Differences between American & British spelling

Hello, guys. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. Today, we are looking at the differences between

American English and British English, and in particular some of the spelling differences

between our two ways of doing things. I'm not saying one is correct and the other is

wrong, although I have a preference. So, important things to know if you want to be working in

one country is you will need to use that country's way of spelling.

I'm going to be looking at some of the ways that we differ in our ways that we end words,

looking at some of the consonants as well. It's not an exhaustive list, in terms of there

are some other differences, but these are the major differences in the spelling between

British and American English.

Let's have a look. Let's put our glasses on, have a little look. Mmm. "our" becomes just

"or". What is Benjamin talking about? Well, I've got four "our"-ending words from British

English spelling: "behaviour", "colour", "labour",-that's a little spade there for digging, doing a

bit of manual work-"rumour", passing a rumour about someone. So, what do our fellow Americans

do with this lovely "our" formation? Well, unfortunately, they take out the "u". They

don't seem to like the "u" very much, so it disappears. Yeah, it just becomes "or". It

looks a bit sad, the "r", standing there all on its own. Sorry, "r". Sorry, I... I know

you liked "u" a lot. Don't worry.

Right, moving on to "re" endings. A little bit different in the U.S. of A. They seem

to think the "e" goes there, so: "centre" would become "center". "Theatre", the home

theatre, Britain, but in America, it's "theater", "theater". A "litre", we drink pints of beer,

here, in Britain, but apparently you have a "liter" of beer in America. "er", okay?

We share some similarities, you know, some... They haven't... They haven't kind of told

us to completely F off, because they think, you know, words like "acre" should be spelt

with an "re", which indeed they should. Okay, great.

Moving on to the "l", "l", "l". Should we all practice saying an: "La, la, el, el, la"?

Yeah, that's lovely. Feel kind of... Get up, have a little bit of a dance around. Yeah?

I don't need to get bored, watching my videos, god's sake. Okay, "l". Well, the Americans

don't like doubling the "l", so they don't like two pairs of legs; they just like one-legged

people. Strange, I know. So, "cancelled" with my two long legs, they chop a leg off. "Jewellery",

okay? There's my two diamond rings just becomes one, and they seem to have got rid of an "e"

as well. Okay? So the... There is a couple of different ways the Americans spell "jewelry",

this being one, losing an "l" and an "e". "Woollen", I've got a nice woollen jumper.

Yeah? Two o's, two l's. Yeah? It's from two sheep, so I need to o's and two l's, but Americans

can't quite afford the extra "l", so it just becomes one. Right.

A bit more "l" action. Sometimes the Brits just like to use one "l". We are in a bit

of a financial crisis at the moment, so sometimes we can only afford one "l", and the American's

dollar doing just a balance, okay, so sometimes they have two l's. I "enrol" at university.

If you're going to come to Oxbridge or Cambridge, make sure it's a one "l" enrolment for you.

If you're going to Harvard, you're looking at two l's. If you fulfil... Fulfil the criteria...

"l" there, "l" there, got the yankee doodles. Like... But two l's. Okay? I know you are

a skilful student of English, which is why you have been attracted by the laws of the

universe to watch this video now. Make sure if you're in Britain, you spell it like this;

and if you're in America, with a double "l". Okay?

So, just to recap with our l's, a little bit complicated: We like to... We like our double

l's sometimes, and sometimes the Americans drop one. So... Okay, so you're... You've

got a base word: "jewel", "cancel", if I've got an "l" at the end of the word, then normally

I'll put an extra "l" on to the ending. Okay. Good.

We're looking now at the "ise" ending, so it's a verb ending. "Authorise", "authorise",

"authorise", it means to give permission to. Authorise your bank to give money to charity

or something. I don't know. "Authorise", "criticise", and "organise". The Americans don't like this

"s" at all, so they make it into a "z". They make it into a "z",

and go to McDonald's and get really fat. "Authorize" with a "ze",

"criticize"-I'm sure I'll get lots of criticism after this-with

a "z". And "organize" your days of the week; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

then go to the gym, go to the beach with a "z" on the end.

Well, I hope you're organised to have left a couple more minutes, now, to go do the quiz

on www.engvid.com and to get 10 out of 10, identifying these different spellings.

If you'd like to subscribe to my YouTube channel and learn lots of good British English, then

be my guest. Thank you so much for watching today,

and make sure we get clear on these differences. Thanks. Bye.