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.

　　如果你经常看英文读物，你可能会发现英语的拼写方式有很多不同，而且写作风格也跟文章来源国有关。今天的内容，我们主要集中在美式拼写和英式拼写的经常用的单词上，它们主要有哪些不同。

　　Why do Americans omit the letter “u”?

　　为什么美国人经常省略字母“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.

　　在英式英语中，字母U可是经过重重筛选的。但它在美国却并不是这样。1800年，诺亚·韦伯斯特(早期美国英语发展的最有影响力的人物之一)开始简化原来的英语单词的拼写方式。

　　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.

　　韦伯斯特简化了英语中很多单词的拼写方式。他花了很长的时间，使得单词拼写更接近于它们的发音，而不再是以前的拼写方式了。

　　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

　　• Favour

　　• Harbour

　　• Labour

　　• Glamour

　　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. Words in British English which tend to end in “-ue” seem to have been lost in the American spelling of the word.

　　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。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

　　• 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.

　　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。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”)

　　Theater (instead of “-re”)(美式英语中，-re取代了er)

　　• Center (instead of “re”)

　　Center (instead of “re”) (美式英语中，-re取代了er)

　　• Fiber (instead of “-re”)

　　Fiber (instead of “-re”) (美式英语中，-re取代了er)

　　• Liter (instead of “-re”)

　　Liter (instead of “-re”) (美式英语中，-re取代了er)

　　• Meter (instead of “-re”)

　　Meter (instead of “-re”) (美式英语中，-re取代了er)

　　Did the double consonant after a single vowel go too?

　　单元音后面跟着辅音的时候，最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.

　　在英式英语中，当一个动词的结尾单元音跟着辅音的时候，这个动词的动名词或过去时，经常是双写最后的辅音字母。在韦伯斯特的美式英语的变更中，这种转换形式被停用了，尽管我们仍然也会在一些地方见到。

　　Verbs which lost the double consonant:

　　以下的单词就不用双写辅音字母了：

　　• 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.

　　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”。

　　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.

　　尽管英语单词的拼写有所不同，但一般来说，所有的这些单词的拼写形式都是可以被接受的，如果你在某个特定的国家，那么用这个国家约定俗成的拼写方式是最好的选择。