Spelling style

Common terms with multiple possible spellings.

There are many words in the English language with multiple spelling variations.

The University style is, as a rule, to use the most common British English spelling and to refer to spellings included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Examples

Our examples show which approach we've chosen for specific words.

adviser

Not 'advisor'

all right

Not 'alright'

amid

Not 'amidst'

among

Not 'amongst'

archaeology

Not 'archeology'

artefact

Not 'artifact'


benefited, benefiting

Not ‘benefitted’, ‘benefitting’

car park

Not 'carpark'

cooperate, cooperation

No hyphen or space

coordinate, coordination

No hyphen or space

enrol, enrolling, enrolment

Not 'enroll'

focused, focusing

Not 'focussed, focussing'

groundbreaking

Not 'ground-breaking'

helpdesk

Not 'help desk'

a historic

Rarely 'an historic'

judgement

Not 'judgment'


medieval

Not 'mediaeval'

nationwide

Not 'nation-wide'

no one

Not 'no-one'

online, offline

Not 'on-line' or 'off-line'

postgraduate, undergraduate

No hyphen or space

supersede

Not 'supercede'

uncooperative

No hyphen

under way

Not 'underway'

Vice-Chancellor, Vice-President, Vice-Principal

Hyphenated

vice versa

No hyphen

voicemail

Not 'voice mail'

website

Not 'web site' or 'web-site'

wellbeing

Not 'well-being'


Further guidance on spelling is available in the following sources:

British English 

Oxford English Dictionary (login needed). 

The A to Z  PDF of the Editorial Style Guide has a more extensive list.

This article was published on