I’ve been reading the Which? style guide in my spare moments and yesterday I came to J, where I found an entry that puzzled me.
judgment is used in a legal sense, ie a High Court judgment
judgement is used in the general sense, ie using your judgement
Well I never! That was a new one on me. I’ve always used the version with an ‘e’ and didn’t even realise there were two spellings.
I checked it in my office copy of the OED (although it’s only the concise one, so I should also look it up in my mammoth home copy), which listed it under judgement but said the two variants were interchangeable. Collins agreed, although it listed it under judgment.
The Times style guide says to always use judgment, and the Guardian doesn’t specify.
Has anyone else looked into this? To me it looks wrong without an ‘e’, but that’s just personal preference and prejudice. If there is a difference in meaning between the two spellings, I’d hate to think I was missing it.
