Long live Noah Webster! *waves the flag of spelling reform, but hopefully without Webster's head-bashing nationalism* My paternal grandmother was London born and bred, and my paternal grandfather was solid Mississippi farm stock, so there were dictionary and pronunciation wars in my father's childhood. My own parents have west and east coast accents, so the dictionary wars have become small skirmishes and guerrilla actions.
More seriously, I do the same thing with embarrassing frequency, but I have no substantive excuse.
Yes! Noah Webster, of Merriam-Webster dictionary fame, decided in the 1780s...well, the Wikipedia entry says it in a most gloriously nationalistic manner, so I shall quote: His goal was to provide a uniquely American approach to training children. His most important improvement, he claimed, was to rescue "our native tongue" from "the clamour of pedantry" that surrounded English grammar and pronunciation. He complained that the English language had been corrupted by the British aristocracy, which set its own standard for proper spelling and pronunciation. Webster rejected the notion that the study of Greek and Latin must precede the study of English grammar. The appropriate standard for the American language, argued Webster, was, "the same republican principles as American civil and ecclesiastical constitutions", which meant that the people-at-large must control the language; popular sovereignty in government must be accompanied by popular usage in language.So really, spelling "theater" as "theatre" is AGAINST DEMOCRACY. LOL! (I'd
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More seriously, I do the same thing with embarrassing frequency, but I have no substantive excuse.
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*Clings to the Queen's English, complete with... not nationalism, but obstinate anti-Americanism*
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