Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Växjö UniversitySchool of HumanitiesEnglish, ENC 1637 June 2007Supervisor: Ibolya MaricicExaminer: Hans Lindquist
Spelling differences between British and American English
Through – thruNight – niteLight – liteHigh – hi
Līga Līce
Table of contents Page
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Aim and Research questions 1
2. Theoretical background 2
3. Material and Method 6
3.1 Material 6
3.2 Method 8
4. Results and analysis 9
4.1 Thru 9
4.2 Nite 14
4.3 Lite 17
4.4 Hi 18
5. Conclusion 21
References 24
Abstract
Although the British and the Americans use the same language, i.e. English, the
differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling between these two varieties
doubtlessly exist. However, this paper deals particularly with the spelling differences
between British English and American English since spelling seems to cause
confusion and problems to the learners of English the most. The American spelling is
considered to be informal; therefore, the essay focuses on the standard British English
spelling of words through, night, light, and high and their equivalents in American
English, i.e. thru, nite, lite, and hi. This study investigates how extensively the British
and the Americans use the standard and the informal spelling of these words in
different written sources such as newspapers, magazines, leaflets and advertisements,
and books. In addition, the collocations of these particular words are investigated. In
order to do this quantitative research, the Collins Cobuild corpus material was
searched and analyzed. The results of this study reveal that the informal American
spelling of these four words appears in British texts more often than in American
texts. However, the informal spelling tends to appear in non-American sources when
speaking about America or American cultural phenomena.
Keywords: Spelling differences, spelling reform, British spelling, standard spelling,
American spelling, informal spelling, phonetic spelling
1
1. Introduction
It is widely known that there are some linguistic differences between British and
American English. Americans tried and still try to simplify English, and as Kövecses
(2000:166) claims, spelling is where this phenomenon can be observed the most. The
first American spelling reforms were introduced at the end of the 18th century by such
famous persons as Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and Noah Webster.
Nowadays in America, shortened and, as Egersten (1972:26) states, more
‘phonetic’ spelling of certain words occurs on billboards, signs and posters. One of
them is the omission of the two-letter combination gh. To a learner of standard British
English, words such as ‘drive-thru’, ‘nite club’, or ‘hilites’ might seem surprising.
Tottie (2002:8) claims that: “Although most words are written in exactly the same
way in the two varieties, there are a few eye-catching differences in spelling.”
Therefore, this research deals with particular spelling differences between American
and British English. There are several; nevertheless, the focus is on the one regarding
the spelling of the words through, night, light, and high. In addition, the tendency
regarding the spelling of these particular words in Australian English will also be
discussed where relevant.
1.1 Aim and Research questions
The aim of this study is to investigate to what extent the British and the Americans
use the standard spelling and the informal spelling in such written sources as
newspapers, magazines, leaflets and advertisements, and books. More specific
research questions are:
Is the American spelling of the words through, night, light, and high present
only in American texts or can it also appear in British texts?
Which are the most frequent words that thru, nite, lite, and hi collocate with in
American and British written sources?
Are there any differences in the frequency of the American spelling of
through, night, light, and high when comparing formal and informal texts in
both varieties of English?
2
The previous studies on these items are considered in Section 2. There have been
several of them, as one might expect, due to the fact that more than 200 years have
passed since Noah Webster introduced the spelling reform in America. In Section 3,
the material as well as the method of this research is described in detail. The results of
this particular investigation, however, are presented and analyzed extensively in
Section 4. Several tables have been created in order to present the data visually.
Lastly, in Section 5, the results of the investigation are summarized and several
conclusions from the results are drawn.
2. Theoretical background
As Crystal (1990:67) claims, the most frequent expressions used to describe English
spelling are ‘chaotic’, ‘unpredictable’, ‘disorganized’, ‘a mess’. However, he further
suggests that there is both regularity and irregularity in English spelling. When doing
statistics on irregularity in spelling, it is necessary to distinguish between counting
every single instance (token) and counting each word only once, regardless of how
many times it is used (type) (ibid 68f). Each approach would give totally different
results; the percentage of irregularity based on word tokens would be bigger than that
of word types. He notes that due to the failure to appreciate this distinction, English
spelling is often considered to be mad. According to Crystal (1990:69), “there are
only about 400 everyday words in English whose spelling is wholly irregular.” He
explains the difficulty of learning to spell correctly with the fact that instead of being
taught how to spell, children are often told to learn spellings by heart. He does not
approve of it and claims that there exist certain spelling rules; once a child discovers
how to use them, guesswork is no longer needed (ibid 70). However, there are still
exceptions as regards English spelling rules.
Crystal (1990:74ff) relates these exceptions to the rich and colourful history of
the formation and development of the English spelling system. According to him, the
arrival of the Roman missionaries in AD 597 is considered to be the beginning of the
literary age when alongside with large numbers of Latin manuscripts, also Old
English texts began to be written. Due to the fact that 23 Latin alphabet letters were
not enough to write down Old English, the missionaries used extra symbols to present
the sounds that were different from Latin, e.g. sc for [sh]. Crystal explains that also
the French introduced some new spellings in Middle English after the Norman
Conquest, such as, qu instead of cw, gh instead of h in words night and enough, ou
3
instead of u in a word house. As a result, by the beginning of the 15th century, English
spelling was a mixture of French and Old English. Further Crystal states the fact that
with the introduction of printing in 1476, one standard system reflecting the speech of
the London area was chosen by William Caxton as a standard to follow in his printing
house. For the first time the notion of a ‘correct’ spelling appeared. According to
Crystal, during the 15th century, six of the vowels of Middle English were altered
completely, and these changes are now present in Modern English (e.g. a in name was
pronounced as [a:], that is why we still write it with a).
Another case that Crystal mentions is that of k in such words as knee or know
that ceased to be pronounced during the 15th century; however, spelling continued to
reflect it. He states that a new trend of showing the etymology of a word in its spelling
was introduced in the 16th century. The one that is present also nowadays is the case
of the silent b in debt. Crystal continues the discussion by explaining that with the
arrival of loan words from French, Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese in
the late 16th century, more new spellings appeared, such as, bizarre, cocoa,
moustache, and gazette. It is obvious that the English spelling system is a result of
different influences; therefore, it presents irregularities. These, as Crystal (1990:79)
suggests, should be eliminated in order to decrease the effort of learning English
spelling.
As Crystal (1990:79) claims, although the first attempts to change English
spelling date back to the 16th century, the main movements developed in the 19th
century in Britain as well as in America. According to Crystal, Noah Webster (1758-
1843) is considered to be the person who introduced the spelling reform in the United
States of America. Webster’s famous work An American Dictionary of the English
Language, nowadays known simply as Webster’s, was published in 1828 and is
considered to be the foundation of American lexicography (ibid 230). In his Spelling
Book (1789) Webster wrote:
Our honour requires us to have a system of our own in languages as well as in government. Great Britain, whose children we are, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline (Quoted in Crystal, 1990:230).
4
According to Quirk (1962:2), at the time when the United States separated
from Britain, there were even proposals that Americans should adopt Hebrew or
Greek in order to acknowledge their independence from Britain linguistically.
However, Americans decided to adhere to English, but ‘slightly’ modified it.
Webster introduced such spelling reforms as o instead of ou in color, er
instead of re in center, s instead of c in defense, l instead of ll in traveller, and also the
omission of gh that will be discussed in detail later in this paper. Kövecses (2000:167)
points out: “In those cases where British English had alternative spellings, Webster
always recommended the simpler form for American usage.” He regards the tendency
towards simplification in American English as a ‘conscious and planned process’. The
historical context was highly political (the American War of Independence (1775-
1783)), thus, this process involved also such big political authorities as Thomas
Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
As regards the general properties of American English, Kövecses (2000:13)
mentions: ‘economical’, ‘regular’, ‘direct’, ‘democratic’, ‘tolerant’, ‘informal’,
‘prudish’, ‘inflated’, ‘inventive’, ‘imaginative’, ‘success- and action-oriented’. The
economical nature of American English, as he states, is primarily seen in the domain
of spelling. Also Clark (1965:185) notes that “most British spellings differ from
American […] in being longer.”
According to Egersten (1972:26), the omission of gh is a case of ‘phonetic’
spelling when the letters are left out due to the fact that they are not pronounced. He
claims that the spelling of thru (=through) is very common in announcements, on
signs and posters while nite (=night) and hi (=high) are considered to appear in a little
more informal contexts. Kövecses (2000:186) formulates the principle of phonetic
spelling as follows: “to represent sound shape in writing, use only letters or letter
combinations that are the most conventional written representations of sounds.” In
this sense, he considers American English to be obviously simpler than British
English. Similarly to Egersten, he regards such spellings as lite, hi, nite to appear
mostly in informal texts, but also to be often disapproved of (ibid 187). Thru,
according to him, is even accepted in standard usage, while Tottie (2002:10) denies its
connection to standard language and regards it as one of the “abbreviations that are
sometimes seen in print”. Kövecses (2002:242) points out another contrastive fact i.e.,
that these spellings may appear not only in informal, but also in formal contexts, e.g.,
in the words thruway and hi-fi.
5
The question is, how can we find out about the differences between American
and British English? According to Tottie (2002:94f), asking a native speaker would be
the best approach to solving this problem; however, neither British nor American
speakers are sure of the specific features of their own variety. The other source she
suggests is dictionaries. Nevertheless, it might be problematic as well since language
changes, and in order to give correct information on the present use of a particular
expression, data collection needs constant updating. As another disadvantage of
dictionaries as reliable sources of both regional variants she mentions the fact that
while British publishing houses tend to make dictionaries for a world market of
foreign learners and speakers of English, American dictionaries are mostly written for
the American local market. Tottie (2002:95) also discusses Briticisms and
Americanisms. She points out that in the dictionaries produced in America, paying
attention to regional variation is mostly ignored and a small number of Briticisms are
included. As to the problem of defining Americanisms, Tottie indicates, however, that
these days “they often don’t remain Americanisms for very long but quickly become
adopted in British as well as other varieties, sometimes conveying an American
flavour and sometimes not.” (ibid 94).
Another question that is raised is what to teach, British or American English?
Crystal in English as a Global Language (1997:138) speaks about the increasing
influence of the American English variety. As Tottie (2002:245) states: “American
English is conquering the world and is becoming a model for teaching in an
increasing number of non-English-speaking countries”, and that “American
dominance in the world of finance, science, computers, and movies has led to
linguistic dominance as well.” Furthermore, she acknowledges the observable and
undeniable fact that a new form of English, sometimes called World English or
International English is emerging. According to her, World English will replace both
national varieties, and the differences between them will no longer count. However,
until then, these differences will remain. Algeo (2006:2) notes that grammatical
differences have been studied mainly by individual scholars focusing on particular
grammatical matters. Interestingly, he claims: “When a use is said to be British, that
statement does not necessarily mean that it is the only or even the main British use or
that the use does not occur in American also, but only that the use is attested in British
sources and is more typical of British than of American English.”
6
In sum, studies have noted several viewpoints and explanations as to how
significant these differences between the two varieties of English really are. A short
history of the English spelling system has been presented in this section. In addition,
the theories of famous linguists have been discussed. However, this paper will deal
particularly with the claim introduced by Algeo (see above), and more specifically,
with researching, comparing, and analysing particular spelling differences in British
and American written sources.
3. Material and method
3.1 Material
To study the spelling of the words thru, nite, lite, and hi, the reference tool for
learners of English called the Collins Cobuild corpus1 material was used. According
to the Cobuild website, throughout the 1980s, Collins Cobuild built up a large corpus
of modern English, as well as the software tools to analyse the corpus data, and also a
team of specialist linguists and lexicographers. The current corpus, known as The
Bank of English, is a part of the Collins Word Web. “The Bank of English is a
collection of modern English language held on computer for analysis of words,
meanings, grammar and usage.” (Collins.Cobuild). The Collins Word Web, however,
is a 2.5 billion-word database that grows by 35 million words every month.
According to the information provided on this website, The Bank of English
was launched in 1991 by Collins and the University of Birmingham. This extensive
corpus contains 524 million words. However, since new material is added constantly,
the Collins Cobuild corpus is expanding. It contains English language data taken from
thousands of different sources. The collection of the Collins Cobuild corpus consists
of written as well as spoken sources. As stated on the Cobuild website, the written
texts have been collected from newspapers, magazines, fiction and non-fiction books,
brochures, reports, and websites. The spoken data, however, come from television and
radio broadcasts, meetings, interviews, discussions, and conversations. Thus, The
Bank of English is the reflection of the English language that people write, speak, hear
and read. It is rather easy for lexicographers, linguists, researchers as well as students
to analyse the corpus since the sophisticated software was created. The corpus is
1 Corpus – a large number of articles, books, magazines, etc. that have been deliberately collected together for some purpose (Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary, 1987)
7
divided in several subcorpora, thus it is possible to select the subcorpus or several
subcorpora the researcher is particularly interested in. The software is very cleverly
designed since word frequencies can be checked, and also patterns of word
combinations can be searched. Moreover, it is possible to see the examples of all the
uses of particular words appearing in their original contexts. As regards lexicography,
according to the Cobuild website, “the information derived from The Bank of English
can improve almost every aspect of dictionary making.” (Collins.Cobuild). One of
these is also the necessity to include in a dictionary the information on spelling
differences among the varieties of English.
Since this research is quantitative rather than qualitative, the fact that the
Collins Cobuild corpus provides more general than specific information on the
sources did not cause any problems for the investigation. For instance, the aim of this
study is to show and compare the occurrences of thru, nite, lite, and hi in US books
and UK books in general, but not in the specific books in each variety. However, there
is also a disadvantage in using the Collins Cobuild corpus. The fact that the years of
the collected data are not specified makes it impossible to do diachronic research.
Without a doubt, it would be rather interesting to see how the use of thru, nite, lite,
and hi has changed during the last ten years. Table 1 below shows the sources of texts
in the Collins Cobuild corpus.
Table 1. The Collins Cobuild corpus with all its subcorpora
Abbreviation Full name of the subcorpus Country, country code Total no.of words
npr National Public Radio Broadcasts United States of America (US) 3129222
today newspaper Today United Kingdom (UK) 5248302
times newspaper The Times United Kingdom (UK) 5763761
usbooks books; fiction and non-fiction United States of America (US) 5626436
oznews Australian newspapers Australia (AUS) 5337528
bbc BBC World Service Radio Broadcasts
United Kingdom (UK) 2609869
usephem ephemera (leaflets, adverts etc.) United States of America (US) 1224710
ukmags magazines United Kingdom (UK) 4901990
sunnow newspaper The Sun United Kingdom (UK) 5824476
ukbooks books; fiction and non-fiction United Kingdom (UK) 5354262
ukspok transcribed informal speech United Kingdom (UK) 9272579
ukephem ephemera (leaflets, adverts etc.) United Kingdom (UK) 3124354
Total: 57417489
8
3.2 Method
Thanks to the sophisticated software, the Collins Cobuild corpus is easily searchable.
To obtain the necessary data, a particular item, e.g. thru was typed as a query. Then
all its occurrences were shown specifying the number of tokens in each subcorpus.
However, the total number of words in each subcorpus was different, thus, in order to
produce reliable statistics, the average number per one million words of a specific
item was calculated, and presented in the tables alongside with its total number of
occurrences. The particular subcorpora were retrieved, and the list of concordance
lines appeared on the screen. The relevant examples were further analysed in detail.
In order to investigate collocations2, the other word was added to thru or
through and typed as a query, e.g. drive + through. The irrelevant examples were
deleted manually. For instance, when investigating the occurrences of drive-through,
only the lines where this item was hyphenated where counted. Such examples as (1)
below where drive through appeared as two separate words were not analyzed:
(1) coach burst a tyre on the hour-long drive through suicidal
traffic
Furthermore, the concordance lines where drive functioned as a verb, but through
appeared as a preposition were not investigated. Example (2) below is such a case:
(2) To get to Northern Morizan you had to drive through the river.
This section has discussed the Collins Cobuild corpus that was used as source
material in order to do this investigation. The advantages, as well as the disadvantages
of using the Collins Cobuild corpus have been mentioned. In addition, the method of
conducting this research has been discussed in detail.
The data examined in this study will be presented in the next section with the
help of several tables. However, the numbers will also be discussed in the text
alongside with additional information on the topic.
2 collocation – a noticeable arrangement or conjoining of words or other linguistic elements (Webster’s Third NewInternational Dictionary, 1986)
9
4. Results and analysis
In several studies, American spelling is regarded as ‘phonetic’. (see Egersten, 1972,
Kövecses, 2000). According to Kövecses (2000:187), American English “favors a
letter that is thought to be most conventionally associated with a given sound.” This
study investigates the case when the letters gh are left out or not pronounced. To be
more precise, it will deal with the case of thru when the letter –u is chosen instead of
–ough to represent the sound [u]. Another spelling phenomenon that this paper will
analyze underwent the same change, i.e. the omission of gh. It is the case of lite, nite,
and hi when the single vowel –i is chosen instead of the three-letter combination –igh
as a written representation of the sound [aj].
4.1 Thru
The analysis began by investigating the usage of thru in different subcorpora available
in the Collins Cobuild corpus (see Section 3.1), and the findings are presented in
Table 2 below.
Table 2. The occurrences of thru in different subcorporaSubcorpora Total number of occurrences Average number per 1
million wordsusephem 34 27.8sunnow 22 3.8ukmags 5 1.0ukephem 2 0.6npr 2 0.6oznews 2 0.4today 1 0.2ukbooks 1 0.2times 1 0.2usbooks 0 0.0bbc 0 0.0ukspok 0 0.0Total: 70
As can be expected, the rather informal word thru appears most frequently in the
subcorpus of US leaflets and adverts. It is likely due to the fact that in advertisements,
logos, or slogans, mostly informal language is used. As regards collocations, in four
out of 34 examples from this subcorpus thru collocates with the adjective valid. Since
10
these lines were similar, they are not repeated four times, but are given only once:
(3) good For Everyone In Party Valid Thru Sunday 8/13/95
Nevertheless, the same does not apply to the other US source, i.e. books. Even though
thru is considered to be rather informal, the fact that it does not appear in any of the
US fiction or non-fiction books is interesting and unexpected. However, only one
example (4) was found where the word thru appeared in a UK book:
(4) Stories the Feet Can Tell Thru Reflexology by Eunice D.
The small number of thru occurrences in this subcorpus in both varieties thus leads to
the conclusion that even though thru is associated with American English, books
mostly contain texts where more formal language is used. As Egersten (1972:26)
points out: “In more formal style, the traditional spelling still prevails.” The data from
the current research presented in Table 2 above support this.
The high number of thru occurrences in the UK newspaper The Sun might
seem surprising; nevertheless, this fact does not indicate British speakers’ approval of
the American spelling of this particular item since in 19 out of 22 cases thru was used
referring to the Robbie William’s CD as seen in (5)-(6):
(5) six months after release. Life Thru A Lens-Robbie Williams
(6) CONGRATS to Robbie Williams. His Life Thru A Lens album has
In the subcorpus of UK magazines thru appears in connection with dates as in (7)
below:
(7) 11-28 March 1993, 8.30 PM, Thursday thru Sunday.
Thru appears among words connected with dates and days also in the subcorpus of US
leaflets and adverts, as illustrated in (8)- (11) below:
(8) Available October thru December only
(9) SPECIAL PRICE GOOD THRU 11/30/95
11
(10) Open daily Memorial Day thru Labor Day
(11) Toll free 8 00 am-midnight, Monday thru Saturday
When investigating the occurrences of the compound drive-thru, it is surprising that
none of the five examples of this kind are present in any of the US corpora. On the
contrary, all five examples (12)-(16) appear in British and Australian sources; in
addition, all of them are hyphenated:
(12) the sunroof of a limousine at a Drive-Thru mcdonalds [sic](today)
(13) He munched drive-thru cheeseburgers, slept on a bed. (times)
(14) The 967sq m Bernie's Express Drive-Thru at 186 Lutwyche Rd (oznews)
(15) sale of the Bernie's Express Drive-Thru property on Lutwyche Rd Brisbane. (oznews)
(16) for eating in, plus a drive-thru service at some stores.(sun)
However, when looking at the context, it is obvious that except for the two examples
from Australian newspapers in (14) and (15), all the rest are associated with America,
especially food (McDonald's, cheeseburgers, stores). Thus, the conclusion is that
drive-thru appears in non-American sources when speaking about America, or
American cultural phenomena.
Accordingly, the investigation of the standard spelling through in collocation
with drive was conducted in the same corpus. The examples where drive through was
used as a phrasal verb were not counted, only those where it appeared as a compound
noun or adjective. The results reveal that the word combination drive through is used
37 times, but two different cases should be distinguished: firstly, 21 times when
referring to a trip or a ride (17) where drive is a noun, but through functions as a
preposition; secondly, 16 times in collocations with words connected with food and
services, as seen in (18):
(17) Nogales is less than a 2-hour drive through scenic country.(usbooks)
12
(18) she went to a mcdonald's drive-through restaurant on her pony. (today)
In the latter case, however, drive-through is hyphenated. That was also the case of
more interest; therefore, the investigation of drive-through in different subcorpora
was conducted. The data are presented in Table 3 below, mentioning only the
subcorpora in which drive-through appears at least once.
Table 3. The occurrences of drive-through in different subcorporaSubcorpora Total number of
occurrencesAverage number per 1 million
wordsoznews 5 0.9today 4 0.8usephem 1 0.8sunnow 3 0.5npr 1 0.3ukmags 1 0.2ukspok 1 0.1Total: 16
As can be seen in Table 3 above, drive-through appears in Australian newspapers five
times; moreover, the average number of drive-through occurrences in this subcorpus
is the highest. As to the formation of Australian English, according to Crystal
(1997:35), at the end of 18th century the main source of settlers going to Australia was
from the British Isles, which had a major impact on the language. However, the
occurrences of drive-thru in Australian newspapers, presented in examples (14) and
(15) above indicate American English influence on the variety.
The surprising fact that there is one example of drive-through, illustrated in
(19) below, appearing in US leaflets and adverts compared to zero cases of drive-thru,
does not necessarily mean that Americans prefer the British spelling of drive-through
in the language of advertising due to the small total number of tokens. In comparison,
nine occurrences of drive-through versus three drive-thru in the UK sources seem to
indicate British preference for their own spelling.
(19) ATM in a well-lighted area or use a drive-through ATM.
(usephem)
The next word combination representing British spelling is valid through. All five
13
examples (20)-(24) appear in the subcorpus of US leaflets and advertisements. As
could be expected, they are connected with dates:
(20) indicated in U.S. dollars and are valid through October 31.
(21) 25 rebate valid through 6/30/92.
(22) The introductory APR offer (7.9 is valid through 12/31/95.
(23) Coupon valid through september 9, 1995!
(24) Offer valid through September 30, 1995
Considering the fact that there are five cases of valid through and four cases of valid
thru in the subcorpus of US leaflets and advertisements, the conclusion can be drawn
that Americans tend to use both forms. As to semantics, since neither valid through,
nor valid thru appear in any of the UK sources, British speakers probably choose
other words to express validity, e.g. expire or valid until, as presented in examples
(25)-(30) below. Valid until occurs in each of the British subcorpora, except for
books. Moreover, in the subcorpus of British leaflets and advertisments 30
occurrences of valid until were found.
(25) maximum allowed-and it would expire before the play offs. [sic]
(today)
(26) station's current deal was due to expire next year(sunnow)
(27) offer is subject to availability and valid until Saturday, March 18 1995. (today)
(28) Both sets of fares valid until March 31. (times)
(29) one voucher per household and is valid until April 30, 1993. (ukmags)
(30) BASIC COVER OR TOTAL COVER PREMIUMS VALID UNTIL 30th SEPTEMBER
(ukephem)
As Kövecses (2000:242) claims that thru can also appear in formal contexts in
particular compounds, such as thruway, the occurrences of this compound were also
investigated. According to this research, thruway appears in the Collins Cobuild
corpus four times, and all the occurrences are presented in examples (31)-(34) below:
14
(31) by competition with the new New York Thruway, which paralleled the Central's (usbooks)
(32) FROM THE NORTH -- <p> NY Thruway Exit 21 - East on Rt. (usephem)
(33) Hunter. <p> FROM THE SOUTH -- <p> NY Thruway to Exit 20 (usephem)
(34) a second-century Latin military thruway, soars straight up from near the formerly Roman port of Neath in south Wales through the daunting contours of the Brecon Beacons. (ukephem)
Thruway appears in US sources more frequently. Moreover, in the US sources it
collocates with the words connected to America, i.e. New York. However, in the only
case where it appears in a UK source, no connection with America is present. On the
contrary, as shown in example (34), thruway occurs in the subcorpus of UK leaflets
and advertisements with the words connected to Britain (Neath, Wales). This can be
related to Tottie’s claim about the short life of Americanisms (see Section 2).
4.2 Nite
Another item whose spelling was investigated was nite. In the Collins Cobuild corpus
it appeared 18 times in total. The results are presented in Table 4 below, mentioning
only the subcorpora in which nite appeared at least once.
Table 4.The occurrences of nite according to varieties of English
Subcorpora Total number of occurrences
Average number per 1 million words
ukmags 8 1.6usephem 1 0.8ukephem 2 0.6oznews 3 0.6bbc 1 0.4sunnow 2 0.3usbooks 1 0.2Total: 18
Surprisingly, the American spelling nite appears in UK sources 16 times, and there
are only two cases where it appears in US sources. As seen in Table 4 above, UK
15
magazines is the subcorpus where nite occurs most frequently. That might be because
of the fact that there are a lot of advertisements in magazines where eye-catching
words are used, as nite in this case. Furthermore, as presented in examples (35)-(36)
below, nite appears in UK magazines in connection with America and American
cultural phenomena:
(35) what it's like to be black in America and the anti-gun, anti-
revolution sentiments of `Greener Pastures' hold any valuable
insights beyond cruising for `A Nite On The Town'
(36) They're a late nite bar-room band for sure, but one that's
spent countless cold summers at Butlin's rather than at sleazy
drinking clubs in Las Vegas.
Nite appears in the subcorpus of UK magazines also in different titles, as seen in
examples (37) and (38) below:
(37) Boyz II Men's `In the Still of the Nite' is symptomatic-sure,
they can sing, but the spirit is lost in slick overproduction.
(38) JOLLY'S NITE SPOT 235 Aqueduct Street. Disco. Thursday-Sunday.
However, nite appears three times also in Australian newspapers. As Crystal
(1997:37) claims, “the variety contains many expressions which have originated in
Australia […] and in recent years the influence of American English has been
noticeable, so that the country now has a very mixed linguistic character.”
Out of these 18 examples nite collocates three times with club. Two examples
from Australian newspapers are similar, therefore, they are counted as one. As
illustrated in (39) and (40) below, nite club appears as a part of a proper noun written
separately. Furthermore, both examples are from non-American sources. This fact is
somewhat surprising because Ocean City, Maryland was the place the author first saw
the American way of spelling night, particularly in the expression nite club.
(39) his incomparable voice to the Scream Nite Club(oznews)
(40) saucy routine at the town's Atlantic Nite Club(sunnow)
16
Nite also collocates twice with cream, as illustrated in (41) and (42) below.
Moreover, both examples are interesting and unique in the sense that they present the
case where both spellings, US nite and UK night are used in the same sentence:
(41) I used then were Ultima's CHR Nite Cream Concentrate at night
(usbooks)
(42) list of ingredients NIGHTY NITE CREAM - Most night creams are thick
(ukephem)
Similarly to nite club, the more informal spelling nite seems to collocate with cream
in brand product names. Also Tottie (2002:12) mentions the phenomena of the
appearance of the American spelling in trademarks. It might be due to the advertising
strategy that in logos and titles well-chosen words should be used in order to appeal to
the potential customers. There are also two cases where nite appears in collocation
with flight, as shown in (43) and (44) below:
(43) Nile Rodgers must also shoulder blame for the incongruous marriage of an epic vocal with weak dance rhythms on `The Wedding Song' and `Nite Flight'.(ukmags)
(44) Henry's Nite-Flites. These are fairly fast, and lighter than average, smooth-spinning torches. (ukephem)
Interestingly, in the former example (43) flight is spelled in a standard way, even
though the American spelling rule, i.e., the omission of gh, should be the same as for
night (cf. night and flight). Another interesting fact is that in comparison to nite (see
examples (35) and (36)), in example (43) the standard spelling flight and not the
American flite is used when speaking about American cultural phenomena, i.e. the
musician from New York Nile Rodgers. Moreover, flight appears in the title of the
American song, and as it was proved with the examples (37) - (42), in titles usually
eye-catching language is used. However, in the latter example (44) both words nite
and flite are spelled the American way; in addition, they appear in the product name.
Since both examples (43) and (44) are from UK sources, one can draw the conclusion
that British people use both spellings. According to Aitchison (2001: 84ff), the same
17
sound change does not affect all words simultaneously. The change spreads step by
step, firstly gaining a foothold in a few common words and then moving through the
vocabulary. Aitchison imagines the progress of a change like an s-curve, and
distinguishes four different stages: getting a foothold, catching on, taking off, and
slackening (ibid 91f). Accordingly, the same process could be noticed also as regards
spelling, i.e. the case of –igh.
4.3 Lite
Another word that follows the same pattern, i.e. the omission of gh in spelling is lite.
The results from the Collins Cobuild corpus are presented in Table 5 below.
Table 5. The occurrences of lite in different subcorporaSubcorpora Total number of
occurrencesAverage number per 1 million
wordsukephem 13 4.2usephem 4 3.3times 10 1.7sunnow 9 1.5ukmags 6 1.2usbooks 6 1.1npr 3 1.0oznews 5 0.9ukbooks 3 0.6bbc 1 0.4today 0 0.0ukspok 0 0.0Total: 60
As regards newspapers, magazines and leaflets, the results show that the non-standard
spelling of light is more frequent in British than in American sources. However, lite
appears in American books almost twice as many times as in British books. This
might be either because lite is becoming a feature of formal texts, or because books
might not be so formal in style anymore. Although in the Collins Cobuild corpus the
subcorpora of British and American books are not as specific to provide the
information on the genres of the books, modern poetry might be the genre where non-
standard spellings as well as neologisms, and disregard of grammar rules appear the
most often.
18
When analyzing the context, lite appears mostly in collocations with words
connected with food and diets, as illustrated in (45)-(48) below. Similarly to nite, it
also appears in product and brand names. The latter example again presents the case
when both spellings are used in the same sentence:
(45) At the far end of the pasture a Pepsi Lite billboard
(usbooks)
(46) Phhhh! Blaaaaghhhhh! What is this Lite wine? (usbooks)
(47) QUF for inclusion in its Danone Diet Lite Plus Fruit and Nut (oznews)
(48) Lee once labeled a cheesecake as `lite" because they claimed it was light(npr)
However, as the opposite to darkness, and moreover, not being a part of any title, lite
occurs only once:
(49) Why did our bosses switch the Lite off?
(sunnnow)
4.4 Hi
Kövecses (2000:242) also notes that high can be spelled as hi in the compound hi-fi.
The Collins Cobuild corpus was searched for the occurrences of hi-fi, and the data are
presented in Table 6 below. However, when searching for high-fi in the same corpus,
no occurrences were found.
When comparing the occurrences of hi-fi in leaflets, one may see that it
appears almost twice as many times in the UK leaflets as it appears in the US ones (cf.
11.8 vs. 5.7). Furthermore, as Table 6 shows, hi-fi is frequently used also in the
subcorpus of UK newspapers and magazines. However, its occurrence in books in
both varieties is rather low. Although Kövecses (2000:242) considers hi-fi to appear
also in formal contexts, its rare use in books does not confirm this.
19
Table 6. The occurrences of hi-fi in different subcorpora
Subcorpus Total number of occurrences
Average number per 1 million words
ukephem 37 11.8ukmags 30 6.1usephem 7 5.7today 17 3.2npr 6 1.9bbc 5 1.9sunnow 11 1.9times 7 1.2ukspok 10 1.1ukbooks 2 0.4usbooks 2 0.4oznews 1 0.2Total: 135
Another case when high appears as hi is the compound hi-tech. Researching the
Collins Cobuild corpus, totally 175 cases of hi-tech were found. The results are
presented in Table 7 below.
Table 7. The occurrences of hi-tech in different subcorpora
Subcorpora Total number of occurrences
Average number per 1 million words
ukmags 44 9.0sunnow 43 7.4ukephem 19 6.1today 24 4.6oznews 14 2.6times 11 1.9usephem 2 1.6ukbooks 5 0.9ukspok 8 0.9bbc 2 0.8usbooks 3 0.5npr 0 0.0Total: 175
Again British written sources are those where the non-standard spelling appears most
frequently. Obviously, in the case of hi-tech, this fact refers to both formal as well as
20
informal texts. As can be expected, hi-tech appears in collocations with words
connected with technologies, systems, and equipment as illustrated in (50)-(55)
below:
(50) Much has been made of Lilleshall's hi-tech equipment.
(51) that investment in improved hi-tech air traffic control
(52) tanks and track them with the hi-tech Milan infra-red anti-tank system.
(53) Olsen spends hours on a special hi-tech video system
(54) to her ears; Charlotte Hibbitt; Hi-tech ear implant
(55) the serve with the modern hi-tech rackets, bigger and lighter
However, the total number of occurrences of the standard spelling high-tech in the
Collins Cobuild corpus was higher in comparison to the occurrences of hi-tech. High-
tech appeared in the corpus 421 times in total, and the results are presented in Table 8
below.
Table 8. The occurrences of high-tech in different subcorpora
Subcorpora Total number of occurrences
Average number per 1 million words
usephem 33 26.9npr 63 20.1times 78 13.5oznews 65 12.2today 57 10.9ukephem 30 9.6ukmags 41 8.4usbooks 22 3.9sunnow 16 2.7ukbooks 7 1.3bbc 3 1.1ukspok 6 0.6Total: 421
When comparing Table 7 and Table 8, one can see that in all the subcorpora except
for ukmags, sunnow, ukspok and npr, the average number of high-tech is higher than
that of hi-tech. This can be explained by the fact that ‘The Sun’ is a tabloid where
rather informal language is used, similarly to the language used in magazines and on
21
the radio as well as the spoken language. Interestingly, not only the British, but also
the Americans seem to prefer using the standard spelling high-tech in leaflets and
advertisements (cf. 1.6 hi-tech vs. 26.9 high-tech). The same applies to the subcorpus
of American books where the difference in the numbers is also very big (cf. 3 hi-tech
vs. 22 high-tech). In British magazines, however, the occurrences of both forms are
almost equally frequent (cf. 44 hi-tech vs. 41 high-tech), and the same can be said
about the books (cf. 5 hi-tech vs. 7 high-tech).
In this extensive section the results of the in-depth research have been
presented and discussed. Considering all four items together, the results suggest that
the American spelling thru, nite, lite, and hi is not present only in American texts.
Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases the American spelling appears
exactly in British sources. Some other conclusions have been drawn; these, however,
will be presented in Section 5.
5. Conclusion
This study provides insights into particular spelling differences between British and
American English. To be more specific, it is a quantitative investigation of thru, nite,
lite, and hi in the Collins Cobuild corpus material. To do this research, the literature
dealing with spelling in both varieties has been reviewed. Thus, the results of this
particular study are discussed and analyzed in relation to the opinions of such famous
linguists as Quirk, Crystal, and Kövecses et al.
Furthermore, the material and method of this research were described,
mentioning both the advantages and disadvantages. The Collins Cobuild corpus
online is perfectly suitable material for doing a quantitative investigation, as in this
case. However, as a main disadvantage should be mentioned the fact that the years of
the collected texts in different subcorpora in the Collins Cobuild corpus are not
specified, thus making it impossible to compare the occurrences of particular items 10
years ago with their frequencies now.
Nonetheless, reasonable and obvious conclusions can be drawn also from a
synchronic study, such as this one. Summing up the results on the spelling differences
of thru, nite, lite, and hi, we can draw the following conclusions:
22
Thru
The American spelling thru appears most frequently in the corpus of
American leaflets and advertisements.
Thru appears mostly in collocations with words connected with food, services,
music, days and dates.
Thru tends to appear in non-American sources mostly when speaking about
America, or American cultural phenomena.
In more formal texts Americans still prefer to use the standard (British)
spelling through.
Americans use both spellings of thru in leaflets and advertisements.
Nite
The American spelling nite is more frequent in British sources. As to
formality, it appears mostly in informal texts in both varieties.
Nite collocates with club, cream, and flight. Moreover, it often appears in
titles, logos and trademarks.
Lite
The American spelling lite is more frequent in British than in American
newspapers, magazines, and leaflets. However, it tends to appear in American
books more frequently in comparison to its occurrences in British books.
Lite appears in collocations with words that are connected with food and diets
as well as in brand and product names.
Hi
The non-standard spelling hi appears in the compounds hi-fi (high fidelity) and
hi-tech (high technology).
The non-standard spelling hi-fi as well as hi-tech is more frequent in British
than in American sources. In addition, both items appear mostly in informal
texts in both varieties.
23
Americans prefer to use the standard spelling high-tech in books as well as in
leaflets and advertisements. The British, however, use both spellings
interchangeably.
Thus, the aim of this study has been reached. The surprising results indicate that the
American spelling thru, nite, lite, and hi, does not necessarily appear only in
American texts. On the contrary, the occurrences of these items are more frequent
particularly in British texts.
As to the future, if the prediction about the new form of English (World
English) that is emerging proves to be right, then spelling will not be of such great
importance anymore. (Kövecses, 2000:11). Is it really necessary to remain loyal to the
standard British spelling today? A rather strong opinion was introduced already in the
previous century by Clark (1965:202), who claimed: “Spelling is in some ways much
less important than [...] syntax or vocabulary or even punctuation, if the object of
speaking and writing is the conveyance of meaning.” People manage to communicate
successfully even when they do not spell correctly. This phenomenon can be
primarily noticed in online communication where people use even signs and symbols
instead of words to convey a message and to represent their emotions.
However, the differences regarding syntax, vocabulary, and punctuation between
British and American English were and still are a rather popular topic to investigate.
Therefore, in the future, the grammar rules of this new World English ought to be
established since it is widely known that a language is a system, thus, it needs to be
standardized.
24
References
Primary sources
Collins Cobuild corpus material, <http://www.collins.co.uk/books.aspx?group=153> (accessed 15 March 2007)
Secondary sources
Aitchison Jean. 2001. Language Change. Progress or Decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Algeo, John. 2006. British or American English? A handbook of word and grammar patterns. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, John W. American Spelling. In Vallins, G.H. 1965. Spelling. Revised by Scragg, D.G. London: Andre Deutsch Limited.
Crystal, David. 1990. The English Language. London: Penguin Books.
Crystal, David. 1997. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Egersten, Erik. 1972. Understanding American English. Stockholm: Alb. Bonniers boktryckeri.
Kövecses, Zoltan. 2000. American English. An Introduction. Peterborough: Broadview Press Ltd.
Quirk, Randolph. 1962. The Use of English. London: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd.
Tottie, Gunnel. 2002. An Introduction to American English. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. 1987. London: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. Volume 1.1986. Springfield: A Merriam – Webster.
