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Sulfur is used by scientists in all countries and has been actively taught in chemistry in British schools since December 2000, [172] but the spelling sulphur prevails in British, Irish and Australian English, and it is also found in some American place names (e.g., Sulphur, Louisiana, and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia).
The Oxford spelling affects about 200 verbs, [6] and is favoured on etymological grounds, in that ‑ize corresponds more closely to the Greek root of most ‑ize verbs, -ίζω (‑ízō). [7] The suffix ‑ize has been in use in the UK since the 15th century, [5] and is the spelling variation used in North American English.
Some usages identified as American English are common in British English; e.g., disk for disc. A few listed words are more different words than different spellings: "aeroplane/airplane", "mum/mom". See also: American and British English differences, Wikipedia:List of common misspellings and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English
Accepted spellings also vary by country or region, with some rejecting the American or British variants as incorrect for the region. [1] [2] [3] Within a particular field of study, such as computer graphics, other words might be more common for misspelling, such as "pixel" misspelled as "pixle" (or variants "cesium" and "caesium").
The spelling systems of unlisted Commonwealth countries, such as India, Pakistan and Singapore, are generally close to the British spelling system, with possibly a few local differences. Some non-Commonwealth English-speaking countries, such as the Philippines, Burundi, Liberia, have spelling systems closer to American spelling.
These spellings already existed as alternatives, but Webster's dictionaries helped standardise them in the United States. [15] (See American and British English spelling differences for details.) Besides the quirks the English spelling system has inherited from its past, there are other irregularities in spelling that make it tricky to learn.
Several pronunciation patterns contrast American and British English accents. The following lists a few common ones. Most American accents are rhotic, preserving the historical /r/ phoneme in all contexts, while most British accents of England and Wales are non-rhotic, only preserving this sound before vowels but dropping it in all other contexts; thus, farmer rhymes with llama for Brits but ...
The guiding rule should be to include words if they are more likely to be incorrect spellings than correct spellings even if it means that occasionally there will be false positives. Keep in mind some words could be corrected to multiple different possibilities and some are names of brands, songs, or products. These are just the most common.