Labor %26amp; Labour, Neighbour %26amp; neighbor, color %26amp; colour, favorite %26amp; favourite, harbor %26amp; habour, grey %26amp; gray, theatre %26amp; theater...
the list is pretty long, but just wondering, was there a reason?Why did America change the spelling of some British words?In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Current British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755), whereas many American English spellings follow Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828.
Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the US by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa. While in many cases American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, on the other hand it has also often retained older forms.%26quot; -- WikipediaWhy did America change the spelling of some British words?easier to pronounce?Why did America change the spelling of some British words?they pronounce it diferrentlyWhy did America change the spelling of some British words?They probably wanted something of their own. They wanted to be seen as Americans and not British.Why did America change the spelling of some British words?Maybe the language just naturally evolved that way. But I do recall a president creating some program or something to simplify the English language. Not sure though.Why did America change the spelling of some British words?The americans, unlike many people think, did not actually change the words, they are actually how they were originally spelt. The British, however, changed the spelling to make it look more French.
'centre' in French is 'centre'
'colour' in French is 'couleur' (more French)
etcWhy did America change the spelling of some British words?The simplest answer is that language changes through ignorance. The majority of the American population wasn't literate as a rule until public education because widespread and mandatory, so people would spell some words the way they sounded. Dictionaries weren't widely available until the Industrial Revolution made mass production affordable; the printing press just wasn't enough to make books cheap and widely available.
If you study the history of the English language, you'll find that external influences and ignorance have been the biggest movers of change in the language.Why did America change the spelling of some British words?Over the past 400 years, the form of the language used in the Americas—especially in the United States—and that used in the United Kingdom and the British Islands have diverged in many ways, leading to the dialects now commonly referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary (lexis), spelling, punctuation, idioms, formatting of dates and numbers, and so on, although the differences in written and most spoken grammar structure tend to be much more minor than those of other aspects of the language in terms of mutual intelligibility. A small number of words have completely different meanings between the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects. One particular contribution towards formalizing these differences came from Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary (published 1828) with the intention of showing that people in the United States spoke a different dialect from Britain.Why did America change the spelling of some British words?The original settlers to New England taught English Webster's spelling-rules which omitted 'U' in words ending in 'OUR' (eg: honor/honour %26amp; color/colour, etc) and also promoted single consonants instead of double consonants in 2nd syllables, (eg: traveler/traveller, etc)
The influence of multi-cultural immigrants to the US, has also meant that American spellings have gradually evolved over the centuries, becoming more phonetic than British spellings.
British spellings are a product of history, influenced by Shakespeare, Chaucer, Claxton, et al
?Why did America change the spelling of some British words?It's out of rebellion.
Early Americans did not want to be like Great Britain, so they decided to be rebels and change the spelling.Why did America change the spelling of some British words?because they like being different :P and weird
