Tardis:Spelling

Our spelling policy derives from our manual of style's commitment to using British English. Put simply, it requires editors to use British spellings in most articles.

General guidelines
British spellings should always be employed in the main namespace. To give an exceptionally brief overview, this means using -our in a lot of words, such as colour and favour. It also means the general, but not universal, preference for the suffix -ise over -ize.

As of 30th May 2011, we have not, as a community, decided upon a single reference work that will be used to settle spelling disputes. Nevertheless, there are a number of online resources which do offer assistance in this regard:


 * The Oxford English Dictionary. The "mother" of all British English dictionaries, the OED has the disadvantage of not being free to everyone. Unless your local library subscribes to it, you'll have to pay to use it. Contact your librarian for info.
 * Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English has a reasonable reputation and is entirely free.
 * Oxforddictionaries.com, not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary, offers a good overview of the basic differences between American and British English.
 * An excellent comprehensive list of US/UK differences
 * Not exactly a spelling guide, but a useful phrase translation list
 * TravelFurther.net's American-British dictionary is a less academic guide to inter-English difficulties

None of the above resources are considered definitive by this site. They will likely guide you in the correct direction for proper British spelling. However, if and when we decide on a definitive dictionary for this site, spellings in that dictionary will supersede any given on the above sites.

Dictionaries native to your operating system
Some computer operating systems provide dictionaries by default. The OED is also available to Mac users as a native part of OS X, depending on their localisation settings. Mac users with American localisation have the OAD, instead — but even the OAD leverages its connection to the OED to give common British spellings. The OAD/OED has been standard in OS X since at least version 10.4.0.

Windows users are less fortunate, with no dictionary being a part of the core software at least through and including Windows 7. There is an OED version available for Win7, but it's not free.

Linux/UNIX users will find that their dictionary experience will usually be controlled behind the scenes by the dict executable directory. kdict and gdict are GUI expressions of dict, often included as a a part of the KDE and GNOME environments, but it is not known to what degree these are useful in settling questions of British spelling. Linux users are advised to go here for a good primer on the dict core that's still a part of most Linux environments.

Cross-platform dictionaries
There are at least a couple of cross-platform dictionary possibilities, which are free:
 * WordWeb
 * StarDict

Both allow the user to load in whatever dictionaries they want, including the OED. Note that this wiki doesn't actually recommend these pieces of software, nor guarantee that you'll be able to use them, nor warrant that they'll be harmless to your computing environment. You must investigate them yourself and decide if you find them suitable.

Spell-checking software
Because the differences between British and American English are much greater than simply -our and -ise, it's strongly recommended that you set your computer or browser's spell checker to British English whilst editing this wiki. Once that's done, you will likely be in compliance with our Manual of Style, unless you choose to simply ignore your spell checker.

For Mac users, this is a fairly simple process. Simply go into your "International" control panel, and, under the "language" tab, make "British English" the first on the list. This instantly makes spell-checking on all Apple software default to British English spelling. Safari, for instance, will then automatically spell-check in British English. It will not, however, affect spell-checking on non-Apple products, like Firefox. You will have to download and use a Firefox British English dictionary add-on to achieve British spell-checking in that browser.

For Windows users, it's a bit more complicated. There are several points at which the wrong settings can foul things up. However, a good place to start is this Microsoft document on changing the language environment of Office. You will likely need to perform a quick Google search on the subject in order to get specific advice on your particular Windows environment, however.

Linux/UNIX users are advised to seek out advice from their favourite UNIX forum.

Caution with spell-checkers
Though we do recommend that you change your spell-checkers to British English, we add a note of caution. Spell-checkers have difficulty assessing context, or in dealing with words that have valid alternate spellings. There are some words for which there's a dominant British spelling, and a dominant American spelling, but where the other country's spelling is seen as an acceptable secondary spelling. Spell-checkers have no facility to advise you that you're using the "less-common-but-still-acceptable" British spelling of a word. The perfect example of this is jail. This is also spelled gaol in British English. But most British English spell checkers pass both, meaning we're left without a single spelling. Another example is smidgen, which can also be spelled smidgeon, and smidgin without upsetting your British spell-checker. Dreamed and dreamt are also like this, both being valid spellings of the simple past and past participle of to dream.

Nor can they help with words that have different spellings as different parts of speech. For instance, licence is always incorrect in American spelling; regardless of part of speech, license is the appropriate American spelling. In British English, however, license is a verb, whilst licence is a noun. For this reason, British spell-checkers pass both license and licence — which doesn't help a lot. Another word like this is tyre. The noun — the four wheels on your car — is absolutely, unambiguously tyre in British English. But tire is also the valid spelling of a word in British English: the completely unrelated verb to tire. Americans are thus helped not at all by a British spell-checker. They type "tire", meaning wheel, and their British spell-checker passes it on the basis of being the verb. Likewise, practise and practice both pass British spell-checking, because the Brits see the former as a verb and the latter as a noun. Americans use the -ice ending for both, which means their British spell-checker would fail to alert them if they used -ice for the verb.

Point is, even with spell-checking, and diligent effort on the part of American editors, errors can creep in.

Rulings about specific words
From time to time, forum debates have raged as to the proper spelling of words. The following is a list of those rulings: category=spelling debates

The following spellings are therefore deemed correct, by community consensus:
 * artefact
 * organisation

Redirects
If the title of an article includes a word that is spelled differently in American English than British English, the British form must be used in the title. However, a redirect should be created for the American spelling so as to allow readers to find the article by typing in the American spelling in the search bar. For example, you can find Target Novelisation, by entering Target Novelization in the search bar.

Where applicable
This policy is applicable only in namespace 0 — that is, on a page whose name does not have a prefix like Tardis:, Category:, Forum:, Howling:, or Help:. It also applies where elements from other namespaces may appear in namespace 0. Thus, category names must use British spellings, because category names are visible in namespace 0. Also, the text of templates visible in the main namespace are subject to this policy.

It does not apply to your own user pages, the forums, talk pages, help pages, MediaWiki pages, template documentation, or even project pages like this one. As a rule of thumb, if the text can't be seen on a "normal" page, this policy doesn't apply to it.

As an example, it applies to Timeline, and to the text of Template:Timeline seen on, say, 1964, but not to the text seen on Template:Timeline/doc, nor on Howling:Timeline.

This policy is also not applicable in namespace 0 if the topic in question is spelled in a non-British way within the narrative of a story, or, if merchandise, on its actual packaging. Thus, if a Doctor Who novel were to refer to the American movie, The Color of Money, the American spelling of "color" should stand.

Bot enfocement
From time to time, a bot shall enforce this policy on every page in the main namespace. The details of what this bot is checking for can be seen at Tardis:Spelling policy/user-fixes.py.