However, if the stress does not come on the syllable that attaches to the suffix then the final consonant is not doubled (as is the case with edit/edited/editing). As explained by Lynne Murphy, American and British English have many similar habits when it comes to past and present participles: both double the final consonant of a word when it follows a short vowel and has the stress on the syllable attached to the suffix (such as remit/remitted/remitting). Canceled and canceling are more common in the US, while cancelled and cancelling are more common in British English.

The simple answer to the question of ‘is it canceled or cancelled’ is “either one is fine.” American EnglishĪnother fine example that has answers of varying degrees of complexity is the question of how many Ls one should use in the past or present participle form of the verb cancel. For instance, the question of whether funner is a word may be answered in the following ways: ‘of course it’s a word, and don’t you have better things to worry about?’ and ‘while most dictionaries consider this a word, your own feelings on the matter are likely dictated by whether or not you feel that the word fun has assumed enough of an adjectival state to merit its comparative and superlative forms.’ It can be useful to have two types of answers like this, as it makes it far more likely that we can provide an answer that will annoy everyone. Many questions about grammar and usage have two answers, a simple one and one that is not so simple.

Some blame and some credit go to Noah Webster.

Crystal castles tour canceled