Do British and American Spellings Matter?: A Futuristic Construct

This study aims to discuss general issues related to the difference in spelling between British and American English. It makes use of a small-scale survey of 160 university students in Northern Thailand as an initial source of orthographic variation existing in a new generation. Then, the discussion focuses on wider implications of spelling differences and plausible impacts on digitized texts, Internet search engines, social networks, publications and advertisements, and educational administration and curriculum design. Even though the two ways of spelling seem to simply represent two major mainstream English varieties in the world, i.e., those of the United Kingdom and the United States of America, the impacts in the long run can be claimed as far-reaching since they involve national pride and identity, a situation where one nation suppresses the other.