Homonyms with Harmony, Part 2

As promised in Part 1 (see embedded link below), I’d like to share with you some common differences between US and UK spellings as well as word usage. Orignially, this was posted on Admin Professional’s Day, and what better time than to make sure we write it right?!

Words at War:

In my book on how to self-edit, Polish Your Prose, I have a whole chapter devoted to this common uncommon language. In this post, I’ll share the tables and information I made for this topic.

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NOTE: While this post focusses on American versus British English, I would like to note that Irish and Australian English have many many differences too, as does any country with English as its root language. However, to delve into all of these is beyond the scope of these posts, and if we explored all possible avenues, we’d never reach the part about actual Homonyms!

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Considering the British and Americans share a common language, there are plenty of points where they couldn’t have less in common. This isn’t only in the spelling of words, but also their usage. Where a Brit would say ‘garden’, an American is more likely to say ‘yard’ … and they wouldn’t be meaning some bare concreted area—far from it! Below, I list some of the most common differences. We’ll start with a table of the most commonly alternately spelled words …

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Generally speaking, the Brits like to double up and use ‘our’ and ‘ise’—whereas the Americans like to keep things single and use ‘or’ and ‘ize’. Whichever system you use, you need to learn and check your spelling, and keep it consistent. And please, please, please, do not rely on automated spell checkers solely. I beg you!

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DIFFERENT WAYS OF SAYING THE SAME THING: As well as differences in spelling conventions–and don’t even get me started on punctuation!–we also love to use different words for the same thing and/or give the same word a different meaning. One that never fails to tickle my warped humour is ‘fanny’. In the US, this means what the Brits would call ‘bum’ or ‘bottom’ or ‘backside’, or, and the Americans call ‘butt ‘arse’’, or ‘ass’, amongst other things! In the UK, ‘fanny’ has an entirely opposite meaning, and refers to a certain part of the decidedly female anatomy. 😂 So, whenever I read the term ‘fanny pack’ my brain does a double-take. Ahem.

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Below, you will find tables which list some of these pesky common/uncommon words:

ALL OF THE TABLES IN THIS POST CAN BE DOWNLOADED AND SAVED/PRINTED: Simply right click and select ‘Save As’. Please only use these for your personal purposes, unless you give accreditation to me and the book. Thank you for understanding 😊

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Interestingly enough, until relatively recently, I hadn’t realised the Americans and Brits share another difference, not listed in the tables above. For shared passages from books, the UK says ‘Extract’, while the US says, ‘Excerpt’. Even after ten years of writing, reading, and editing for both the US and the UK markets, I still come across American words new to me. These tables give just a few examples of a vast array of alternate ways of saying and spelling words between the two countries. And just for a bit of interesting (to me), if useless information, in knitting and crocheting, you will discover a planet’s worth of differences! I tell you–in case you haven’t yet guessed!–language fascinates me 😊

That’s it from me today. I hope you’ve found this post useful, and I’ll see you again soon, for Homonyms with Harmony, Part 3–The Origins of Homonyms 😊

[Author’s Note: This article appeared originally on Story Empire, a collaborative website all about offering tips, tricks, and advice to writers, whether seasoned or brand new. It’s my aim to, eventually, publish all of these articles on Homonyms, etc., in a handy reference book. I’d love to hear what you think. You can find the original post, along with lots of other writing resources, in the embedded link below …]

Currently, Story Empire has twelve bestselling authors who share a passion for all things related to writing, publishing, and promoting fiction. These contributors, of which I am one, each bring our expertise and experience to a multitude of topics, aimed at various levels of ability. We set up this site for the sole purpose of helping our fellow authors, and we cover areas such as Point of View, Story Structure, Plot Types, How Tos, Inspiration, Encouragement, Publishing, Marketing (a dreaded word for many creatives!), Characterisation, Setting, and much, much more! Please do take a look and explore 🙂