British Spelling Fun Facts!

I've just come away from a conversation on my Facebook Page, where I posted up some British spelling (and grammar) fun facts, and it sparked a good thread.

What inspired my posting, was reading a review (of a British  book with British  characters in, I hasten to add) that someone had left for an author on Amazon, stating that everything was spelt wrong, and that even if the author is British, she should consider changing it because her target audience (her genre is YA paranormal) is American...

Erm, NO, is my personal opinion. The characters in her book are British,  the book is set in England,  and therefore they should speak in a British way, or it's just not true to form. If she were writing about Americans in America, I would agree that the British spelling needs to go, but she's not.

Anyway, most American readers I come by are lovely about BrEng spelling and grammar, and actually find it interesting, so I thought I'd post those Fun Facts here too :D

1. "Smelt" is not just a fish, or a way to extract metal by heating; in the UK it is commonly used in writing and every day language, as the past particular of the word smell. That's right folks - most of us say smelt, and not smelled.

2. We also say "learnt" and not learned. "Learned" more often than not, for us, is actually Old English to mean someone who is learned - pronounced learn-ed. He was a learned man.

3. The only really controversial one is "earnt". We say  earnt all the time, but it is seen as more correct to write it as "earned" (not sure why, when all the others have remained correct usage in BrEng spelling).

4. Using "ise" endings and "ize".

[1]"ise" is, surprisingly, from the French/Latin, and "ize" is from the Greek. Technically "ize" is correct  in BrEng spelling, but it has become known as American spelling because of their adoption of it. Some British presses still prefer to use "ize" whilst others prefer to use "ise".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ise.2C_-ize_.28-isation.2C_-ization.29

The entire Facebook thread can be found HERE. (Although I have included most of it above.)

There you go... something different for tonight ;)

Dianna xxx