"Stanch" or "Staunch"? (with examples from SGA)

[rigel_7]

Two words, both alike in dignity, in fair Grammaria where we lay our scene…There are no star-crossed lovers here, only a pair of homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) that are surprisingly interchangeable

Comments

[mirankos]

That there was a different, correct and more common spelling than staunch has never occurred to me. I have always included the "u" and would have guessed stanch to be a misspelling, no matter what the usage.

Good to know.

[rigel_7]

I've only encountered "stanch" in American publications, but it's definitely the preferred spelling for the verb.

It still scans strangely to me too! I like my 'u's :D

[mirankos]

I'm American and was still completely surprised! I don't even pronounce them alike.

I like 'u's, too.

This makes me curious about among vs amoung. I always want to use the 'u', but have always been taught that it's wrong. The spellchecker in this reply even flags amoung as being the misspelling between the two.

Google wasn't any help just now, because I get gobs of results for both spellings, yet no article addressing this. Hmm.

[forestgreen]

Very enlightening. Thanks for the explanation.

[seanchaidh]

Are you guys going to do my favourite misspelled words -- prostate and prostrate? :)

[wanted_a_pony]

Huh! I don't recall ever seeing the spelling stanch & I think I'd have noticed it, since my eye stumbled over every occurrence in the paragraphs above. I've worked as a copy editor (twice) & proofreader, & read thousands of books (almost all of which were published in America). I've also read a variety of American literary & general-interest periodicals over the last 40+ years, & a number of medical texts & journals for the past 10 years. I believe stanch is a very uncommon variant of staunch in U.S. standard English spelling.