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Cancellllllllllled
Drez
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, this is going to sound ridiculous but this has been really bothering me lately.
Recently, as a part of my job, I've had to use the word "cancel(l)ed" quite often, in emails and documents I write. I understand that both "canceled" and "cancelled" are correct spellings. Which is more common in America? And globally? It's just really bugging me. I can't explain it. I want to make sure I'm consistent but about 40% of the people that use this word in their correspondence with me use "canceled," another 40% use "cancelled," 15% use either seemingly at random, and the other 5% use Spanish. I'm not even sure what the Spanish word for "cancel(l)ed" is.
I have a feeling the double L is more common in American parlance because Americans like the letter L. (I recall a children's show that was quite often dedicated to the letter.)
Anyway, I have yet to settle on the single- or double-L spelling and I really need some help getting through this personal crisis. Any thoughts?
Recently, as a part of my job, I've had to use the word "cancel(l)ed" quite often, in emails and documents I write. I understand that both "canceled" and "cancelled" are correct spellings. Which is more common in America? And globally? It's just really bugging me. I can't explain it. I want to make sure I'm consistent but about 40% of the people that use this word in their correspondence with me use "canceled," another 40% use "cancelled," 15% use either seemingly at random, and the other 5% use Spanish. I'm not even sure what the Spanish word for "cancel(l)ed" is.
I have a feeling the double L is more common in American parlance because Americans like the letter L. (I recall a children's show that was quite often dedicated to the letter.)
Anyway, I have yet to settle on the single- or double-L spelling and I really need some help getting through this personal crisis. Any thoughts?
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Seems you're backwards on American usage, at least recently. I personally use only one 'L'.
You could always mix it up and start busting out with rescinded and revoked.
Pick one: http://thesaurus.com/browse/cancel
I use canceled. Cancelled always seemed to blow up Microsoft Word when I was younger, so I just started using canceled with one 'l'.
If you want to be uber-hip then you could use a capital "i" or the "|" symbol. In some typefaces, no one would know but you...
It's like gray/grey. In the US you should use gray, but if you use grey no one's going to start yelling that you should also use an S instead of a Z, or spell maneuver in a stupid way like manoeuvre.
I think I normally do 2 ls, spell check to see if it's wrong (because I can never remember), and then proceed when it passes.
This probably doesn't help unless you want to be more or less British.
although now that I actually think about it, this does contradict common american usage of other words that en in -el; levelled also looks weird to me.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I think this is a good point, actually, that British English often contains superfluous letters. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a British variant that's shorter than the US version.
It shouldn't take much manoeuvring to get used to it.
They are not both valid spellings. In the English language, cancelled is spelled with a double L.
America is wrong. Stop butchering English.
Yeah, I used to think this way. And then I grew up, realized it doesn't matter, and that if both are considered correct somewhere and the person is trying to be correct where they are I don't have to be raging asshole about it.
I suggest you do the same, at least for the purposes of H/A, because people who fail to are incredibly irritating and the reason I always have to close these threads.
I mean, I'm pretty prescriptivist when it comes to spelling and grammar, and still neither of those spellings violates the laws of English in a way that makes even me cringe. Holy crap, dude! Relax a little, and only try to educate people about the things that really do matter in a polite, non-insulting fashion. Then people might actually start accepting your corrections. This is something I have had to learn over time, having annoyed countless people online without convincing them to improve one bit. So please, learn from my mistake. Don't do this.
Plus we don't tell someone speaking Spanish from Mexico that they should be using vosotros instead of the verb tense they prefer. Dialects are different, and language is fluid. Shakespeare would probably be upset with how Belketre butchers the Queen's English today. And this is incredibly anti-productive.
In our defense, I'm pretty sure that English spelling wasn't really standardized until after the colonization of America (seriously, check an encyclopedia). So it's kind of a gray area.
Next time you engage in a dialog with one of your ancestral neighbors, please try to show good moral fiber by honoring their spelling decisions.
In England, it's a grey area.