Ukulele or ukelele?

orangutangle

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Hi all

I'm the webmaster for a UK based site selling ukes. I'm wondering which spelling to use: ukulele or ukulele? Wikipedia says that "ukelele" is the UK spelling but I'm wondering what you guys use, particularly when searching on the web... I want to make sure people can find the site on the search engines.

Thanks for any advice.
 
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All that I have seen is Ukulele
 
If you want to go official Hawaiian, it is spelled 'ukulele.

Dat's da kine way spell da buggah.
 
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I'd stick with ukulele, but that doesn't stop you from adding the alternate spelling to your meta keywords in your site header.
 
Thanks peeps, ukuleles it is! Especially since I've just noticed Google autocorrects the spelling to "ukulele"...
 
Ukulele is also plural.
 
Both spellings were in common use through the 1920s and 30s. I have hundreds of song sheets from that era that spell it "ukelele" and at least one that spells it "ukalele." It's mostly a matter of personal choice these days. Many eBay sellers list both spellings when selling items. I personally prefer the 'e' spelling because it's not so common and gives it a vintage feel.

Don't depend on spell check - many of the default dictionaries are minimal to reduce size and thus don't contain variants or older spelling. And most are not English, but rather American. Google is not an international expert on language: it's a database manager. Use a proper dictionary (Oxford, Random House, Chambers, Merriam Webster, etc. but not a plain "Webster's") and see what it says.
 
If you're going for Google SEO ranking, you need to use the most common spelling whether it's historically correct or not, or do what I suggested and add all the variants to your meta tags.
 
Both spellings were in common use through the 1920s and 30s. I have hundreds of song sheets from that era that spell it "ukelele" and at least one that spells it "ukalele." It's mostly a matter of personal choice these days. Many eBay sellers list both spellings when selling items. I personally prefer the 'e' spelling because it's not so common and gives it a vintage feel.

Ukulele is the way it's normally spelled and I agree with DaveVisi- "you need to use the most common spelling whether it's historically correct or not, or do what I suggested and add all the variants to your meta tags."
And besides: "Dat's da kine way spell da buggah." PoiDog said it best.
That being said I love the alternate vintage spelling. And besides Myrna Ukelele is also an anagram of my real name. So it's ukelele for me.:eek:
 
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