If you are writing in American English, “canceled” and “canceling” are spelled with one “l,” but “cancellation” is spelled with two. Or, of course, you can ignore me. It's just copy, after all. Who cares!? Just please stay inside!!

Welcome back to Do You Copy, our series on copyediting (copy editing? copy-editing?) that investigates some of the editorial life’s deepest mysteries.

That question might seem like the debate over straight fries and curly fries—rather purposeless. Except…it’s not!