Today we were talking in office about British and American english, and I made a statement that except US and Canada, everyone else follows the British English as most of the countries started on english from british colonial rule. So someone pointed it out to me that even Americans learnt it from there, so I wondered why they chose to do it differently ( like everything else they do differently!! ). And the same person pointed me towards this -
Do a search for "daniel webster" ("webster's dictionary" is named after him). He "simplified" (and I use quotes liberally) the English language for the US and Canada so that it was more "consistant".
yes, quite a funny sentence, words consistant and english are used in the same sentence without the word "not". And of course I do not understand how taking the u off from colour can do anything to simplify english language. If this Daniel person really wanted to simplify and consistify the language, why did he not change "but" and "put" to be pronounced in the same way, and why not take the "p" off pneumonia (or however its spelled). Or maybe what he did was redefined "simplify" and "consistant"!!
1 comment:
I don't have that much experience with American English, but aren't AmEng words on the whole easier to spell than BritEng words? Just take 'manoeuvre' and 'diarrhoea' for instance.
By the way, it's interesting how you spelt 'pneumonia' correctly but 'consistent' wrongly. Maybe Webster should have collapsed '-ent' and '-ant' word endings too. :)
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