Illogical thing about one commonwealth spelling

Why do Britons spell ''defense'' as ''defence'' but don't spell ''defensive'' as ''defencive''? That is really illogical.

If you don't like it, p- off and speak Irish or Spanish...

English spelling is illogical and inconsistent for the most part.

"defence" was borrowed directly from french and so retains its french spelling. The Brits hold onto the original spelling because it is useful for them understand the french.
Defensive is a constructed word, using defence or defense and an english ending. It was probably introduced in America and borrowed with the American spelling back into British English.
Americans place little value on the French form of these words.
entomology is the key

Language evolves over time. It doesn't make sense outside of its historical context. It may be consistent, but it is seldom logical.

Well, of course there's also some illogical spellings that we all use. ''high/height'', ''sauce/sausage'' etc. What's with these?

Mais non, sacre bleu. In French, it is written défense.

Spellings: English is illogical which makes it even more interesting and enjoyable to speak and study..I am so glad I was born in this country which is a land of so many contradictions. I think we confuse visitors sometimes because of this LOL!

I am thinking of starting a new thread on English/British names and place names which are pronounced totally different from the way they are spelt. I love the weird names a lot of small towns and villages have.....like Wyre Piddle, Piddletrenthide, Over Wallop and Ugley. Imagine being a member of the Ugley Women's Institute! There really is one. There is a village in Cornwall which sounds like it came straight out of the wild west...Indian Queens. Or it can sound like camp guys in Bombay :-)

Why do Americans spell "jewellery" as "jewelry" when they spell "jeweller" as "jeweler"?

Because ''jeweler'' is pronounced [ju:l..r] and ''jewelry'' is pronounced [ju:lri{:]. How would ''defencive'' be pronounce differently to ''defensive''?

It's more logical to have "jeweller" plus the suffix "-y" than pretend it's a whole new word.

It's not pronounced [ju:l..ri[:]]. Why spell ''jewelry'' with a redundant ''e''. That's like spelling ''Wednesday'' as ''Wednesday''.

Why do we all spell ''sauce/sausage'', ''speak/speech'', and ''high/height'' in the illogical ways that they are. They're related words but are spelled as if they're not so related.

I agree with Jim on this

<<It's more logical to have "jeweller" plus the suffix "-y" than pretend it's a whole new word.>>

"jewelry" "jeweler" What the?????

If you're going to say ''It's more logical to have "jeweller" plus the suffix "-y" than pretend it's a whole new word.'' then you might as well say the same thing about ''pronunciation''. You might as well say it's more logical to have ''pronounciation'' because of ''pronounce'' despite the pronunciation of the word. Americans spell ''jeweler'' and ''jewelry'' as ''jeweler'' and ''jewelry'' is because of the pronunciation. Why do we about spell ''pronounce'' as ''pronounce'' but spell ''pronunciation'' as ''pronunciation''?