Hi Mike,
I can understand your frustration with WordWeb. I felt the same when I started using it. The way WordWeb flags language varieties can be quite confusing until you get the hang of it.
Let’s take “behove” as an example. If we look up “behove” in WordWeb, we get “Verb: behove”, “Usage: British, Cnd”. This says it all very clearly.
But WordWeb adds “=behoove” on the same line. This can be confusing.
Now if you look under the “Synonyms” tab, you see that “behoove” is the “North American” spelling. This can also be confusing. What can be the difference between “Cnd” which I assume to mean Canadian, and “North American”, which I also assume to include “Canadian English”?
If “behove” is the Canadian usage, how can “behoove” be the “North American” spelling too?
As I understand things, the standard rule is “behove” for British English, and “behoove” for US English.
Note that for all intents and purposes Atlantis assumes that the Canadian English spelling is identical to the British spelling. This is not quite right because Canadian English mixes US and British spelling quite haphazardly in a number of areas. Canadians sometimes disagree on the “standard” spelling of some of the words they use. So you cannot expect Atlantis to make an absolutely clear distinction between what would be Canadian English and British English per se.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert