h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bizarre question here. I'm compiling a list of words like color / colour and aluminum / aluminium that are spelt differently in American and UK English. I'm stuck at about 7, but there are loads. Can you guys help me out?

How about axe/ax? I'm not sure about this one - the spelling seams to vary; I've read US books which say axe and some which say ax.

Armour/Armor?
Honour/Honor?

I think ax is spelled either way. I prefer ax because it's one less letter to type/write. Wagon might be spelled differently in the UK, I'm not sure.

flavour/flavor?

How about different words that mean the same? I've heard that:

lorry=truck
biscuit=cookie

Although I could be wrong about that second one.

Cool. Good. Keep 'em coming. I'm more interested in direct spellings rather than different words (i.e. color / colour, not truck, lorry), but some good suggestions.

What about words ending in ize / ise... What are they?

There are a number of words which take a "c" for nouns and an "s" for verbs in English, while in American they take an "s" for either form. One example is "defence" and "defense" -- the latter spelling is the only option offered in American usage but in English, the former is used when the word is a noun as in "... the defence of the nation".

Of course, "defense" is not a great example of a verb -- the dictionary offers "... to take a specific defensive action against ... a sporting term" -- but there are other examples. I'll post them here as I find them.

Centre/center

All words that Americans spell with the "-ize" suffix are spelt "-ise" in English.

Words like "defence/defense" are weird in English, because although it's spelt "defence", "defensive" is spelt with an s like in US English.

Here's one.

harbor/ harbour

(the verb, not the noun)

Lots of examples (mainly medical) where US English simplifies vowel usage from complicated UK English.
eg Anaemia (UK) becomes Anemia (US)
Oesophagus (UK) becomes Esophagus (US)
Anaesthetic (UK) becomes Anesthetic (US)

fetus (USA) and foetus (UK)

Cool!

More!

Many words that end in -or in US English end in -our in UK English.

Examples:
enamor/enamour
favor/favour
honor/honour
humor/humour
labor/labour
parlor/parlour
savor/savour

No, I didn't pull those off the top of my head; I have an electronic dictionary with search functions.

Licence / License -- the first one is how its spelt in English as a noun and the second is how its spelt as a verb. In American it's the same either way.

American (US)/Idiot (UK)

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Oh, and mold/mould.

This, I think, also works for endings -os (US) versus -ous (UK), probably with most of the same words as the -or/-our ones.

Also: sulfur (US) and sulphur (UK)

feces (US) and faeces (UK)

Probably lots of words where UK has -ae- and US has -e-
Same with -oe- and -e-

I think homogenous (US) and homogeneous (UK)

Also probably quite a few where US spells with -f- and UK with -ph-

You know, all the LAZY, SIMPLE ways to spell things - things that are spelt the way they sound - how ridiculous is that????

Well, since it's more efficient and easier to remember...

Another one: fervor/fervour

Yes - I forgot you had do dumb things down over there...