Hey Sparkle Writers. It’s time for another #GrammarSeries. Today we want to consider something that everyone has obviously noticed but probably don’t have answers to yet.
America and Britain have separate ways of spelling certain words such as canceled/ cancelled, color/colour, centre/center apologize/ apologise and so much more.
So why the disparity in spelling?
There’s one major reason.
Noah Webster, of Webster’s Dictionary fame believed that it was important for America, a new and revolutionary nation, to assert its cultural independence from Britain through language. He wrote the first American spelling, grammar, and reading schoolbooks and the first American dictionary. He was also an ardent advocate of spelling reform and thought words should be spelled more like they sound.
That’s why America’s spelling is usually shorter than Britain’s and they have words like “favor” without a “u” “theater” with an “-er” instead of an “-re” at the end, “sulfur” with an “f” and not a “ph” in the middle,
There you have it. That’s the major reason between the spellings
Thanks for the knowledge. I always wondered, but never took the time to do an internet search.
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