# Words that have changed spelling in your lifetime **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 15, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997 "2013-03-15T10:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/1 "2013-03-15T10:40:34Z")
My computer gives me a red squiggly when I write the word “catalogue.” I guess the current vogue is for “catalog,” though the “-ue” were definitely included when I was a kid. I was also taught to write “catsup” instead of “ketchup” and “doughnut” instead of “donut.” I’m in my early 30’s. What spellings have changed in your lifetime? ---
**Author:** ![midnight-dreary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@midnight-dreary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/midnight-dreary)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/2 "2013-03-15T10:44:52Z")
I remember being taught ‘gaol’, but it seems that most people use ‘jail’ now. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/3 "2013-03-15T11:02:16Z")
I don’t think some of these have necessarily changed. Rather it’s the difference between the British spelling and the American spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/4 "2013-03-15T11:10:03Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I don’t think some of these have necessarily changed. Rather it’s the difference between the British spelling and the American spelling. I don’t know…I was taught “catsup” and “catalogue” at a small elementary school in Virginia with no apparent Anglophile connections. Do they still spell those words that way in the UK? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/5 "2013-03-15T11:13:18Z")
Catsup is most definitely American. Catalogue, and analogue are British, along with doughnut, and plough. ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/6 "2013-03-15T11:27:32Z")
Email used to be spelled e-mail. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/7 "2013-03-15T11:36:43Z")
You has become u and Are has become r and it makes me crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/8 "2013-03-15T11:37:03Z")
The way I’ve always understood it was that “catalog” is a verb and “catalogue” is a noun. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/9 "2013-03-15T11:37:46Z")
As a US librarian, I have watched the shift from catalogue to catalog. Catalogue was pretty standard in the library world until the late 90s, maybe? (WAG) Catalog was acceptable but catalogue strongly preferred. Now it’s definitely catalog, and people look at you funny if you add the ue. Except the old librarians. They still prefer it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/10 "2013-03-15T11:45:30Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > You has become u and Are has become r and it makes me crazy. You misspelled “n it maykz mi krze” there. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/11 "2013-03-15T12:07:37Z")
I’m not sure if this is accurate, but I’m sure I’ve seen this often enough to assume that: Brits now spell it “skeptic” instead of “sceptic.” Americans now spell it “disc” instead of “disk” and sometimes I see them spell it “grey” instead of “gray.” ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/12 "2013-03-15T12:12:45Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Brits now spell it “skeptic” instead of “sceptic.” Some may, but it’s certainly not standard, or especially wide-spread. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/13 "2013-03-15T12:18:00Z")
When I was young (1970s) “alright” did not appear in the Oxford dictionary (I still have a '70s era dictionary and it definitely isn’t there) and would have been marked wrong by my teachers. This is despite the fact that it was fairly widespread - The Who’s “The Kids are Alright” for example. Now it seems to have been accepted. My daughters are at an elite private school and they have had “alright” as a spelling word. I still can’t bring myself to use it, but I blame all those kids who won’t get off my lawn. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/14 "2013-03-15T12:55:30Z")
I leaned theatre in school. Still prefer that spelling. My minor in college was Theatre Arts. Stupid Firefox underlines it in red. theater doesn’t look right to me. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/15 "2013-03-15T13:07:25Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I was also taught to write “catsup” instead of “ketchup” and “doughnut” instead of “donut.” I’m in my early 30’s. What spellings have changed in your lifetime? Doughnut/donut was the one I thought of when I saw the thread title. When I was a kid, around 40 years ago, my family used the word “catsup” (pronounced the way it’s spelled), but I heard plenty of other people refer to “ketchup,” and I saw both variations used on labels. I’m not sure how much that’s changed nowadays, because I hardly ever use the stuff. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > Americans now spell it “disc” instead of “disk” I seem to recall once learning that “disk” was the proper spelling for a computer disk (as in “floppy disk” or “disk drive”) while “disc” was preferred for audio discs (“compact disc”). That was before the distinction between the two was so blurred. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/16 "2013-03-15T13:10:47Z")
It used to be girl, now it’s grrl. That makes me laff owt lowd. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/17 "2013-03-15T17:27:30Z")
“Donut” is the only one here that bothers me. It makes more sense if it is from “dough.” I’ve even seen it spelled “do-nut,” which I pronounce as “doo-nut.” ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/18 "2013-03-15T17:40:53Z")
So many things that were two words have become one word. “Healthcare?” “Childcare?” ---
**Author:** ![Recusant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@Recusant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recusant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/19 "2013-03-15T17:49:27Z")
A little relevant poem I picked up somewhere along the line: Roses are red. Hydrangeas, blue. ‘Though’ has six letters. There’s seven in ‘through’. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997/20 "2013-03-15T17:57:52Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > So many things that were two words have become one word. “Healthcare?” “Childcare?” To continue the hijack, a lot of nouns are now verbs. Phone, text, dialog, email, blog, snowboard… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-changed-spelling-in-your-lifetime/652997.md?page=2)