Diamond Jewelry or Jewellry?
Notice the spelling. We're talking about the same "jewelry", but who's going to be arrested by the spelling police?
Turns out no one. We'll all go free. Freely into the world to spell jewelry with double "ll". It seems in a time way back when (18th Century) words and spelling were a rather loose enterprise. You could call it what you liked. Who is to say different? The most you would risk is your neighbor laughing at you. He may call it a turnip while you call it a banana. Who's to say. This was life before dictionaries. The genius of crowds I guess.
I must admit, at first encounter I thought the world of editors had taken a break. I was about to write a post on the abominable spelling of jewelry on the internet. Who's watching over this thing? And then while reading an article on Flixya, about Fashion and Jewellry, I discovered a whole slew of double "ll".
Wikipedia to the rescue.
Jewellery, as a term, may have been officially spelled in the English language by Samuel Johnson in is 1755 epic, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of English Language. Jewelry didn't officially make the pages until it jumped the pond and appeared in Noah Webster's, An American Dictionary of the English Language.
Webster felt the need to nationalize some of the spellings in his dictionary; to distinguish the new country from it's former ruler.
And thank heavens he did. How else would we have known if the bloke was from England?
Diamond jewellry or jewelry, either one, will get you where you are going. If you are searching on the web, however, Google doesn't not make a distinction.
So if you happen to mispell jewelry don't worry about it. There are plenty of worse things you could do. For example, like calling a turnip a banana.
