“Checking” vs. “chequing” vs. “chequeing” with regards to types of bank accounts

Question

I came across this little dilemma when looking up the incorrectly spelled word "chequing" in my web browser's dictionary (Opera). According to the different dictionaries you can select in Opera:

EN US is "Checking" (Which I knew)

EN GB and EN ZA is "Chequeing" (Which looks really strange to me)

Here in Canada I've always seen and used "Chequing", which I actually thought was the GB version.

Example of BBC using "chequeing": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3242776.stm

So how many versions are there? Which is technically the right version for Canada and Great Britain?

Answer 1

Anglo-Norman Kings, having conquered Saxon England started collecting taxes methodically (The "Doomsday Book" is a famous example).

For accounting, they were using a large board with rows and columns not unlike a chessboard "un échiquier" in French (from Persian origin imported via Latin).

The responsible for this task was therefore named "Chancellor of the Exchequer". He had to verify that the numbers indeed matched expectations. From this exercise comes the verb "to check".

In the meantime, the European banking system, used "bills of exchanges" to credit and debit accounts between branches in various cities on behalf of their customers, Lombard were famous for this (Lombard Street in London) but they were far from being the only ones. This allowed for only paper to be transported which was both safer and easier.

From 1745 onwards, the bank of England had the exclusivity of money printing "au porteur" (payable to the bearer). This happened much later in the US, when the Federal Reserve was instituted. Private banker who could therefore not emit their own banknotes any more had to resort to a different type of bill that had to be "checked" because they were nominative.

The word "check" then went back to France, when they imported the concept, and they spelt it "cheque" and sometimes "checque" (I spared you the accents).

The word then went back again to England as "cheque" and only the US actually simplified it back to "check".

It should therefore be:

1. "check" in the US
2. "cheque" in the UK, AU, ZA and Canada

Update:
As for "checking" vs "chequing" vs "chequeing", my understanding is as follows:

• "Checking" accounts are used in the US,
• both "chequing" and "chequeing" are accepted in Canada with a marked predominance for the former although the latter is the correct original British English spelling.
• Actually, in the UK you don't hold "chequeing" accounts, but "cheque" accounts, but this phrase is seldom used; "current account" (as opposed to savings account") is preferred. However, when the gerund is used it is spelt "chequeing" (this is disputed however, see Brian's comments below).
• I'm told that in Australia, "cheque account" is used and "chequeing" is rare (comments below from staticsan).

Another famous "ping-pong"-type etymology between French and English is

"taster" (to grope for testing purposes) => "to taste" => "tester" (to try) => "to test"

Answer 2

I just took a tour of some Canadian banking sites. Easy enough since we have so few.

• Scotiabank offers Chequing accounts
• CIBC offers Chequing accounts
• TD made me drill around a bit and look under Canada Trust, but they too offer Chequing accounts. (Their American division offers Checking accounts)
• Bank of Montreal offers Chequing accounts
• Royal Bank, just to be different, offers "Banking and Saving" accounts although some of its "banking accounts" come "with chequing privileges"

Bottom line: the Canadian spelling is chequing. I knew that, but wanted to prove it a little.

Answer 3

I think the question makes an incorrect assumption: namely that cheque is a verb in British English. It's not listed as such in the Oxford, Collins or Cambridge dictionaries, and there's no instance of it as a verb in the British National Corpus.

So it doesn't matter whether you spell it as *chequing or *chequeing: either way, British English speakers will assume you're an American trying to use British spelling and failing to take into account that the spelling isn't the only difference. (Given @KateGregory's comments about Canadian English, it's apparent that this wouldn't necessarily be a correct assumption, but that's a separate issue).