It is important to check a word like cellphone, as it could easily be the American spelling since American spelling tends to concatenate words together. In this case a check of the Merriam Webster site displays an entry for "cell phone", when a search is performed for "cellphone", so even this generalised observation does not apply. This leads me to suspect this is not the usual spelling in America. That rules out "cellphone" being an American spelling variation.
If we check the Australian Concise Oxford dictionary Fourth Edition cellphone is an entry. If we check the Macquarie Concise Dictionary Third Edition there is no entry cellphone, but there are entries for cellular telephone and an also entry for cellular phone.
The general rule I use in maintaining the spellcheck dictionary files, is if a word is in either dictionary and there isn't an obvious conflict, then it is included in the full version of the spellcheck dictionary.
For the Kelvin version, which is the prescriptive spellcheck dictionary, designed to simplify spelling to the preferred spelling in Australia, this requires a bit more investigation.
In this case we also need to consider that "cell" is a shortened version of cellular. Just as phone is a shortened version of telephone and phone would be considered as a colloquial spelling of telephone, or the shortened version of telephone. In more formal documents, phone by itself may not be an acceptable spelling.
Using the Kelvinometer, a tool I developed which shows the usage of words in Australia as found by the search engines, I can then get an indication as to which is the preferred usage.
The results for Google Australia are:
cellular phone: 206,000
cellular telephone: 8,810
cellphone: 99,100
cell phone: 1,180,000
Based on this information cell phone is the preferred spelling.
I also thought it would be of interest to check the word mobile, as I personally would not use cellphone or cell phone, but would instead use mobile phone, or mobile for short.
mobile phone: 7,870,000
mobile telephone: 82,100
Based on the above the preferred term in Australia would be mobile phone, and then cell phone. Since cellphone is a secondary way to spell cell phone, cellphone wouldn't be added to the Kelvin dictionary.
It should be noted that spellcheck dictionaries cannot handle a space, so it is not possible to spellcheck for "cell phone", and the spellcheck would be testing for the words, "cell" and "phone". Both the full and the Kelvin versions of the dictionaries contain colloquialisms, so “cell phone” would appear as correct spelling.
In this case both spelling variations are correct and it would be considered a matter of style. The more popular usage in Australia is “cell phone”, but the term “mobile phone” is even more prevalent.
- Kelvin
This post is brought to you by the dictionary project which can be found on JustLocal.
Thinking phones, think Renée.
I prefer American English so I do consult the Merriam-Webster online dictionary to check for spellings, meanings of words, etc. However, I occasionally come accross many words I don't really know whether they are British or American spellings. Your blog reveals that the most common Australian spelling for handphone is mobile phone. Here in Malaysia, handphone is most common, followed by mobile phone. I've never heard any Malaysians call it a cell phone or cellular phone. I know that (by looking it up in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary), this word (cell phone) is American, but I wonder why the words cell and phone aren't spelled together, just like percent (as opposed to per cent in British English). Anyway, thanks for discussing this in your blog. I find it very useful. Keep up the good job!
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