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.

如果你經常看英文讀物，你可能會發現英語的拼寫方式有很多不同，而且寫作風格也跟文章來源國有關。今天的內容，我們主要集中在美式拼寫和英式拼寫的經常用的單詞上，它們主要有哪些不同。

Why do Americans omit the letter “u”?

為什么美國人經常省略字母“U”？

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.

在英式英語中，字母U可是經過重重篩選的。但它在美國卻并不是這樣。1800年，諾亞·韋伯斯特（早期美國英語發展的最有影響力的人物之一）開始簡化原來的英語單詞的拼寫方式。

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.

韋伯斯特簡化了英語中很多單詞的拼寫方式。他花了很長的時間，使得單詞拼寫更接近于它們的發音，而不再是以前的拼寫方式了。

British English spellings which lost their “u” in American spellings:

英式英語的單詞拼寫，以下單詞在美式英語拼寫中，就失去了字母“U”

·Neighbour

·Favour

·Harbour

·Labour

·Glamour

What else was simplified by Webster upon his redesigning of the language?在韋伯斯特重構的美式英語中，還有什么其它的地方也簡化了呢?

During his culling of letters that he deemed to be unnecessary in words, many letters were lost everywhere. Words in British English which tend to end in “-ue” seem to have been lost in the American spelling of the word.

在他篩選字母的過程中，那些他視為在單詞中多余的字母，被刪除了。在英式英語中，常常以“-ue”為結尾的單詞，在美式英語拼寫時就被去掉了。

British English spellings which lost their “-ue” in American spellings:

以下單詞在美式拼寫中“-ue”被去掉了

·Dialogue

·Catalogue

·Analogue

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. Words, some of which came from French, were rearranged to suit the sound of the word when said.韋伯斯特的變革，不僅僅只在刪除字母“u”和以“ue”為結尾的單詞，這2種。他想盡可能的簡化單詞拼寫。英語單詞，有一些是來自法語的，韋伯斯特對這些單詞重新排序，以來適應單詞的發音。

Examples:

比如說

·Theater (instead of “-re”)

Theater (instead of “-re”)（美式英語中，-re取代了er）

·Center (instead of “re”)

Center (instead of “re”) （美式英語中，-re取代了er）

·Fiber (instead of “-re”)

Fiber (instead of “-re”) （美式英語中，-re取代了er）

·Liter (instead of “-re”)

Liter (instead of “-re”) （美式英語中，-re取代了er）

·Meter (instead of “-re”)

Meter (instead of “-re”) （美式英語中，-re取代了er）

Did the double consonant after a single vowel go too?單元音后面跟著輔音的時候，最后的字母還要雙寫嗎？

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.在英式英語中，當一個動詞的結尾單元音跟著輔音的時候，這個動詞的動名詞或過去時，經常是雙寫最后的輔音字母。在韋伯斯特的美式英語的變更中，這種轉換形式被停用了，盡管我們仍然也會在一些地方見到。

Verbs which lost the double consonant:以下的單詞就不用雙寫輔音字母了：

·To cancel – cancelled – canceled

·To travel – travelled – traveled

·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.

請注意在英式英語以往的過去分詞，經常要雙寫字母“l“但在美式英語中，只保留了一個字母“l”。

What is the correct way we should write in English?怎樣才是我們書寫英語的正確方式？

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.盡管英語單詞的拼寫有所不同，但一般來說，所有的這些單詞的拼寫形式都是可以被接受的，如果你在某個特定的國家，那么用這個國家約定俗成的拼寫方式是最好的選擇。