Why Are Words Spelt Differently In British & American English? 

Big thanks to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! ridge.com/NAMEEXPLAIN”

British person: Colour is spelt C-O-L-O-*U*-R. You spell it wrong American person: No U

British English: Colour Draught Tyre Theatre American English: Color Draft Tire Theater Canadian English: Colour Draught/Draft Tire Theatre Because why not both

Britain: English (traditional) America: English (simplified)

I once got points off in art class because I labeled my color wheel as "Ye Olde Colour Wheele"

English is not my first languarge. I've learned british english in school, but I've really learn to understand english through series/movies - so my english is a messy Mix between british and american english. And I have no idea which is which.😅

uk:flavour us:flavor uk:colour us:color uk:what are you doing? us: removing u

I died at the definition of “Oats”

In Germany we are encouraged to write and speak British English and some of the older teachers stand by that, but most teachers let us use whatever we want and don't mind weird mixtures.

3:34 When you realize that the "wtf am I reading" meme guy is actually a spelling reformer and has probably made that facial expression because he saw what a mess english spelling was

I live in Romania and the version of english I was taught depended on the teacher I had.Usually the more lenient and younger teachers taught american english, while the older ones insisted on british.

USA: Memes UK: Felony USA: Prison UK:Australia

Yesterday to my husband through text: “ I cancelled our subscription.” “What? Cancelled has only one L”. “Well, I guess we’re British now.”

I’m American and I use “theatre” when talking about drama and plays, and use theater when talking about movies

I am Icelandic. We are taught British English in school, but American media is very popular as well. Thus, I write (and speak) in a sort of mix of American and British English.

As a native French speaker, I have to say that seeing the word "theatre" in an english sentence feels wrong, as if it was written in the wrong language.

"We can order things, and the next day they arrive at our door". *Laughs in Irish*

I am an Indian and I realized that we use both American and British versions of spelling for different words

Cool. The uppercase/lowercase explanation was my favorite (or favourite ;)) part of the video so I, for one, am glad you found away to slip it in.

I am danish. In primary school we learnt British English. I remember being corrected a lot when I was young because I spelled it “color” instead of “colour”. In high school I believe we could use either one but we however had to be consistent in which one we used. I am not sure what I use today, but I think it is somewhat of a mixture. I however believe I use more American than British as it is the one I encounter the most.

I'm an American, and yet the British spellings "grey," "endeavour," and "anaesthetic" look correct to me. This video also reminds me of one of my favorite lyrics from My Fair Lady, "There even are places where English completely disappears; in America, they haven't used it for years."

America: * removes u in colour * U.k: what are you doing? America: getting rid of u.

Name Explain: [uses a picture of Bananas in Pyjamas in his video.] Me, an Australian: Huzzah! A man of quality!

I appreciate the way he worded the video’s title. It draws a larger audience then, “Why Is American English spelled differently From British English” - or vice versa. And the way he worded the thing will offend less people, good on ya mate!

German here. I was taught British English at school with our teacher making every effort to get our pronunciation as close as possible to the best British English he knew. The entire textbook was based on British English, only in the final year, the textbook introduced other versions of English at an enormous speed, including American, Australian, Canadian, South African and some other types of English. American English was just one of those many other versions, so we learnt about some differences but overall the course was on British English. Later at university, I took English interpreting, and we had to choose one type of English and stick to it in order to be consistent. All students from various countries chose British English, only one Austrian student chose American English. All our profs used British English as far as I remember. Altogether most Europeans I know, well my generation and environment, prefer British English over American English simply because it is so much easier for us to understand both spoken and written. The British spelling and pronunciation are much closer to our own languages than the American versions.

That helps, thanks! English is my second language and in school we were learning British English, but everything on tv is usually in American English. Way to get all confused 😀

Having lived in both countries, I tend to use the “Canadian “ variant which takes from both

And over here in Canada, both Oxford and Mirriam-Webster dictionaries are sold and we use a pick-and-choose combination of spellings. It appears we took many of the consistency changes like programme -> program and tyre -> tire but retain ou-s and re-s like in colour and theatre. Which is massively irritating when using spell checkers that only feature US or UK dictionary spellings.

In America, we actually usually use a combination of both English and American spelling. Words with different spellings usually have different connotations. “Theatre” is acting and “theater” is a cinema. Most streets or places in the middle of something are “Centre” but are in the “center” of where they are.

Thus, why the U.S. and Britain have been called two countries separated by a common language.

Reminds of me Langfocus channel, he did a "Why Is English Spelling So Damn Weird?! " video. ...and it is weird when it comes to spelling :P

This really screws with us Dyslexics

I'm Nigerian and in school we lean both but mostly British, i guess it's because we were once a British colony, Colour Tire Draft Cauch Vest Aeroplane That's how most people in Nigeria spell those words

I learnt English as my second language. At school we mostly use American English because it's deemed as simpler but we adopted many words from British English (for example we use the word "lift" instead of "elevator"). But the thing is, I first learnt English at school but became more fluent after learning in another place that uses British English. So my English is basically a mix of the two.

I'm Brazilian and the first contact I had with English was the British one. My parents paid for lessons on this school obviously named "British Culture". Then I had lessons on my regular school, which would teach based on British or American English, depending on the book the teacher chose to follow. That made me a really confused child regarding spelling. Most of my vocabulary came from watching subtitled TV shows, however, the majority of them from the United States, so now I usually tend to go the ol' American way.

I’ve used and spelt words like “burnt” but have also used spellings like “dreamed”. I’m just really inconsistent lol

All I want to do is to support your channel by writing a comment, but I'd love to take some time on telling you how great your channel is! I have not found such a straight-forward / educational but FUN to watch channel in such a long time! Cheers, Patrick!

In Kenya, the standard spelling taught in schools is British English. English is my 1st language. Well, jointly first with KiSwahili.

I never realised the differences were actually deliberate. I'm not that bothered when American's use American English, but it does bother me when many many applications assume that American English is good enough for the whole world and don't provide other variations despite providing other languages. Particularly problematic when a spellchecker is involved....

Britain: My Language is correct! America: No My Language is correct! Australia: NEITHER OF YOUR LANGUAGES IS CORRECT! My LANGUAGE IS CORRECT! *don don DONNNNNNN*

Being from the Dominican Republic, us Latin Americans learn American English so that is the one I tend to use. Because of my job as a New York City tourist guide, I encounter many British visitors so I have expanded my vocabulary and writing prowess to accommodate those individuals although I always make fun of their way of speaking and writing their mother tongue. It is hilarious to hear people from other parts of Europe speaking English with a British sounding accent.

As a Yank, I say we just have a rock paper sizers tournament.

I am from Austria, I learned British english. However when I studied computer science I had to use the American english as well. I personally think the American english is easier to read. It is also interesting how the languages have been evolving!

i'm brazilian and i learned english from GTA V and Friends so i speak/write in american english, but having contact with so many other kinds of english changed my accent a little. it's still hard for me to perfectly understand other accents (this video was a good test), but i like the challenge

Well I've been learning English for more than 10 years and I have only started distinguishing the two versions about two or three years ago. That's when I decided for myself, that I want my English to be as British as I could possibly make it. So, I've been working towards this goal ever since. I've also been working on my accent for a long time to make it sound like a northern England accent, or whatever that group of accents should be called. I've done quite a lot of work and I'd say it payed off. Any time I go abroad (well, went abroad, as the bloody covid makes it impossible to go basically anywhere), not a single person can actually tell what country I'm from. I have even once got called a Scott, which was quite a surprise, since my accent doesn't sound that Scottish at all (well to me at least), but I was delighted, that my hard work had nevertheless payed itself off.

If you think that's arguing you should watch the literal fights between spanish from spain vs latin american spanish hahahahaha btw love the vid

I school (In Sweden) they tried to teach us British english. I had older teachers. But it was impossible as our influence from American english is too strong.

Interestingly, some older rural Southern folks use "spelt" and words like "reckon," both of which are commonly used in modern British grammar.

I'm Japanese. I've been to the UK to study English. I love BRITISH ENGLISH🇯🇵🇬🇧

As an American, this made me realize I spell many of my words in the British style (theatre, dreamt, grey)

Johnson might have spent 8 years compiling his dictionary but he still missed out the word "sausage".

I’m from Germany and we’ve actually learnt both. Our teachers let us use both way in tests or so as long as we stick to one. I mostly chose American English since the spelling is much easier

Some: British Others: American Me: Australian

As an American I actually tend to see some words spelled the “American” way and some spelled the “British” way and I myself use some British spellings like grey, spelt, and learnt

Warning, The Comment Section Contains Different Types Of English.. You Have Been Warned..

Im from Brazil, i've learned british english in class but most media I consume is in american english so most of the time I use a mishmash of them. It's really hard to know which spell belongs to what origin at least for me. This video will actually help me to do know better in the future.

Great video!! As an American, have noticed that the OLDER I get, whenever writing or typing, I tend to use the British English version of words more for whatever reason - must be because of reading history books written by English authors or something.. Then, it is quite "interesting" when using spell-check on an American computer and having it tell me that I have "misspelled" a certain word, or someone tell me that I made a mistake.

You missed a reason why Webster simplified American English: he used those word origins to help. The "our" became "or" because he pulled from Latinate forms, and "ise/yse" became "ize/yze" from Greek forms. It doesn't hold for everything (e.g., "program" was simplified, even though the British spelling is closer to Greek "programma"), but it holds for a lot of words. Also, Britain **and** the US also had both spelling variants (e.g. "tire/tyre", "aeroplane/airplane") as technology emerged and sometimes Britain fell on one side as the US fell on the other.

here in germany british english was the first to be taught but the diffrences were explained at school too

I live and grew up New Zealand and being a part of the common wealth we technically speak British English however because of large amounts of American content, speaking with people world over because of the internet and the inconsistenties of terms in programming languages (I.e. Color is used in American programs instead of colour). I think, speak and write in a sort of hybrid English, often using a mixture of words and even interchanging them regularly.

In Cameroon, a bilingual nation, we are taught obviously "British English" (spoken and written British English). But I'm much more exposed to "American English" when browsing the Internet so I'm used to the two forms. But to be honest American English spelling is simpler than British English spelling. I prefer speaking standard British English because I consider it more prestigious and writing a mix of British and American english because after all they are just forms of the English Language.

As a person with English as my second language I can inform that I use both jumbled randomly into my sentences, though it's primarily American English

In The Netherlands, it is a mess. Textbooks really like to teach us British English, but in daily life, we are mostly exposed to American English. Primary school teachers, who have to master all subjects on primary school, are not all equally knowledgeable about the English language. Thus, they teach British words from the textbooks, American words to complement their sentences, all with an American pronunciation. In the meantime, I am at middle school with a bilingual education. My classmates speak near flawless American. I, however, once decided I wanted to speak British, but I reckon it is not entirely perfect. I never unlearned it.

My personal version of English is a hybrid of American and British english. I prefer to spell color without the u since this is slightly simpler. I also use the words Fries and Crisps to avoid confusion around what Chips means. I'd also use some spellings which aren't in both versions of english, like boogyman without the e, since they're very close to known English spellings but I found a way to make them even simpler while only changing 1 letter. Also, I'd sometimes come up with word combinations as replacements for rarely-needed words I don't know, home sandals being a good example.

I live in Germany, (in the state of Baden-Württemberg) and we've learned the first year British English, the second was split between British and American English, in the third year we had American and Australian English and after that another year of American English. In the following years we could choose for ourselves, which version we want to use. In the end, as far as I know, most students use a wild mixture out of American, British and other forms of English. But it all depends on the teacher and which version he likes to use.

And Canadian English seems to be a mix of British and American English.

British English is my favourite English Language I don't care what my friends gonna say about that. I'm still learning. From the Philippines.

Draught / draft probably isn’t the best example. We use both in Britain for different things. Draught is the board game that’s also called checkers, we also have draught beers, whereas as a draft is a rough copy of something.

I like both, as my teachers accept both ways words are spelt. It helps a lot when you spelled a word “wrong” (you intent to write colour, but write color) it might be the only reason I am passing English.

Speaking of another video, please go over vocab differences between American and British English!

IMO, spelling reform in American English should have gone all the way or not at all. Now it's a Frankenstein of an orthography.

A few comments: You mention Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary as being responsible for standardizing the English language, but when I went through John Lawson's "A New Voyage to Carolina" in a facsimile edition of the original 1709 printing, the spelling was already pretty standardized. Excepting words that now end in "c" usually ending in "ck" and the suffix "-ed" added to verbs being half the time "-'d" (that is, two variant spellings such as "walked" and "walk'd" might be seen, even on the same page) the spelling was almost identical to what we would recognize today. I counted about one substantial spelling difference per page. As for Noah Webster's spelling changes - something that very few people know these days is that it wasn't accepted throughout the United States. Books published in southern cities like Charleston frequently continued to use the traditional spellings until after Mr Lincoln's war. As for which is correct, both are. The point of standardized spelling is simply clarity in understanding, and the two are similar enough that it shouldn't be a problem to use either British or American spellings, with possibly a few exceptions of words that are both not used commonly enough to be familiar with both and where the spelling doesn't match the pronunciation (like "draught" instead of "draft"). Much more troublesome are issues such as phrases having opposite meanings - like "tabling an issue" meaning to bring it up for discussion in British English and meaning to set it aside and defer discussion in American English.

I remember hearing something about the evolution of British and American English that a significant amount of the standardization also took place during the Victorian era, making modern American English slightly older than modern British English. The OED wasn't really finished until 1928. It would be interesting to see how much of a shift happened in the language from the Johnson Dictionary to the OED as that would also give an indication of the complex evolution of the language, an evolution that was as much driven by the dictionary as it was from the natural evolution of a language.

Some people said that Australian or New Zealander English accents are hard for foreigners. Btw i'm from Indonesia, Australia's closest neighbor, one of my friend said that in his school there was an English teacher from Australia and almost everybody had no idea what he was talking about. In Indonesia people mostly understand British or American English since almost every English language movies or shows in here came from UK or USA, FYI in Indonesia, foreign medias or shows are subtitled

In Finland, both British and American English are taught at the same time so it makes my English a weird combination

I am an American, so I speak American English. However, I watch a lot of British RU-vidrs and TV shows, so I have a bit of British English in my vocabulary too. I spell it “grey,” rather than “gray.” I use “theater” when referring to a movie theater, but I use “theatre” when referring to war (like the Pacific Theatre in WW2). I also sometimes use “loo” or “aubergine,” though that is more because I find those words funny.

After watching this video I am weirdly aware that while I was learning English (from a lot of different teachers and schools) I've been thought spelling in both ways. Know I know why I sometimes get so confuse while writing in English

loved the etymology of upper case I didn't know that that's really interesting

you forgot 2 modern versions of English: Spanglish and Engrish

One of my favorite things to see is that now with all the media via internet, the mix is awesome. Growing up in America, we basically had almost all American media but with some British actors. Today though, I see my kids watching TV or streaming and I realized things are much more balanced these days. The British Branch (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc etc) is just nearly as prevalent as the North American Branch (US, Canada). Every day they are exposed to many different accents and expressions. They even use some and I am beginning to wonder if in the future, they will mix back together into one. I'm not talking spellings so much as idioms and vocabulary. I think it's nice to have spelling options and people should just use them the way they like. I use grey to mean the color. I use Colour in the name of my business. A theatre is a venue while theater is an art. Centre can be a place but center is always the middle. Liter and litre both look wrong. I like gallons but I'll take a 20 oz British pint over a 16 oz American. I like soccer better as the word, but football doesn't make sense for a sport where you're always throwing the ball. But whatever way you want to spell a word, as long as it's spelled in a way we understand, i think there's room for a little gray area. English is fun. Arguing over which is right is like arguing over which side of a coin is worth more. They're both 10 cents, I mean 10 pense. 😃

My story goes like this: I was taught British English... By an American teacher...?

I was taught american english as my 2nd language in school and it stuck with me for the most part.

3:42 Two of those helpers: Blackadder and Baldrick. :)

"In America they haven't spoken any English for years!" H. Higgins, professor

I use whichever I feel right to me. I like to write colour, aluminium and draught as well as tire, truck and program. I understand the meaning of the writing and I see it as a written accent, sort of. Much like how many pronounce some words differently to each other.

Speaking: American. Written: British. South Africa

In germany we learn both ways. It's confusing. But I think AE is more used. I personally just use a mixture of both

I learnt to use received English in school (around 1980) and at home we watched more English than American programmes. In school we weren't allowed to pronounce 'To dance in France is really a chance' as 'To dence in Frence is really a chence'. Best wishes from the Netherlands.

English is my second language and the way it was tested in school was by doing tons of comprehension and grammar tests, as well as a wired way of testing called "seen and unseen dictation" where we transcribe a passage (seen or unseen, and usually make no sense contextually) spoken by the teacher with correct spelling and punctuation. We knew nothing about the differences in pronunciation and spelling in American/British English, so we ended up having a lot of arguments with English teachers. I still remember the test where the passage contains this sentence, " ... data representing the amount of burnt tomatos is incorporated into a colourised map at the centre ...", I lost 9 marks over 100 in this single sentence because I spelt it in the British way (-1 each) and didn't know in American English "data" and "tomato" is pronounced differently (-3 each), I am still salty after 10+ years.

As an American, I still prefer 'grey' to 'gray'. The latter is more phonetic, but the former is more evocative of the color (colour?) to me.

I'm Jamaican and in our school system we learn British English thanks to our Commonwealth status. As I get older I find it more complicated to use British English when typing so when in doubt I use the easier American versions of spelling. I still put a U whenever I spell Colour!

I initially learned English from British textbooks and what my teachers taught me at school was mostly British as well, however, because of all the media available, I ended up learning and speaking American English by myself. I actually got confused at school when I saw British words that weren't anything like the ones I've known for the longest time and sometimes I thought my teachers mispelled them or used outdated words; some teachers even had trouble understanding my homework as I used American words instead of the British they were expecting.

Mad respect to those who learn English as a 2nd language considering all the different English speaking with different word spelling. I'm American and I still can't spell half of my language right without the help of auto correct -_-

I'm Dutch and I learned British in school, but American in games. My English is a bit of a mix without really knowing what's what.

Even as an American I’ve used words like burnt and spelt a lot.

In Canada we use a weird mixture of the two. We spell colour with a u and favourite with a u but also use the American spelling of meter, tire and analyze.

When I was 7, I learned English languages for both versions. The first version that I met was the British English, but American English is my dominant version as the second language. I have been learning to meet new words, and sometimes I confused with "Queque" and "Line" for example. I love both American and British English versions, because in case of American version I learned and simplified the language since I listened music, movies, and television programs. However in case of British version it’s the Original English that influenced the Commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia, and I would like to learn the British words that they invented. It is look like to compare with Spanish from Latin America, Spain and other countries. I heard the different pronunciations of English language, and it is the same experience as I pronounce both of them. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, and learn the meaning of both English versions to match words.

7:20 Funny, because I'm American and I feel the same about British English (it's kinda fun)

In Canada, we use a mix of the two, but there's one that I think is a bit more complicated than British vs. American: the theatre/theater split. In show business, theatre refers to the art form, and theater refers to the buildings it takes place in. Theatre happens in the theater. I don't think this is just a Canadian thing, but anyone in the industry somewhere else can feel free to correct me!

One of my nieces is Swedish and she learned British English in school (they learn starting at age 7... or did back in the early 90s when she was a kid)... I'll never forget when she came to visit us in the US when she was about 9 years old and she said, "That's jolly good!" I'm guessing they were using really old books because I'm pretty sure that wasn't a super common phrase (especially for young folks) at that time. She and I say that to each other still to this day! Having grown up on British TV, I just translate British to American English and don't really think about it... whether it's spelling or different words for the same thing. The arguing over what is right and wrong is just silly... each IS as it IS.