Introduction 3
CHAPTER I Historical factors 5
1.1 Historical origin 5
1.2 Latin-derived spellings 8
1.2.1 -our, -or 8
1.2.2 -re, -er 10
1.2.3 -ce, -se 12
1.2.4 -xion, -ction 12
1.3 Greek spellings 13
1.3.1 -ise, -ize (-isation, -ization) 13
1.3.2 -yse, -yze 13
1.3.3 -ogue, -og 14
1.3.4 Simplification of ae and oe 14
CHAPTER II Other differences 15
2.1 Compounds and hyphens 15
2.2 Doubled consonants 16
2.2.1 Doubled in British English. 16
2.2.2 Doubled in American English 17
2.3 Dropped e 18
2.4 Different spellings, different connotations 19
2.5 Acronyms and abbreviations 21
2.6 Punctuation 22
Conclusion 23
Bibliography 24