. He has no right to proscribe words; he is to present them as they are.' -Noah Webster, who went on to prescribe a whole ton of alternate spellings in his dictionary.
Several of these words have gone out of fashion even for the British (and by extension, us Aussies). The British/Australian spell checkers now are constantly telling me that spelling travelled or traveller is wrong, as is the case for many words that used to be spelled with a double 'L.'
English is my second language, taught to me by Europeans; perhaps that's why I find the English spelling of words easier (except for "kerb", which I've never heard of until now).
In New Zealand British spelling is used for lots of words, and US spelling has also influenced NZ spelling. I mention this because although NZ English has more in common with British English than US, I feel I am removed enough from Britain to accept that plenty of US spellings are far more logical than the British equivalent. For example, dropping u's makes life easier, after all, we aren't French. Also, removing silent vowels makes great sense.
pretty easy, only racquet (was close) storey ( i guess not the tale but a storey building) and traveller, got the best of me. Never heard of behoove (sounds like someone trying to say behave haha, maybe an allo allo character). Aeon and kerb took a second look. This is gonna screw me up though haha, I think I allready used words of both "langauage/dialect" but I think now it will be even more mixed...
Ever since the United States kicked out England with the help of the French it's perplexing how much they've changed their spelling to be more French. Why did the U.S. retain the correct spelling? Imagine if England got conquered by King Louis in the American Revolution, they'd all be speaking French. Oh wait, apparently they are.
Why would you change aluminium to aluminum when every other element pretty much ends in -ium? Seems a bit odd, and confusing. Like you don’t call it cadmum titanum or sodum, so why should aluminium be different?
I find the US insistence on changing the name of the element consistent with their insistence on using feet, gallons and pounds for units of measurement. They seem to enjoy being different, even if the rest of the world just thinks they're wrong for doing so.
Sir Humphry Davy made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium. There are other elements such as lanthanum, tantalum that would match aluminum, just as there are many others such as sodium, lithium, etc. that match aluminium.
I am English. A lot of those are wrong and out of context. Metre is a unit of measurement. Meter is a device for measuring electricity use for example. We also use check and cheque, totally different things.
Because it retains the French influence, since Britain got itself conquered by France and ruled by French monarchs for centuries. American English is taking it back to the Anglo-Saxon roots. ;)
Words like story/storey aren't so much different spellings, depends on how it's being used. We still use story if it's a book, but storey if it's a floor on a building
Aeon is the standard spelling in British English, because the British still use the original digraph 'ash' in words like ægis, æon, archæology and leukæmia. The same applies to the oe spelling in œstrogen and Oedipus, where the ligature is used to represent the Greek diphthong 'οι'. The French still use it too. In French, œ is called 'e dans l'o', which means e in the o (a French joke to aid memory used in school, sounding like (des) œufs dans l'eau, meaning 'eggs in water'). Americans have simply cut this out as it is not required for clear comprehension. Europeans, being a bit snobbish about anything classical or highbrow, have generally kept the spelling but dropped the ligature. Extremely highbrow and pretentious Grammar and Classics professors still retain the digraph.
In any case, they are not insurmountable differences, and I for one have never struggled to understand an American using different spellings and vernacular. That said, I am interested in phonetics and linguistics...
...and I listen to the lectures of, and read the works of, more progressive (and American) professors of linguistics such as John McWhorter, as well as learning the history of (especially) English. I even understood Bill S Preston Esquire, when he declared on the San Dimas High School stage that he had a "mild Edipal Complex". I would say Oedipus Complex (pron. 'eedipus').
As stated above, all languages are dynamic and vowels shift, and the sound of consonants also change. The letters we have are not varied enough to represent subtle differences. The differences in US and UK orthography come down to exactly what point in the history of English we first (respectively) decided to fix them in stone. Plus, of course, spelling reform. If you think that words should be pronounced as they are spelled, you are not right. The word comes first and the orthography necessarily comes later, and the system is often found lacking and is quickly superannuated, because language usage CHANGES constantly
In any case, speakers of both British English and American English have their preferences and their 'bêtes noires', and neither is right, just like neither is wrong. They are simply different, and as we say here in the UK, "vive la différence". :D
Being British and 'of a certain age', I found this easy enough. But Brits of a younger generation would struggle, as so many US spellings seem to be used here now. I blame Facebook! lol
PS why don't you guys just spell it aloominum and have done with it haha
Being a Canadian who happens to read BBC, this quiz was mostly very easy. Then I spent 2 full minutes trying every possible way to phonetically spell curb. I eventually tried the silliest way possible to spell it and bingo. I gotta say, kerb looks like those silly spellings that Webster suggested, like masheen.
This quiz has been updated, but still could really use either some glosses or a caveat that some of of these words are spelled the "British" way only for one particular meaning: on this side of the pond they're homonyms rather than the same word. By my count it's six. You can check the figures on your bank cheque, tell a story set on the fourteenth storey of a building, get tired of changing your car tyre, curb your language after falling off the kerb, make a racket with your tennis racquet, and find the parking meter twenty metres away.
Actually, many of these are Latin or ancient German forms, which were originally used in England. Spelling was not standardized in either country until decades after U.S. independence. It was a generation or so after Napoleon's defeat and after his death with the retroactive romanticization of France when French endings like -our and -re were locked in. Despite the Viking Norman conquerors' use of courtly French, the original Latin (and hence English) forms were commonly used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, etc. Before standardization you'll find francophone spelling used interchangeably with the original German and Latin spelling conventions in England and even early documents of the independent U.S.
Sorry, but many American root forms are, more often than not, pedigreed back a millenium and a half before the traditional French versions, which later came in full vogue in 1800s England.
"Do thou meet me presently at the harbor.—Come hither. If thou be’st valiant, as they say base men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them, list me. The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard.
- William Shakespeare
Notably, here we see a different situation with the newer French spelling of lieutenant. Old French was leuftenant, which holds over in the current British pronunciation versus American.
Many modern editions of older English texts "correct" to modern British spellings, but writers including Shakespeare used older spelling forms as well as francophone versions.
Here, we see one of the most cherished of all Englishman writers holding onto older English spellings in the mid-1600s. Among them, "valor", completely U-less.
One has only to travel in the UK for a while and talk to the people in different regions to realise that there is nothing unusual about differing pronunciation and spelling of the English language. Spend a week in Liverpool, then a week in Newcastle, after that a week in Glasgow followed by a week in Birmingham and another week in London. If that doesn't prove me correct then head for the West country, Somerset or likewise and then over to Lincolnshire. If by now you think that all British people speak the same ........... your potty.
Why was this quiz reset? What changed? With all the criticism of the various spellings above, I am loath to add my weight to it all (that's "loth" for you Brits, although why I'm not sure, since the verb form in both places is "loathe").
Apparently I spell a lot of things the British way despite being American (although I did know about "grey." Believe it or not I have had actual arguments with people who are upset I use grey instead of gray) but I have to say, kerb looks absolutely ridiculous spelled that way
Several of these are only spelt differently in the UK for specific meanings of the word (cheque, storey, tyre, kerb, racquet, metre). It would probably be a good idea to either remove these or to specify the meaning you're referring to.
Otherwise we're going to have a lot of Americans thinking that in the UK one might cheque the parking metre while making a racquet telling a storey, until your friends tyre of you and you kerb your behaviour.
In fact, many of these pairs are frankly DIFFERENT WORDS. 'Aeroplane' is a DIFFERENT WORD' from Airplane, not a different pronunciation of the same word. 'Storey' and 'Story' are DIFFERENT WORDS and DIFFERENT THINGS that happen to be homonyms.
No? yes, for the Brits the words "story" and "storey" mean different things, but in the US "story" is used for both. And I looked up the difference between "aeroplane" and "airplane" and they are just the British and American spelling, not a different word. Unless there's another meaning the dictionaries don't know about?
You need to add definitions for these words, some words are not even common in the UK/USA so it gives advantages to other players. Adding definitions would be extremely beneficial and will make a fairer quiz overall.
Several of the spelling differences arise from whether or not original spelling of loanwords is used. This question arises in all languages that use the same alphabet. As a French speaker, when I use French words in discourse in English, I find it natural to retain their spelling. And as a Dutch speaker, well that language has a very systematic spelling, but almost everyone uses the "foreign" spelling of the extremely numerous loanwords.
Fascinating quiz! I'm British, and it took me ages to get "racquet" and "aeon" because I don't think I have seen either word spelt like that in anything published after the 1960's. I've also never heard the word "behove". Kept me on my toes!
Maybe you could put the definition of the word next to it because on words like tire or cheque, it could have two spellings: tire and tyre and check and cheque
I’m less offended by your wonky spelling than by your habit of deliberately mis-pronouncing words, in particular foreign names and places. No matter how hard it seems to pull off, no matter how straightforward the word, somehow you’ll manage to stress the wrong syllable, or put the accent in the wrong place and end up pronouncing it differently to everyone else in the whole world - it just feels perverse.
As Roxy7699 says, perhaps y’all declaring independence from England, over and over and over again?
We definitely don't say aeroplane.
I'm a proud British speller, but I do not align myself with any concept of British spelling being superior or even older than American spellings. I once read a stupid British author who singled out "gotten" as a "tedious Americanism". No doubt there are many barbarisms that America has imposed on the glorious English language, but "gotten" is not one of them. Apparently that author has forGOTTEN, not only that word but gotten's appearance in the King James Bible, right there at the start of Genesis (Eve: "I have gotten a man from the Lord"). And in any case it's a beautiful word, a real "cellar door" as Tolkien once said.
we spell a piece of fiction a story
As for Storey, the clue is misleading. This spelling of storey refers to a floor in a building, not a tale. Same for check. To check something we spell it the same as you, cheque is a form of payment. We spell racket when describing a din the same, racquet refers to sports equipment.
Words that are derived from modern romantic/French roots, such as advertise, are always spelled with an 's' rather than a 'z', even in the US.
The British started to shift towards the -ise, -ising, -isation spellings that prevail in the UK today in the late 19th and early 20th century: possibly because Greek and Latin started to become less important on the school curriculum, possibly because the "frenchification" of the language was more desirable (French had traditionally been a language of royal courts in earlier centuries, and so had a "classy" connotation).
Some British bodies - such as the Oxford University Press - favour the original, classic -ize spellings even today.
So, in that sense, the US form of these words is the original, and arguably correct spellings.
...Not sure it explains color, labor, favor, however.
Not wanting to get it wrong I asked if they meant American spelling of the English language but was told flatly 'we speak American, so spell it American'
It was hard trying to treat them seriously after that.
The sad fact here in Britain is that a huge number of the younger population (and an increasing number of older indigenes) can't spell, use grammar (especially apostrophes) or even communicate properly.
Americans and Brits use different spellings and sometimes even different words. That's life! No-one is right or wrong (except maybe where jam/jelly is concerned!)
I respond with "Can't find a powerpoint"
He walks out and returns with powerpoint open with on his computer
I hope I will learn to spell those words in the future.
In any case, they are not insurmountable differences, and I for one have never struggled to understand an American using different spellings and vernacular. That said, I am interested in phonetics and linguistics...
As stated above, all languages are dynamic and vowels shift, and the sound of consonants also change. The letters we have are not varied enough to represent subtle differences. The differences in US and UK orthography come down to exactly what point in the history of English we first (respectively) decided to fix them in stone. Plus, of course, spelling reform. If you think that words should be pronounced as they are spelled, you are not right. The word comes first and the orthography necessarily comes later, and the system is often found lacking and is quickly superannuated, because language usage CHANGES constantly
Didn't know what aeon was so I didn't know how we spell it 🤷
PS why don't you guys just spell it aloominum and have done with it haha
Sorry, but many American root forms are, more often than not, pedigreed back a millenium and a half before the traditional French versions, which later came in full vogue in 1800s England.
- William Shakespeare
Notably, here we see a different situation with the newer French spelling of lieutenant. Old French was leuftenant, which holds over in the current British pronunciation versus American.
Many modern editions of older English texts "correct" to modern British spellings, but writers including Shakespeare used older spelling forms as well as francophone versions.
For contemplation hee and valor form’d,
For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace,
Hee for God only, shee for God in him:
His fair large Front and Eye sublime declar’d
Absolute rule; and Hyacinthine Locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust’ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
Shee as a veil down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell’d, but in wanton ringlets wav’d
As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli’d
Subjection, but requir’d with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv’d,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay."
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
Here, we see one of the most cherished of all Englishman writers holding onto older English spellings in the mid-1600s. Among them, "valor", completely U-less.
Otherwise we're going to have a lot of Americans thinking that in the UK one might cheque the parking metre while making a racquet telling a storey, until your friends tyre of you and you kerb your behaviour.
As Roxy7699 says, perhaps y’all declaring independence from England, over and over and over again?