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Australian Spelling: "-Our" Not "-Or"

6/17/2018

6 Comments

 
Picture
Moving to Australia presented some challenges for me as an editor. I realized I would have to master new spelling rules. The most obvious of these is adding a “u” to our American “-or” endings. For example, “honor” is spelled “honour” in Australia.

Australian spelling closely resembles British spelling. Australia’s ongoing cordial relationship with Great Britain may have led to the preference for British spellings. The United States, after its revolution, likely wanted to differentiate itself from the mother country.

Noah Webster led the effort in changing how Americans spelled words. He began to codify rules for spelling in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He tried where possible to simplify; the ending “-or” is simpler than “-our” because it removes the silent “u.” His “-or” ending also helps to differentiate words with “our” that were pronounced differently, such as “hour.” The “-or” ending for a word like “candor” rather than “candour” indicated that readers shouldn’t pronounce it as “can-dower.”

Beyond creating the first American dictionary, Noah Webster wrote textbooks that teachers used to teach spelling for the next century.

Here are some other “-or” words that are spelled differently in Australia:
  • Armour
  • Behaviour
  • Colour
  • Demeanour
  • Flavour
  • Harbour
  • Humour
  • Labour (except for the Australian Labor Party)
  • Neighbour
  • Odour
  • Saviour
  • Vapour
Next time, I’ll describe other Australian spelling rules that follow British English. No surprise—many American English spelling rules veered away from British English, thanks again to Noah Webster. 

Note: Special thanks to https://pluslexia.com/ for the image used at the top of the post.
6 Comments
Diane
6/18/2018 12:44:09 pm

Wow, interesting! Would an Australian student receive a deduction / lower grade if they use the American versus the Australian spelling? English is confusing even within the USA (smile), you all are experiencing a whole new dimension of the language!

Reply
Rose
6/18/2018 01:36:33 pm

I can only speak to my daughter's school, which has not marked her down for American spellings. The individual teachers will sometimes change them but not deduct points. Her school, however, has a lot of international students, so it may not be the norm for Australian schools. I don't know how they would handle it if an Australian student used American spelling -- probably mark them down because they would have grown up with those spelling rules. Thanks for the comment -- great question!

Reply
Lillian
6/18/2018 03:17:07 pm

You truly have a knack for making the simple mean so much!
Thanks again

Reply
Rose
6/18/2018 08:38:59 pm

That's such a nice thing to say, Ms. Lillian. Thank you for reading and commenting. I am glad you are enjoying both blogs.

Reply
Ed Reniker
6/19/2018 06:11:52 pm

You missed my favorite word "colour". Frankly I am happy Noah wanted to simplify things. But I do wish we had the British equivalent for aluminum.

Reply
Rose
6/19/2018 06:35:22 pm

My goodness, you're right! I did forget "colour." I can fix that with a quick edit -- thanks for pointing it out. There was a lot of pushback on Noah's ideas. He wanted to spell "neighbor" as "nabor," which was apparently a step too far for a lot of people.

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