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In English, gh historically represented [x] (the voiceless velar fricative, as in the Scottish Gaelic word loch), and still does in lough and certain other Hiberno-English words, especially proper nouns. In the dominant dialects of modern English, gh is almost always either silent or pronounced /f/ (see Ough).
To illustrate: gh can only resemble f when following the letters ou or au at the end of certain morphemes ("tough", "cough", "laugh"), while ti would only resemble sh when followed by a vowel sound. The expected pronunciation in English would sound like "goatee" / ˈ ɡ oʊ t i /, not "fish". [1]
This is a list of British English words that have different American English spellings, for example, colour (British English) and color (American English). Word pairs are listed with the British English version first, in italics, followed by the American English version: spelt, spelled; Derived words often, but not always, follow their root.
In English orthography, the letter k normally reflects the pronunciation of [] and the letter g normally is pronounced /ɡ/ or "hard" g , as in goose, gargoyle and game; /d͡ʒ/ or "soft" g , generally before i or e , as in giant, ginger and geology; or /ʒ/ in some words of French origin, such as rouge, beige and genre.
In English orthography, the pronunciation of hard g is /ɡ/ and that of soft g is /dʒ/; the French soft g , /ʒ/, survives in a number of French loanwords (e.g. regime, genre), [ʒ] also sometimes occurs as an allophone of [dʒ] in some accents in certain words.
In most English varieties, there are five non-sibilant voiceless consonants that occur at the end of words: / p /, / t /, / k /, / f /, and / θ /; some varieties also have / x /. When the singular form ends in a voiceless consonant other than a sibilant, the plural is normally formed by adding / s / (a voiceless sibilant). The spelling adds -s:
The word salve is often pronounced with the /l/; the name Ralph may be /rælf/, /rɑːlf/, /rɑːf/ or /reɪf/. Words like solve were not affected, although golf dropped the /l/ in some British accents. Words with /alm/ and /olm/, which lost the /l/ and lengthened the vowel (the lengthened [oː] later becoming diphthongized in the toe–tow ...
Words with specific British English meanings that have different meanings in American and/or additional meanings common to both languages (e.g. pants, cot) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in American and British English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different meaning).