Most agencies in the United Nations system use UK spelling (based on the Concise Oxford Dictionary). There are a number of differences in spelling between UK and US English. Here are just a few for you to test your knowledge:
Are the following spellings UK or US English?
enroll or enrol?
cancelled or canceled?
licence (noun) or license (noun)?
defence or defense forces?
honour or honor?
organise or organize?
analyse or analyze?
Answer key
One ‘l’ or two?
Some UK words that end in one ‘l’ end in two in US English: enrol (UK) vs enroll (US)
Cancel,however,ends in one ‘l’ in both varieties.
The past tense of cancel is cancelled in UK English and canceled in US English.
Nouns ending in ‘ence’ in UK English and ‘ense’ in US English
licence (UK) vs license (US)
defence (UK) vs defense (US) forces
Words ending in ‘our’ in UK English and in ‘or’ in US English
honour (UK) vs honor (UK)
Verbs that in UK English can be spelled with either ‘yse’, ‘ize’ or ‘ise’ are spelled with ‘ize’ in US English
organise/organize (UK) vs organize (US)
analyse (UK) vs analyze (US English)
When in doubt, consult your dictionary and set Word, under Tools, to the language version you require.
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Author: Carol Waites
Presentation/editing by Christina O’Shaughnessy
https://worldwidewriting.org/
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Carol Waites (PhD)
Email: carolswritingtips@gmail.com
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