Numerous English words have distinctly American spellings that vary from the way they are spelled in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking nations. But in a few notable exceptions, the United States still honors (or perhaps we should say honours) British orthography — the conventional spelling system of a language.

Words that have “-ise” endings (as “organise,” “recognise” and “amortise” do) in the U.K. commonly have “-ize” suffixes (“organize,” “recognize” and “amortize”) in the United States. Words spelled in the U.K. with “-yse” suffixes (e.g., “analyse” and “paralyse”) instead have “-yze” endings in the U.S. (as “analyze” and “paralyze” do). Similarly, the word that Britons spell “cosy” is “cozy” to Americans.

The “our” letter combinations of many words (such as “rumour,” “behaviour” and “neighbour”) in Great Britain are changed to “or” elements in American spelling (as with “rumor,” “behavior” and “neighbor”).

The British spellings of numerous words retain diphthongs — the combination of two sequential vowel sounds — while American spellings dispense with one of the vowels. That’s the case with the words spelled “paediatric,” “foetus” and “gynaecology” in the U.K., which become “pediatric,” “fetus” and ““gynecology” in the United States. Such spelling changes can be confounding when affected diphthongs occur at the beginning of a word, as they do in the British spellings “aeon,” “oedema” and “oestrogen,” words that are spelled “eon, “edema” and “estrogen” in the United States.

Education reformer and political activist Noah Webster was an early proponent of spelling modification to better coincide with pronunciation of words, reflected in his 1828 publication of An American Dictionary of the English Language. Webster encountered resistance to some of the more radical modifications that he proposed, including changing “tongue” to “tung,” replacing “believe” with “beleev,” changing “ache” to “ake” and turning “machine” into “masheen.”

Public acceptance of other revised spellings came slowly amid controversy that persisted into the early decades of the 20th century. Spelling reform proponents who encountered resistance for advocacy of simplified spelling included novelist H.G. Wells, President Theodore Roosevelt, evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), lexicographer Isaac Funk (of Funk and Wagnall’s Dictionary), Chicago Tribune publisher Joseph Medill, and James Murray, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The spelling reform movement gained a strong foothold in 1887, however, when the U.S. Government Printing Office’s inaugural style manual incorporated many of the economical spelling guidelines that Webster had advocated — including changing “our” combinations to “or;” replacing “ence” word endings (such as licence) with “ense” (license); transposing “re” word endings (e.g., centre) to “er” (center); and by changing “ck” word endings (as in almanack) by eliminating the concluding “k” (almanac).

Many of those spelling changes took hold in the United States as the result of a typographic consideration. Many old-style metal typefaces included ligatures, which were special single characters that combined two or more recurring combinations of letters. Ligatures included “ff” “fi,” “ffi” and “fl” combinations, as well as “ae” and “oe” diphthongs, conjoined as one character. Newspapers and printers welcomed elimination of “ae” and “oe” ligatures because they consumed precious space in type cases, and replaced them simply with the letter “e” in affected words.

But regardless of bias against ligatures and diphthongs, British spellings of some words are selectively retained in the United States — for example, the verbs “advertise,” “merchandise,” and “aerate,” and the nouns “aesthetic,” “amoeba” and “archaeology.” The late 20th-century U.S. space shuttle Endeavour was named in honor of 18th-century British explorer James Cook’s vessel the HMS Endeavour.

Readers continue to give high marks to Where Have All the Pop Stars Gone? Volume 3, the fourth biographical book that EditPros co-owners Marti Smiley Childs and Jeff March have written about the lives of singers and musicians who recorded hit records. Readers who reviewed the book on Amazon.com have collectively rated it 4.6 stars on a 5-star scale. EditPros LLC published the 362-page book in June 2016.

A reader named Larry wrote, “Third volume of the series, and sadly, the last. But an excellent and fascinating look at some of our favorite bands and artists!”

Another reader, Steve, observed, “This series of books on pop stars not only has more details than most, but also includes interviews, insights and updates with the stars themselves. Volume 3 is full of more fascinating bios, my favorites being those on the band Love, The Standells, Three Dog Night and The Atlanta Rhythm Section. A great read!”

Some readers offered comments about specific chapters, as did William, who wrote, “Learned a few new things about the Standells and Love. Loved the info on Love and what happened to everyone after they broke up.... This book had wonderful stories about the bands they researched. I highly recommend it.”

Reader James wrote, “Once again, a wonderful read! I’m hearing that this one is the last of the series. Please say it it’s not so! I’d love to see these continue on, as we aren’t always able to find this kind of in depth info on the artists chosen in all three volumes... Not even on the internet.”

Reader and book reviewer Laura wrote, “Sadly, several of the artists interviewed and written about by the EditPros team over the years are no longer with us. Most, fortunately, lived long enough to see the finished product; but several others, including Billy Joe Royal (portrayed in this volume), did not. While tragic, these passings make each of the books that much more historically significant—as well as more precious.

“I highly recommend Where Have All the Pop Stars Gone? Volume 3, as well as the preceding books in the series,” Laura continued. “All are extremely well written, researched, and organized, and are as enjoyable as they are educational. The musical era may be long gone, but the music lives on.”

We thank all of the readers and reviewers who offered their observations and recommendations. We’re glad that they and other readers have enjoyed the books that we have written.

Allan S. wrote:

The grammar coach replies:

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