If you have read a lot in English, you will probably have noticed that there are many different variations of spellings depending on the country that the style of English comes from. In today’s blog post, we are going to focus our attention on the main differences between British and American spellings of the most common words.
In British English the letter u has survived the cull, but it wasn’t safe in America in the 1800s when Noah Webster, (one of the most influential men in early American English development) began to simplify the way English was spelt.
Webster simplified many words in the English language- a lot of the time making the words’ spellings appear more like how they sounded rather than their previous spelling.
British English spellings which lost their u in American spellings: 英式英语的单词拼写,以下单词在美式英语拼写中,就失去了字母U ? Neighbour 邻居 ? Favour 支持、偏爱 ? Harbour 港口 ? Labour 劳动力 ? Glamour 魅力 2
What else was simplified by Webster upon his redesigning of the language?
在韦伯斯特重构的美式英语中,还有什么其它的地方也简化了呢?
During his culling of letters that he deemed to be unnecessary in words, many letters were lost everywhere.
在他筛选字母的过程中,那些他视为在单词中多余的字母,被删除了。
Words in British English which tend to end in -ue seem to have been lost in the American spelling of the word.
在英式英语中,常常以-ue为结尾的单词,在美式英语拼写时就被去掉了。
British English spellings which lost their -ue in American spellings: 以下单词在美式拼写中-ue被去掉了 ? Dialogue 对话 ? Catalogue 目录 ? Analogue 相似物 3
Webster wasn’t finished with the taking away of the u or the -ue at the end of words. He wanted to simplify as much as he could.
韦伯斯特的变革,不仅仅只在删除字母u和以ue为结尾的单词,这2种。 他想尽可能的简化单词拼写。
Words, some of which came from French, were rearranged to suit the sound of the word when said.
英语单词,有一些是来自法语的,韦伯斯特对这些单词重新排序,以来适应单词的发音。
Examples: 比如说 ? Theater (instead of -re) 剧院(美式英语中,-re取代了er) ? Center (instead of re) 中心(美式英语中,-re取代了er) ? Fiber (instead of -re) 纤维(美式英语中,-re取代了er) ? Liter (instead of -re) [计量单位]升(美式英语中,-re取代了er) ? Meter (instead of -re) [计量单位]米(美式英语中,-re取代了er) 4
Did the double consonant after a single vowel go too?
单元音后面跟着辅音的时候,较后的字母还要双写吗?
In British English when a verb ends in a single vowel followed by a consonant, we generally double the consonant when putting the verb into gerund or past form. Under Webster’s change of English in the USA, the doubling of this stopped- although can still be seen in a few places.
Verbs which lost the double consonant: 以下的单词就不用双写辅音字母了: ? 取消 To cancel – cancelled – canceled ? 旅行 To travel – travelled – traveled ? 贴标签 To label – labelled – labeled Note that in the British version of the past participle, there is a double l but in the American version the single l is maintained.
请注意在英式英语以往的过去分词,经常要双写字母l但在美式英语中,只保留了一个字母l。
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What is the correct way we should write in English?
怎样才是我们书写英语的正确方式?
Even though there are different spellings of words in English ,all forms of the words are generally accepted, although if you are in a certain country, using that country’s spelling of the word would be the best option there.