You know you have an above average understanding of English spelling. Your English teacher is proud of you, and your classmates copy from your notes without even checking for errors because they know you got English spelling down to a tee. You are so sure that when you see a common word spelt differently, you just know it is an error, a typo at best. Then you buy a reputable book, magazine, or newspaper and some familiar words are consistently being spelt differently. Could the proofreaders have overlooked them? Maybe. But before writing a letter to the editor, check for spelling preferences of other English varieties.
British, American, Canadian, and Australian Englishes, for example, are all varieties of English. Each variety at times has its own distinctive flavour. In the case illustrated in the image above, it is spelling. These types of regional variations do not, however, create communicational breakdowns, and each is as legitimate as the other. The important thing to remember is that within a piece of writing, whatever it may be, you need to be consistent: choose a variant and stick to it.
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