lucy24 - 1:48 am on Aug 13, 2011 (gmt 0)

In the US, the two meanings are not associated with different spellings.

I just went to look up the technical term. Unfortunately it is "doublet", which as TT's go is about as unhelpful as you can get. It means that they started as the same word but diverged, like "flower" and "flour". In American English this particular pair never diverged; in British English they did.

Are you starting to be sorry you enquired? :)

Hm, come to think of it, how do you spell the verb? Maybe we can sneak around the problem that way.