After the post about the checked baggage limits the question came up whether the proper spelling is ”traveling” with one L or “travelling” with two L’s.
My spell checker gives two thumbs up to one L and doesn’t like two L’s. Apparently it comes down to U.S. English vs. rest-of-the-world English.
From a comment on wordreference.com that I have no reason to doubt:
In American English, in a multisyllabic word with a final consonant directly preceded by a single vowel, that consonant does not get doubled if the stress does not fall on the last syllable.
travel –> traveling (stress falls on the first syllable)
marvel –> marveling (ditto)
transfer –> transfering (ditto)forbid –> forbidding (doubled because the stress falls on the last syllable)
concur –> concurring (ditto)
defer –> deferring (ditto)Possible exception:
The spelling “kidnapping” is becoming more and more common even though, according to the rules above, it should technically be “kidnaping.” The reason there is hesitance about this spelling is that it causes a confusion about the pronunciation of the “a” as a long vowel.
When I plugged the above quote into Microsoft Word, Word liked each of the given examples with one exception. It autocorrects “transfering” to “transferring” with two R’s.
Ah, beloved English, what would I do without your exceptions to every rule?