Spelling: Traveling or Travelling?

Which is correct depends on whether the Jump Drive is working.

Couple of others that cause confusion: kidnaper, kidnaping, correct with one P in US, two in UK.

Skulduggery. Always one L. The word is not related to skulls.

It might be accepted with one p in the US, but I don’t think many people spell it that way now. I always see it with two Ps.

“Judgment” always trips me up. Seems like there should be an ‘e’ between the ‘g’ and the ‘m’.

Not sure I’ve ever seen it with only one “p.” I mean, before this thread.

The other thing about this is: in quite a few of the cases, both variant spellings are acceptable in the UK (with one of them typically being more common), whereas the USA typically has one correct spelling. The ~ise/~ize words are examples of this - organise and organize are both valid UK spellings.

And so there is, in British English, though per OED “judgment” is acceptable as well. But in American, “judgement” looks like a misspelling, not a Britishism.

My bugbear is “cancelled.” It’s an acceptable variant in American, but I think “canceled” is more usual so I try to fit in. I’m with the OP on “travelling,” but I force myself to use the standard American form.

Moving to Canada would only partially solve his problem. It’s true that we spell “-our” words like “colour”, “flavour”, “neighbour”, etc correctly, but come on, words like “organization”, “realize”, “apologize” and so forth are spelled with a “z”, not an “s”. And don’t even get me started on “tyre” instead of “tire”. There are no tyres in Canada, and our cars don’t wear either bonnets or boots. OTOH, we properly recognize that the letter “z” is pronounced “zed”, not “zee”. The only justification for the “zee” pronunciation is so that the children’s alphabet song will rhyme. :wink:

I had sort of the same thought. :smiley:

For those not in the know, “Traveller” is the name of a science-fiction role-playing game, which has been around, in various forms, and under various publishers, since 1977. And, due solely to that game, I tend to use two "L"s in “traveller.”

Maybe you could start pronouncing “g” as “ged,” “p” as “ped,” and “v” as “ved.” Then it would still rhyme.

Conversely, Travelers (one L) was also the name of a Showcase+Netflix sci-fi series. Ironically, it was largely a Canadian production, though officially regarded as a Canadian-American co-production. So I’m imagining lengthy arguments breaking out in the production offices over how to spell the title. However, since there were so many Canadians involved, and the series was filmed in Canada, I imagine the arguments were extremely polite, with the Canadians making their case for “Travellers” with quiet understated wit and eventually relenting when the American producers started fidgeting with their handguns. :wink:

I go with UK spelling. It’s their language, isn’t it?

The important takeaway though: English is spoken is only two places, the US and the UK.

Sometimes there is a rationale behind spelling variations so you can judge for yourself what to use, but I do not know what that might be in this case. Otherwise you can just go with the dictionary/style guide, which (for international publications) is usually British spelling (whatever that be; note that UK English is hardly free of solecisms) but not always. I suppose you cannot go too far wrong if you use one of the acceptable variants listed in the OED and are consistent.

“Remember that craze a few years back in the BookWorld for sending chain letters? Receive a letter and send one on to ten friends? Well, someone has been overenthusiastic with the letter U—I’ve got a report here from the Text Sea Environmental Protection Agency saying that reserves of the letter U have reached dangerously low levels—we need to decrease consumption until stocks are brought back up. ~

~“Any word with the our ending could be spelt or, don’tchaknow.” “Like neighbor instead of neighbour?” “It’s a good idea,” put in Snell. “Labor, valor, flavor, harbor—there must be hundreds. If we confine it to one geographical area, we can claim it as a local spelling idiosyncrasy.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

In the UK as a kid we were taught a different alphabet rhyme that doesn’t require “zee” to scan properly.
Buggered if I can find it online but I’ll have a go at laying it out. it is something like

ABC,
DEFG,
HIJKLM
(pause)
NOPQ,
RSTU,
VWXYZ

Interesting on the USA v UK double “L” issue. Never noticed that even though half my work life is spent with USA colleagues and materials.

I have though completely lost any grasp of the USA V UK Schedule pronunciation. I can’t remember which is which so I just say whatever comes to mind.

I get confused when describing buildings at a World’s Fair - is it “pavillion” or “pavilion”? I have always used the 2 L’s version, and it always gets highlighted (highlit?) as an error. The word comes from the French “pavillon” which has two L’s.

“Development” is the same for me. I vividly remember getting a paper back in embryology with my ‘developement’ marked in red ink over three dozen times. And a note from the grader that s/he had taken off a full letter grade for the mistake because it was sooo damned annoying to look at!

no’one? ITYM “hyphen” :slight_smile:

The one that threw me as a kid was “buses,” as in “the children ride buses to their schools.” Spelling it with one s made it look like it’d be pronounced to rhyme with “muses.” Spelling it with a double s made it into a synonym for kisses.

I finally got it straight by telling myself, “There are no busses on buses.”