Google Ngrams suggests that “eerie” is a whopping 109 times more common, but nonetheless, “eery” is there. Even my browser’s spellchecker isn’t highlighting it.
I tried going down the rabbit hole of why that word has kept an older “-ie” ending but I’ve come away more confused more than I went in. I’m going to guess that an -e at the end balances with those e’s at the start has a lot to do with it.
I don’t think this is a British thing. I’m also British and had never seen the -y spelling until today.
I mean, I suppose it’s rare enough that it’s possible I’ve only ever seen American English instances of it, but I would have thought it would have come up at some point well before now.
Off-topic linguistic rambling follows:
TIL “eery” is a valid spelling for “eerie”.
Google Ngrams suggests that “eerie” is a whopping 109 times more common, but nonetheless, “eery” is there. Even my browser’s spellchecker isn’t highlighting it.
I tried going down the rabbit hole of why that word has kept an older “-ie” ending but I’ve come away more confused more than I went in. I’m going to guess that an -e at the end balances with those e’s at the start has a lot to do with it.
I’m British so it may be that? Idk
I don’t think this is a British thing. I’m also British and had never seen the -y spelling until today.
I mean, I suppose it’s rare enough that it’s possible I’ve only ever seen American English instances of it, but I would have thought it would have come up at some point well before now.
Ah ok