I've just come from Scrabble club, where I often have to suffer the indignity of people putting down completely silly misspellings of words and saying "Maybe the Americans spell it like that." (The Association of British Scrabble Players started playing to the international Scrabble dictionary, called SOWPODS in American Scrabble circles, in 2001. The American National Scrabble Association has taken an isolationist position, and now only North America doesn't play the combined dictionary.) I take great joy in telling the people who guess silly "American" words that the American spelling system is more regular than the British. Unfortunately, no one pays attention to me when I do so. So, I'll subject this audience to my rant, since I can't know for sure if you're ignoring me or not, and can pretend that you're all fascinated by my opinions on spelling-rule complexity.
The American rule is: if the stress is on the syllable that attaches to the suffix, then you double any final consonant that follows a short (lax) vowel. But if the stress is elsewhere, you don't double the final consonant.
So:
comMIT --> committing (not *commiting)
reFER --> referred (not *refered)
BUS --> bussed (not *bused)
but:
EDit --> editing (not *editting)
LAbel --> labeling (preferred over labelling)
aBANdon --> abandoning (not *abandonning)
FOcus --> focused (preferred over focussed)
SEver --> severed (not *severred)
British English follows the same rule, EXCEPT when it comes to words ending in L, which are doubled after short vowels regardless of the stress. So, for no particular reason labelling, travelling and gambolling have one more L in the preferred BrE spelling than in the preferred AmE spelling. Notably the 1990 Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) doesn't even mention the possibility of labeled, labeling and labeler. The American Heritage Dictionary lists the double-L versions after the single-L ones.
For some reason, focus is also an exception. While the COD and Microsoft's UK English spellchecker prefer focuses over focusses , I have been "corrected" for using only one s.
Ones that really strike my American eye as wrong are BrE dialling and fuelling. Since the l is preceded by a 'long' vowel (the diphthongs /aj/ and /ju/) in my pronunciation), they shouldn't have doubled consonants, just as one doesn't double the L in tailing or healing. They seem to come under the 'doubling' rule because dial and fuel are perceived as having two syllables each, with the latter one being unstressed--i.e. di-al and fu-el. The COD presents the BrE pronunciation as /dai(ə)l/ and /'fju:əl/--so definitely two syllables in fuel but not necessarily in dial. I'm not convinced that the second syllable in fuel is regularly pronounced. Better Half pronounces fuel with one syllable and dial with close to two.
I'm not a big one for spelling reform, so I don't mind that the two spelling systems differ. Just don't insinuate that American spelling makes less sense than British!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
double Ls
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
I've learned something about American English here. I didn't know the rule about doubling consonants...I guess I had just memorized which to double and which not to double.
I, for one, AM fascinated by your opinions on spelling-rule complexity, by the way! ;-)
One more thing...when I saw the title of your entry today, I thought it might have something to do with the Welsh language. A Welsh colleague was JUST telling me yesterday that because his middle name is "Lloyd", strictly speaking his initials SHOULD be shown as "GLLW" rather than "GLW". I must admit that I know almost nothing about Welsh myself.
Thanks...
Janet
(lordcelery.blogspot.com)
Well, since you come from the US where the spelling system makes sense, I bet that you didn't have to memori{s/z}e the forms. You could have internali{z/s}ed the rule without reali{s/z}ing it, just as we do for the rules of English grammar (like where you can put an adverb and where you can't) that we don't know we know.
I don't think I ever realised there was a dispute, except in dialling. Oh, and maybe focussed, since I always type it with two Ls and Word corrects it for me (so very irritating, when your computer thinks it know better...)
My Northern accent does say 'fu-el' with two syllables, btw :)
I thought of another one - I'm a journaLLer and I do journaLLing :)
As opposed to a journalist, which again proves that AmE spelling is more regular. If BrE is going to double Ls before suffixes, why does it double the L in journaller and labeller but not in *journallist?
American spelling rules ok! :)
We don't make much sense, really, do we? I think it must be awful to have to learn English, it must be so complicated.
Except that many Americans (even in dictionaries) do say 'bused'. Ick.
And Rebecca? You can make your spell-checker learn your preferred spelling. Triumph over the machine!
Bused is a funny one. I reali{s/z}ed that as I wrote it. I think that the one-s spelling has come about because bussed is homographic for the past tense of bus or buss. But there are few cases in which there will be an unresolvable ambiguity between the two busseds.
I didn't even know the word buss until just now, when I looked it up and learned that it means "to kiss." Huh... thanks!
And, yes, in Welsh LL is considered a single "letter". So are CH DD PH RH TH NG, the last of which follows G in the alphabet (not N), which can make looking words up a bit tricky if you forget. (Not that words start with NG, unless mutated, but it's still a long way between G and N.
So in Welsh GLLW is right.
But Br E Instalment v Am E Installment?
Also Br E Trialist v Am E Triallist.
If so, why?
As far as I can tell, BrE instalment because the verb in BrE is spelt instal (though Oxford prefers install now). Similarly with BrE fulfil/fulfilment versus AmE fulfill/fulfillment. However installing and fulfilling are spelt with two Ls in BrE (like AmE), following the rules discussed in the post. It stays one L before the ment suffix because the L is only doubled before a vowel. (See this later post's comments for more on the 'rules' for removing Ls before consonant-initial suffixes.
Why does BrE spell some verbs with one L, while AmE spells them with two? No idea. The double-L version has more connection to the origins of the verbs: Old English fullfyllan and Latin installar. Instil is another example. Notice that similar one-syllable verbs are spelt with two Ls in BrE, like AmE: full, stall, still.
As for triallist, I can find no evidence of this in AmE, so you'd have to show me some examples to convince me. Where I've found AmE examples, they refer to lists of trials not people who take part in trials.
My Concise Oxford gives no double-L variation for trialist, though COD does include other US single/double-L variations. I'm not finding it in US dictionaries. Chambers, makers of Official Scrabble Words lists both. Neither spelling is listed as American, and neither is in the American Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
Why does trialist break the mo(u)ld regarding BrE double L's? It's unlike the other examples in that it's not derived from a verb. (And to be technical, it involves a derivational, rather than inflectional suffix--see here for definitions.) It's the noun trial plus -ist.
I've been learning English over 6 years now and the moment I started to realize the differences between AmE & its British counterpart was when I went to college. Now I personally use AmE (and know the rules about spelling and other aspects of the "two languages"), but a few years ago if I had been asked which one I used I'd propably have had no idea... :I
btw does anybody know any interesting websites on American Pronunciation??
Everything else pales before the random use of -our and -or on the one hand, and -er and -re on the other. Particularly in derived words: why honour and honourable but honorary, with occasional outbreaks of honourary?
What about "format"? I emphasize the first syllable, yet it seems "formatted, formatting, and formatter" are correct...
The problem that I find with the single L in words such as 'canceled' and 'traveled' is that when I attended primary school not so many years ago I was always taught the use of the 'magic E', (i.e. the 'a' in 'rat' changing its pronunciation when an 'e' is added at the end to make it 'rate' etc). My mind applies this to 'canceled' to the point where to me it looks like it should be pronounced 'canceeled'. A bit of a strange comment I realise but i wonder if this applies to anybody else?
I also believe that BrE tries to be more standardised in some respects with the LL ending being applied most commonly. AmE distinguishes between the L and LL with words such as 'excelling' and 'signaling' whereas BrE would use the LL for both. I wonder if the difference between the two is necessary to be pointed out since a 'standard' of LL in BrE would appear to be more simple. I'm not saying that I believe AmE to be wrong in any sense, variety is the spice of life after all, but it is just a thought...
That's funny Sean, I find myself wanting to pronounce cancelled can-celled because I know the rule is supposed to be based on syllable stressing, like lynneguist said.
Post a Comment