English, baby!

Program or Programme?

Date: Apr 14 2008

Topic: British English

Author: rhyme_reason

Lesson

The Noun: Program or Programme?

The basic difference is between different languages:

American English always uses program
British English uses programme unless referring to computers
Australian English recommends program for official usage, but programme is still in common use.

The word “program” was predominant in the UK until the 19th century, when the spelling “programme” became more common — largely as a result of influence from French, which has the same word “programme”.

So, if you’re writing in British English (either as part of an examination, if you’re studying English, or for a British publication), here’s some examples of how to use programme and program correctly:

We’re still drawing up the programme for the concert.
This computer program won’t run on my PC.
I missed my favourite television programme last night.

The Verb: To Program, Programmed, Programming

The word program is also a verb, as in “I’ll program the computer today.” In this case, both American and British English use “to program”.

These forms are also valid in American English:

programed
programing

But the Oxford English Dictionary recommends the double-m instead, which is in far more widespread usage:

programmed
programming

If in doubt, and writing for a publication, check whether or not they have a style guide or a rule on which form of the verb to use. When you’re writing for yourself, just make sure you’re consistent.

Comments

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rollychip@yahoo.com

Angola

Alright for sure that is true!

Haneeeen

Saudi Arabia

Exactly …. this is what i need

FaRaSHa

Lebanon

useful thatnkx alot

marilu

Mexico

This is good lesson, i prefer british, is the best

jeanette_0015

Philippines

Present tense

jeanette_0015

Philippines

Present tense

jeanette_0015

Philippines

Present tense

likehong,james

China

goog,useful

serge2

Israel

thank's a lot

Daloly

Saudi Arabia

THANKX IT'S SO USEFULL

power_eng

Iraq

thank you very much

it was really useful

power_eng

Iraq

thank you very much

it was really useful

dadong

China

very good

bahasahara

Morocco

hi reham .how are u ?can we talk ..i want to know what was your problemes in english and i want know how did u treat them ?this my msn ...

im waiting u .pleaze help me

brahim

drhow

Jordan

chance to practise english with drhow nabooln at hotmail.com

jisan71

India

not only program, there are many words that make trouble, can it not be fixed? if would, than it would be easy to learn English, specially for the another language, spelling is the most hard part of English.

nyitnyit

Indonesia

i just realized that program and programme are the same. thanks for the lesson

ABU AHMAD

Oman

hi Riam . how are you . I agree with you ,but some mistkes never corrected , needs time and self confedence . thanks for u . waiting your reply

steppe

Viet Nam

I have learned about the rule of doubled-consonant.

When a word ends by a consonant, except -x and -w, and there is a vowel standing between this consonant and that one before it (eg. stop, sun,etc.), you must double the last consonant before adding a suffix (-y,-ing,-ed). Notice that, you can double the consonant only if the word is one syllable or more than two syllables with the stress falls at the last one(eg. permitted)

But in American English, it's more simple. Some words don't need to follow that rule. For example, "traveled" and… "programed"^^