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One of the ways in which American English and British English differ is in spelling.
In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardised. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Today's British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), whereas many American English spellings follow Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).[1]
Webster was a strong proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the United States by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board, never caught on. Among the spelling reform supporters in England, the influence of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of words proved to be decisive. Later spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on today's American spellings and vice-versa.
The spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland, for the most part, closely resemble the British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms,[2] and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities.[3] Australian spelling has also strayed somewhat from British spelling, with some American spellings incorporated as standard.[4]
Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. colour, flavour, harbour, honour, humour, labour, neighbour, rumour) end in -or in American English (color, flavor, harbor, honor, humor, labor, neighbor, rumor). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, e.g. contour, velour, paramour and troubadour the spelling is the same everywhere.
Most words of this kind come from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or. These words were first borrowed into English from early Old French and the ending was spelled -or or -ur.[5] After the Norman conquest of England (1066), the ending became -our in Anglo-French to try to represent the Old French pronunciation,[6] though color has sometimes been used in English since the 15th century.[7] The -our ending was not only used in English borrowings from Anglo-French, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used -or.[5] After the Renaissance, new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending and many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) went back to -or. Many words of the -our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r, meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words from Latin (e.g. color[7]) and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.[8]
Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain (like colour), but also for words where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour, inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us".[9] English speakers who moved to America took these preferences with them, and H. L. Mencken notes that "honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson's original draft it is spelled honour."[10] In Britain, examples of color, flavor, behavior, harbor and neighbor barely appear in Old Bailey court records from the 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts.[11] One notable exception is honor. Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century;[12] Honor still is, in the UK, the usual spelling as a person's name.
In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, British usage depends on the nature of the suffix used. The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (for example in neighbourhood, humourless and savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (for example in favourite, honourable and behaviourism). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u:
In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all cases (for example, favorite, savory etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.
American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots, not Latin or French. Glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. Nevertheless, the adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". Saviour is a somewhat common variant of savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for honour (and favour) in the formal language of wedding invitations in the US.[13] The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it as the spacecraft was named after Captain James Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour. The special car on Amtrak's Coast Starlight train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor. Similarly, names such as Pearl Harbor are spelled the same in Britain.
The name of the herb savory is thus spelled everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour /ˈrɪɡər/ has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (often /ˈraɪɡɔr/) does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Derivations of "rigour/rigor" such as "rigorous", however, are typically spelled without a "u" even in the UK. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere.
Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. Canadian English most commonly uses the -our ending and our in derivatives and inflected forms. However, owing to the close historic, economic, and cultural relationship with the United States, -or endings are also sometimes used. Throughout of the late 19th and early to mid 20th century, most Canadian newspapers chose to use the American usage of -or endings, originally to save time and money in the era of manual movable type.[14] However, in the 1990s, the majority of Canadian newspapers officially updated their spelling policies to the British usage of -our. This coincided with a renewed interest in Canadian English, and the release of the updated Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1997 and the first Oxford Canadian Dictionary in 1998. Historically, most libraries and educational institutions in Canada have supported the use of the Oxford English Dictionary rather the American Webster's Dictionary. Today, the use of a distinctive set of Canadian English spellings is viewed by many Canadians as one of the cultural uniquenesses of Canada (especially when compared to the United States).
In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use throughout the 19th century and in the early 20th century, Like in Canada though, most major Australian newspapers have switched from "-or" endings to "-our" endings. The "-our" spelling is taught in schools nationwide as part of the Australian curriculum. The most notable countrywide use of the -or ending is for the Australian Labor Party, which was originally called "the Australian Labour Party" (name adopted in 1908), but was frequently referred to as both "Labour" and "Labor". The "Labor" was adopted from 1912 onward due to the influence of the American labo(u)r movement[15] and King O'Malley. Aside from that, -our is now almost universal in Australia. New Zealand English, while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English, follows British usage.
In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /əɹ/. In American English, most of these words have the ending -er.[16][17] The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings calibre, centre, fibre, goitre, litre, lustre, manoeuvre, meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, reconnoitre, sabre, saltpetre, sepulchre, sombre, spectre, theatre (see exceptions) and titre all have -er in American spelling.
Most English words that today use -er were spelled -re at one time or another. In American English, almost all of these have become -er, while in British English only some of them have. The latter include chapter, December, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November, number, October, oyster, perimeter, parameter, powder, proper, September, sober, tender and thermometer
The e preceding the r is kept in American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, which are fibres, reconnoitred and centring respectively in British English. Centring is an interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However, such dropping cannot be deemed proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance come from enter, which has not been spelled entre for centuries.[18]
The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One outcome is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while "poetic metre" is often -re, pentameter, hexameter etc. are always -er.[19]
Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber and water and Romance words like danger, quarter and river.
The ending -cre, as in acre,[20] lucre, massacre and mediocre, is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/. The spellings ogre and euchre are also the same in both British and American English.
Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. "movie theaters"); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times would use theater in its entertainment section. However, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway[21] (cf. Broadway theatre) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003, the American National Theatre was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National Theater", but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name.[22][23] The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. has the more common American spelling theater in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center.[24] Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.[25] (Note also that the word "theater" in American English is a place where stage performances and screenings of films take place, but in British English a "theatre" is where stage performances take place but not film screenings - these take place in a cinema.)
Some placenames in the United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the Stonebriar Centre mall, the cities of Rockville Centre and Centreville, Centre County and Centre College. Sometimes, these places were named before spelling changes but more often the spelling merely serves as an affectation.
For British accoutre, the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling,[26] but the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling.[27]
More recent French loanwords keep the -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ər/), as with double entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more (or less) often with some words, including cadre, macabre, maître d', Notre Dame, piastre, and timbre.
The -re endings are mostly standard throughout the Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized as minor variants in Canada, partly due to American influence, and are sometimes used in proper names (such as Toronto's controversially named Centerpoint Mall).[28]
For advice / advise and device / devise, American English and British English both keep the noun/verb distinction (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb). For licence / license or practice / practise, British English also keeps the noun/verb distinction (the two words in each pair are homophones with -[s] pronunciation, though). On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs (with -[s] pronunciation in both cases too).
American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English. Likewise, there are the American pretense and British pretence; but derivatives such as defensive, offensive, and pretension are always thus spelled in both systems.
Australian[29] and Canadian usage generally follows British.
The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin lessens,[30] and it is not used at all in the US: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio-. The American usage comes from Webster, who abandoned -xion in favour of -ction by analogy with verbs like connect.[31] Connexion was still the house style of The Times of London until the 1980s and was still used by the British Post Office for its telephone services in the 1970s, but had by then been overtaken by connection in regular usage (for example, in more popular newspapers).
Complexion (which comes from complex) is standard worldwide and complection is rare.[32] However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in the US as an alternative to complexioned,[33] but is not used in this way in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.[34]
American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like organize, realize and recognize.[35] British spelling mostly uses -ise, while -ize is also used (organise / organize, realise / realize, recognise / recognize):[35] the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus.[36] In Ireland, Australia and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail: the -ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the Macquarie Dictionary.
Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the United Nations Organizations (such as the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization) and the International Organization for Standardization (but not by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, meaning that -ize spellings are found in older legislative acts and -ise spellings in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.
The same applies to derivatives and inflexions such as colonisation/colonization.
The dominant British English usage of -ise is preferred by Cambridge University Press.[37] Robert Allan's Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either usage to be acceptable anywhere except the US.[37]
Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often seen in the UK as an Americanism, and -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers,[35] including The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Economist. Meanwhile, -ize is used in some British-based academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement.
The minority British English usage of -ize is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE", and refuses to list the -ise spellings even as alternatives in the individual entries for words such as realize.[38] It firmly deprecates using -ise for words of Greek origin, saying, "[T]he suffix...whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -ιζειν, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." It says, "Some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition."[39] Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.[40] Two other well-known publications by Oxford University Press (OUP), Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, and Hart's Rules,[41] also recommend -ize. Also, The Oxford Guide to English Usage states "-ize should be preferred to -ise as a verbal ending in words in which both are in use, according to Oxford University Press house style."[42] However, Oxford University itself does not agree with the OUP, but advocates "-ise" instead of "-ize" in its staff style guide.[43] The Oxford Guide to Style,[44] on the other hand, while not directly addressing the subject, follows OUP practice in using -ize.
Some verbs ending in -ize or -ise do not come from Greek -ιζειν, and their endings are therefore not interchangeable:
In Canada, the -ize ending is standard, whereas in Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries, the -ise ending is preferred.
The ending -yse is British and -yze is American. Thus, in British English analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse and paralyse, but in American English analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze and paralyze.
Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in 17th- and 18th-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that time – John Kersey's of 1702, Nathan Bailey's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the US. In Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.
English verbs ending in -lyse or -lyze are not similar to the Greek verb, which is λύω lúō ("I release"). Instead they come from the noun form λύσις lysis with the -ise or -ize suffix. For example, analyse comes from French analyser, formed by haplology from the French analysiser,[49] which would be spelled analysise or analysize in English.
Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford states: "In verbs such as analyse, catalyse, paralyse, -lys- is part of the Greek stem (corresponding to the element -lusis) and not a suffix like -ize. The spelling -yze is therefore etymologically incorrect, and must not be used, unless American printing style is being followed."[41]
British and Commonwealth English uses the ending -logue and -gogue while American English usually uses the ending -log and -gog for words like analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), etc. Catalogue is sometimes used in the US but catalog is more common[50] (thus the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging vs. catalogued and cataloguing). Analog is standard for the adjective, but both analogue and analog are current for the noun; in all other cases the -gue endings strongly prevail,[51] for example monologue, except for such expressions as dialog box in computing,[52] which are also used in the UK. In Australia, analog is used in its technical and electronic sense, as in analog electronics.[4] In Canada and New Zealand, analogue is used, but analog has some currency as a technical term[53] (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).
The -ue is dropped worldwide when forming related words like analogy, analogous, and analogist.
American English retains the -gue on the words tongue, vague and league.
Many words that are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English are written with just an e in American English. The sound in question is /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or unstressed /ɨ/). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): anaemia, anaesthesia, caesium, diarrhoea, encyclopaedia, faeces, foetal, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, palaeontology, paediatric. Oenology is acceptable in American English but is deemed a minor variant of enology, whereas although archeology exists in American English, the British version archaeology is probably more common.
Words that can be spelled either way in American English include aesthetics and archaeology (which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology),[54] as well as palaestra, for which the simplified form palestra is described by Merriam-Webster as "chiefly Brit[ish]."[55]
Words that can be spelled either way in British English include encyclopaedia, homoeopathy, mediaeval and foetus. The spellings foetus and foetal are Britishisms based on a mistaken etymology.[56] The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide.[57] The British medical community and The Economist magazine[58] deem foetus/foetal unacceptable for journal articles and the like.
(See also: the section "Ligatures [æ,œ]" in the article "English Orthography".)
The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as and . The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when the sounds became monophthongs, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has borrowed words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a lone e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma.[59] In others, it is kept in all varieties: for example, phoenix, and usually subpoena,[60] but Phenix in Virginia. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus, Phoebe etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph / does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom, toe. The British form aeroplane is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modeled after airship and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907,[61] at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.
In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae, but oe and ae are sometimes found in the academic and scientific writing as well as government publications (for example the fee schedule of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). In Australia, encyclopedia and medieval are spelled with e rather than ae, as with American usage, and the Macquarie Dictionary also notes a growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide.[4] Elsewhere, the British usage prevails, but the spellings with just e are increasingly used.[62] Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia, and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found.[63]
The final consonant of an English word is sometimes doubled in both American and British spelling when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel, for example strip/stripped, which prevents confusion with stripe/striped and shows the difference in pronunciation (see digraph). Generally, this happens only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a lone vowel followed by a lone consonant. In British English, however, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed.[64] This exception is no longer usual in American English, seemingly because of Noah Webster.[65] The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still deemed acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.
Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s,[67] are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.
Miscellaneous:
Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans a double l. In American usage, the spelling of words is usually not changed when they form the main part (not prefix or suffix) of other words, especially in newly formed words and in words whose main part is in common use. Words with this spelling difference include wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. These words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Cases where a single l nevertheless occurs in both American and British English include null→annul, annulment; till→until (although some prefer "til" to reflect the single L in "until", sometimes using an apostrophe ['til]); and others where the connection is not clear or the monosyllabic cognate is not in common use in American English (e.g. null is used mainly as a technical term in law, mathematics, and computer science).
In the UK, ll is sometimes used in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l), and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l), all of which are always spelled this way in American usage. The former British spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now quite rare.[69] The Scottish tolbooth is cognate with toll booth, but it has a distinct meaning.
In both American and British usages, words normally spelled -ll usually drop the second l when used as prefixes or suffixes, for example full→useful, handful; all→almighty, altogether; well→welfare, welcome; chill→chilblain.
The British fulfil and American fulfill are never fullfill or fullfil.[70][71]
Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatises distil and instill, downhil and uphill.[72]
British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not. Generally speaking, British English drops it in only some cases in which it is needed to show pronunciation whereas American English only uses it where needed.
Both forms of English keep the silent e in the words dyeing, singeing, and swingeing[75] (in the sense of dye, singe, and swinge), to distinguish from dying, singing, swinging (in the sense of die, sing, and swing). In contrast, the verb bathe and the British verb bath both form bathing. Both forms of English vary for tinge and twinge; both prefer cringing, hinging, lunging, syringing.
In Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand it is more common to end some past tense verbs with a "t" as in learnt or dreamt rather than learned or dreamed.[80] However, such spellings are also found in North America. The "t" past tenses may have been influenced by German past tenses; for example dreamt has an irregular ending found in no other English word, which is probably derived from the German geträumt.
Several verbs have different past tenses or past participles in American and British English:
See also meter/metre, for which there is a British English distinction between these etymologically related forms with different meanings but the standard American spelling is "meter". The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures is "metre".[93] This spelling is also the usual one in most English-speaking countries, but only the spelling "meter" is used in American English, and this is officially endorsed by the United States.[94]
In a few cases, essentially the same word has a different spelling that reflects a different pronunciation.
As well as the miscellaneous cases listed in the following table, the past tenses of some irregular verbs differ in both spelling and pronunciation, as with smelt (UK) versus smelled (US) (see American and British English differences: Verb morphology).
In the table below, the main spellings are above the accepted alternative spellings.
British English often prefers hyphenated compounds, such as counter-attack, whereas American English discourages the use of hyphens in compounds where there is no compelling reason, so counterattack is much more common. Many dictionaries do not point out such differences. Canadian and Australian usage is mixed, although Commonwealth writers generally hyphenate compounds of the form noun plus phrase (such as editor-in-chief).[177] Commander-in-chief prevails in all forms of English.
Acronyms pronounced as words are often written in title case by Commonwealth writers, but usually as upper case by Americans: for example, Nasa / NASA or Unicef / UNICEF.[184] This does not apply to abbreviations that are pronounced as individual letters (referred to by some as "initialisms"), such as US, IBM, or PRC (the People's Republic of China), which are always written as upper case. However, sometimes title case is still used in the UK, such as Pc (Police Constable).[185]
Contractions, where the final letter is present, are often written in British English without full stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St, Ave). Abbreviations where the final letter is not present generally do take full stops/periods (such as vol., etc., i.e., ed.); British English shares this convention with the French: Mlle, Mme, Dr, Ste, but M. for Monsieur. In American and Canadian English, abbreviations like St., Ave., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., and Jr., always require periods. Some initials are usually upper case in the US but lower case in the UK: liter/litre and its compounds ("2 L or 25 mL" vs "2 l or 25 ml");[186][187] and ante meridiem and post meridiem (10 P.M. or 10 PM vs 10 p.m. or 10 pm).[188][189][190] Both AM/PM and a.m./p.m. are acceptable in American English, though AM/PM is more common.
The use of quotation marks, also called inverted commas or speech marks, is complicated by the fact that there are two kinds: single quotation marks (') and double quotation marks ("). British usage, at one stage in the recent past, preferred single quotation marks for ordinary use, but double quotation marks are again now increasingly common; American usage has always preferred double quotation marks, as does Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English.[191]
The convention used to be, and in American English still is, to put full stops (periods) and commas inside the quotation marks, irrespective of the sense. British English has moved away from this style while American English has kept it. British style now prefers to punctuate according to the sense, in which punctuation marks only appear inside quotation marks if they were there in the original. Formal British English practice requires a full stop to be put inside the quotation marks if the quoted item is a full sentence that ends where the main sentence ends, but it is common to see the stop outside the ending quotation marks.[192]
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