 Hello again and welcome to another short e-lecture about some selected aspects of present-day English spelling. The English language has an alphabetic writing system with which letters correspond to speech sounds and vice versa. However, it is far from being an ideal fit because simple one-to-one correspondences between graphemes and phonemes as in the word man are relatively few in number. To get an idea about this lack of correspondence, let us listen to an excerpt of a poem meant to illustrate the chaos of English orthography. The poem will be read by one of our student assistants, Jennifer Floyd. Dear is creature in creation, studying English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse sounds like corpse, core, horse and worse. I will keep you Susie, busy, make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear. Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer. Sword and sword retain and Britain. Mind the latter how it's written. Now I surely will not plague you with such words as vague and ague. But be careful how you speak, say gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak. Woven, oven, how and low. Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe. Pronunciation, think of psyche, is a paling, stout and spiky. Won't it make you lose your wits, riding grotes and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel, strewn with stones like rollock, gunnel, islington and isle of white, housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough? Though, through, bow, cough, hawk, sow, tough. Hiccup has a sound of sup, my advice is give it up. Okay, thank you Jennifer. Can you read it like Jennifer? I certainly can't. There are too many orthographical patterns with different phonological realizations in it. The main reasons for the inconsistency in present-day English spelling are historical reasons. For example, inconsistencies in spelling from the beginnings to the spread of English around the world. Then sound changes, such as the great vowel shift which is illustrated over here, where numerous sound changes that occurred during the development of English were not mapped onto the spelling of words. And then there are cases of alternation where in turn we can subdivide these alternations into morphographic alternation that is the change of the orthographical structure of a word under the influence of affixation and dialectal alternation. That is the variation of spelling across the central varieties of English. Whereas the first type of alternation is fully rule-based, the second concerns the principled realizations of certain orthographical patterns in the leading varieties of English, British and American English. Let us concentrate on dialectal variation in this e-lecture and look at the main two variants of English orthography and its two central shapes, British English and American English. Unlike in British English, the American way of spelling tries to adapt more to the spoken language. It aims at simplification. We can subdivide the major differences between British English and American English into three groups. There are vowel clusters such as OU or simple vowels such as the O. So do we spell color with OU or just with an O? We have endings such as CE versus SE in defense. And we have special cases where sometimes we are not sure. Do we have to double a consonant such as double L in traveled or just one L? You may have already found out that the American variant is always the one represented on the right-hand side. But let us look at these differences in more detail. Let's start with the vocally differences where vowels and vowel clusters are involved. For example, we have the choice between OUR and just OR in American English. British English OUR is in color, American English OR is in color and favorite. Or take this example, OU versus O, mold with OU in British English but just with an O in American English. AU gauntlet British English is spelled just with an A in American English. Or take some more exotic cases where we have some characters which are no longer part of the modern alphabet such as the ash over here or the combination OEE which are written as one single letter as in the word manoeuvre which is spelled of course just with a simple E in American English. Note by the way that the cluster RE in British English is also written differently in American English which leads me to the next group of differences, the endings of words. Here are some examples of endings that are written differently in the two main varieties of English. For example RE versus ER theater and center in British English spelled with RE in American English theater and center spelled with ER. Then we have the case of CE versus SE in words such as defense and license in British English which are spelled with SE in American English. Or take the third case, AUG, dialogue, catalog involve a much more simplified ending in American English so OGUE comes out as OG and in the cases of legalize and symbolize you may well know this difference is ISE in British English versus IZE in American English. Well and MME versus M in words such as program well even in program now British English tends to write this word with just one M because the word is so popular in information technology. This last case can be extended to several other words where American English applies a principle of shortening. For example we have words such as axe and plow in British English which are reduced in American English to axe without an E and plow with a simplified representation of the vowel OU so AUG. Well and then there are some special cases. For example there are cases that involve the base final letter L as in fulfill and enrol. There are verbs where British and American English are simply different these cases have to be remembered. Since their base final syllable is stressed they are subject to continental doubling even in British English. Fulfilling and enrolling are spelled with two Ls in American English this is no problem because you have a double L in the base already. In British English however, continental doubling is also applied in some cases where the first syllable is stressed. Here are such cases. Travel and model have the primary stress on the first syllable. Nevertheless they involve continental doubling. In American English they don't and take the case of worship again stress on word and not on ship. Consonantal doubling in British English but not in American English. So American English seems to be more rule consistent than British English. Doubling or not? Well if you want to find out details about the rule of consonantal doubling consult my e-lecture about the morphographic rules of present day English spelling. Having listed all these differences let me give you some advice whether you like these differences or not please do not mix the orthographic of varieties in your term papers your presentations your handouts or elsewhere. Be consistent. Either use British English spelling or American English spelling but not both. Okay let's summarize. The focus of this e-lecture was a discussion of the central orthographical contexts where British English and American English orthography is different. We saw that these contexts can be grouped into simple vowels and vowel clusters, endings and some special cases. I hope that the examples that I gave you were informative enough to support my advice. Do not mix orthographical versions of present day English. Well that's it for now. Thanks for your attention.