A
complete list of spelling differences between American and British
English, assuming such a list could be compiled, would be a daunting and
not particularly useful thing. For example, among many other factors,
it would have to take account of differences of hyphenation and spacing
in compound words (US antiaircraft/GB anti-aircraft, US bookkeeper/GB
book-keeper, US ultramodern/GB ultra-modern, and so on). Since American
English tends to drop the hyphen much faster than British English, this
factor alone would make the list potentially endless. The difficulties
arising from hyphenation also illustrate the complexity of the subject
in general, for not only do variant spellings exist for many words on
both sides of the Atlantic, often the authorities in each country—i.e.
the dictionary-makers —are in disagreement as to which spelling of a
word is to be preferred over other possibilities. Rather than attempt a
complete inventory of spelling differences, then, we have chosen to
identify a number of broad categories. The following lists are
illustrative rather than exhaustive. One important point should be
noted: if two versions of a word are given as accepted US or GB
spelling, the first is the preferred spelling and the second a variant.
(Our authorities are Merriam- Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for
American words and the Concise Oxford Dictionary for British.) To see the content, click here.