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Cancelled or Canceled ? Which one is right?

You have successfully canceled the registration

or

You have successfully cancelled the registration

RegDwigнt
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Mithun Sreedharan
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4 Answers4

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The past tense of cancel is strictly cancelled in British English (BrE). In American English (AmE), however, it is spelled (BrE spelt!) canceled. Note that cancelled is also acceptable in American usage. There are many other verbs whose past tenses and present participles follow a similar pattern:

  • worship: worshiped (AmE)/worshipped (BrE) • worshiping (AmE)/worshipping (BrE)
  • travel: traveled (AmE)/travelled (BrE) • traveling (AmE)/travelling (BrE)
  • label: labeled (AmE)/labelled (BrE) • labeling (AmE)/labelling (BrE)
  • libel: libeled (AmE)/libelled (BrE) • libeling (AmE)/libelling (BrE)
  • devil: deviled (AmE)/devilled (BrE) • deviling (AmE)/devilling (BrE)

There are some notable exceptions in which the last consonant is always doubled in the past tense and present participle. Examples:

  • compel: compelled • compelling
  • corral: corralled • corralling
  • repel: repelled • repelling
  • refer: referred • referring
  • occur: occurred • occurring
  • demur: demurred • demurring
  • whip: whipped • whipping
  • fit: fitted • fitting

And there also those words whose last consonant is never doubled when forming the past tense or present participle. Examples:

  • differ: differed • differing
  • succo[u]r: succo[u]red • succo[u]ring
  • solicit: solicited • soliciting
  • gallop: galloped • galloping

A special example is the verb program[me]:

  • (AmE) program: programed/programmed • programing/programming
  • (BrE) programme: programmed • programming
Jimi Oke
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    Note that the examples in the second list (double consonant in both varieties) are all accented on the final syllable of the basic word; and those in the third list are not. – Colin Fine Jan 18 '11 at 17:50
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    Did you mean "worshipped"? – Steve Tjoa Jan 19 '11 at 01:53
  • @Colin Fine: Indeed, they are. I didn't want to complicate my answer any further by delving into how pronunciation influences which consonants are doubled :) – Jimi Oke Jan 19 '11 at 02:42
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    I still can't believe "programed" and "programing" are valid, they look so very wrong to my eyes. (BTW, you have progaming, which, with a hyphen, is something else ;-) – Orbling Jan 19 '11 at 03:15
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    @Orbling: Indeedy! Wonky, isn't it, but you still come across it here and there? Not to mention that pro-gaming is gradually evolving into progaming! – Jimi Oke Jan 19 '11 at 03:19
  • Funny that it isn't 'speled' like that! – Jonathan Leffler Jan 19 '11 at 04:03
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    Well, for program, the preferred (and by far most common) way is programmed and programming, even in American English. Like Orbling, I thought the single-m version was actually wrong, but it's listed as the alternate in Merriam-Webster. – John Y Jan 19 '11 at 04:23
  • @John Y: Agreed. – Jimi Oke Jan 19 '11 at 04:29
  • @John Y: I knew it was supposedly valid, but every time I see it, I have trouble endorsing the reality it presents. – Orbling Jan 19 '11 at 05:51
  • @JimiOke, given comments re "progaming" it isn't clear to me if you purposefully write "(AmE) program: programed/programmed • progaming/programming" or if "progaming" in that excerpt is just a typo, a dropped r. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Mar 13 '12 at 19:28
  • @jwpat7: Wow, thanks! I just noticed that. Definitely a typo. Rectified! – Jimi Oke Mar 13 '12 at 21:04
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    Google's Ngram Viewer: canceled vs. cancelled, from 1800, corpus American English. This shows canceled wrestling with cancelled between about 1940 and 1980 and finally triumphing by about 1990—but cancelled appears to be making a comeback this century. I'm Australian and find the canceled form extremely ugly, so I'm glad that cancelled is becoming more popular. – Chris Morgan Jun 06 '13 at 10:55
  • (For reference, their English corpus follows a similar trend, but with canceled having fallen below cancelled after a brief supremacy, and their British English corpus shows no contest. – Chris Morgan Jun 06 '13 at 10:57
  • @JohnY - There's a caveat to the "double on stressed last syllable" rule, that if any form of the root is pronounced with a stressed last syllable, double the last letter for all forms. So, while "programmed" and "programming" are typically pronounced with a stressed first syllable, the word "programmable" is typically pronounced with the stress on "gram", therefore by rule the last letter of the root should be doubled everywhere. – KeithS May 22 '15 at 19:45
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See the number of occurrences of cancelled and canceled from the American Corpus and British Corpus below. This supports what @JoseK wrote as comment to the question:

Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA):

 CANCELED   3746     
 CANCELLED  640

British National Corpus:

 CANCELLED 1194
 CANCELED   1
Community
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b.roth
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The American system for forming the past tense of these verbs usually follows these rules:

  1. If the final vowel is long, leave a single consonant, as otherwise a double consonant would convert the vowel to short: reviled, amazed, completed.
  2. Else, if the stress is on the final syllable, double the final consonant, same as the British system: compelled, deferred.
  3. Else, if the final vowel is e, we leave it single: traveled, canceled.
  4. Else, it varies. For the vowels a and i, I think it's standard to leave the vowel single: kidnaped, worshiped. But to me that looks like it's a long vowel, and I think it looks better with the consonant doubled, which I believe is also acceptable: kidnapped, worshipped.
Jasper Teal
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  • When I was a kid in (American) school, I was taught that if the final vowel is short, double the consonant before adding -ed or -ing. This rule made sense to me as the resulting word then followed the usual rules for determining if the vowel is long or short. To my eyes, "canceled" should be pronounced "kan-seeld". This is the rule I followed until Microsoft spell-check came along and told me it was wrong. I see from Google ngrams that "cancelled" was more popular than "canceled" until circa 1985, so I wonder if Microsoft spell-check is, in fact, dictating the future course of the language! – Jay Jan 23 '14 at 15:52
  • @Jay: While I believe it's possible that spell checkers can and are having an effect on spelling, I am confident the specific case of canceled is more that Microsoft was just following (and thus possibly reinforcing) the prevailing American conventions. You can find canceled as the preferred (with cancelled as acceptable alternate) in many print dictionaries that predate the rise of Microsoft. – John Y May 22 '15 at 21:06
  • The identity of the vowel letter in the last syllable doesn't make that much of a difference. Doubling is usually absent in American English in totaled and imperiled. – herisson Feb 13 '19 at 21:42
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It can be both, 'canceled and 'cancelled'. But to me, 'cancelled' looks way better than 'canceled'.

P.S.-Nice play on the words 'canceled' and 'cancelled'!!!!! Seems quite a tongue twister!

Logophile
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