Cancelled or Canceled? Or Postponed?

As disappointing as it is to see many organizations having to cancel their performances, you may be wondering are they spelling a certain word correctly. Or should promoters and organizers be using another word?

In 2015, I wrote an article on a similar quandary regarding Principal vs. Principle (forgive the writing style as this was published early in my career). That article has led me to think of other common terms misconstrued by musicians.

Before we look into the past tense of cancel, just know these are preferences and not necessarily by-the-book rules.

• Canceled is favored by American English and will also include words such as canceling.
• Cancelled is preferred by British English users as well as other English dialects. This is the version used by Last Row Music since we serve a global audience.
  • Side note: As I type this, Grammarly is giving the red underline of death for the British English version.

Other words ending in “L” such as counsel, travel, and model also follow this preference. The only exception is the word cancellation as both American and British English agree on the double-L pattern.

Now, what about Cancel vs Postpone?

If you have received hundreds of emails this week from companies and music groups updating you on their events, you may have noticed a trend in specific verbiage.

By definition, postpone means “to put off to a later time.” This is the word that you want to use if your event may be rescheduled. A simple trick to remember this: to POstpone gives the reader a POsitive expectation that the event will take place at some point. If you decide to postpone your event, be sure to add in your post that the event will be rescheduled at a later time.

The word cancel means “to decide not to conduct or perform (something planned or expected) usually without expectation of conducting or performing it at a later time.” This would be when you cue the sad trombone music as that event will not ever happen.

So to put this into practice if you have an annual event, which word would you use?

You could say that a music festival or conference is postponed until next year. However, in this case, using the word cancelled indicates that the exact event details (lineup of artists, ensembles, location, etc.) will not happen the next year. Using postponed means that you plan to do the same concert with the same artists at a later time.

Check out this article and this article for further clarification.

All of this and a $1.85 can get you a semi-decent cup of coffee at Herman Melville’s Coffee Shop. Hopefully, we will get to a point where we see less usage of these words and can return to live, in-person performances very soon!