
Do you know your mantles from your mantels?
I do, but Microsoft Word doesn’t.
It NEVER flags ‘mantlepiece’ as an error.
If you are attached to your mantlepiece (seek help! đź”—) you’re not alone. Merriam-Webster recommends ‘mantel’ (‘el’ like the ‘el’ of ‘shelf’ ) for the over-the-fireplace ledge, but it acknowledges that ‘mantle’ has been/is used for the same thing, sometimes…
But 🇺🇲 and 🇬🇧 folk might be best prising themselves off their mantlepieces in favour of MANTELPIECE, which, you’ll see from the Ngrams graphs, is by far the most common spelling.


