The Preferred Spellings of America’s Most Common Road Signs and Road Maps
Traveling is the act of moving from one place to another. Travel can be done by automobile, bicycle, foot, bus, plane, train, horseback, bicycle, car or other mode of transport, with or without luggage and is one-way or round trip traveling. A few people travel for business or pleasure while many others travel as tourists. Businessmen and women have a greater tendency to travel than do family travelers or vacationers. The one- or round-trip traveling is more common in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.
The preferred spelling of the word “traveling” is often lost in American English. Some British English speakers may spell the word with either “travel” or “journey” and usually choose the former spelling. In British English, “traveling” is usually spelled as “druiking” and “telegraphing”. In Australia and New Zealand, however, “travel” is more commonly spelled as “journeys” and “thees”. One British writer has made the unusual suggestion, “The words traveling and journeys are interchangeable”. In Canada, the more common spelling is “journall” whereas “travel” is more common in the South Pacific and the United States.
American English has developed its own spelling conventions. As in British English, the most common spelling for “traveling” is “travel” while the less frequent spellings are “thees” and “journeys”. Many Americans prefer the word “journeys” over “thees” and “the” because it is easier to recognize the journey in the phrase than “a journey”. Many authors from the 20th century have used the term “journeys” in travel writings. For example, Jack Kerouac used the term “journeys” frequently in his novels and writings.
In United States English, the less common spellings are “the”, “road” and “way”. The less-common “ways” is often used when describing non-urban traveling and is sometimes used instead of “trails”. The most common spelling in United States English for travelling is “road”. Some authors, such as Mark Twain, use “road” to describe a journey through the Great Depression.
As in British English, American tourists frequently refer to a drive in the country rather than a road trip. British English speakers would likely spell the word “drive” as “drip” or “dripster”. Some American tourists do spell the word “drive” differently, such as “driven away” or “driven away in the pouring rain”. The usage of these different spellings may be related to the fact that the United States has not yet developed its own version of the bullet.
In general, there is no hard and fast rules about the correct British spellings of words used on American soil. One thing that is assumed, however, is that any new people coming to America would learn our language. This could be an important factor when deciding which spelling is most commonly used. A new influx of immigrants from Britain may find the current spelling of many words hard to learn. Spelling may eventually become more of a settled issue as American children of British decent begin to speak their own language.