Dear Geist,

Why the heck do we need two spellings of the word acknowledgement/acknowledgment? They are pronounced exactly the same and they mean exactly the same thing. Is it some sort of throwback to the days before we had standardized spellings for words?

—Dana Webster, Chicago IL

Dear Dana,

Actually it's another example of small differences between British English (acknowledgement) and American English (acknowledgment) spellings. Not long after the Americans had won their War of Independence, home-grown lexicographers got busy on new, streamlined, American—which is to say not British—spellings of English words. (Another example of how important language is in sorting out political power!) To this day both spellings of most English words are acceptable in Canada. Dictionaries show their preferred spellings, and book and periodical publishers develop house styles that include this point, for continuity. See a couple more examples in our posts Humour us and Latest draft.

—The Editors