On 2009/04/25, at 11:04 PM, John M. Steele wrote:
I suppose it is all a matter of how your mothre and fathre taught
you to spell. :)
It has never been clear to me when British English uses -er and when
it uses -re. The -re ending is very uncommon in American English,
although there are exceptions like acre, where -er would change the
c from hard to soft.
Obviously I could concede two words out of all the spelling
differences, but, in general, I prefer the simplified American
spellings, which have been around since the time of Noah Webster.
In most words, the differences are minor and I read right over
them. There are a few medical words in which we have simplified
dipthongs, and I actually have to stop myself and ask "is that the
same word?"
I know you will point out the use of theatre and centre in the US,
but they are only used in proper names, and, frankly, by
organizations attempting to be somewhat "snooty."
I will point out that meter and liter have been used in the US at
least since the Metric Act of 1866. They appear in the original
text; those spellings have a basis in Federal law.
Dear John,
Several points:
1 I like your spelling of mothre and fathre.
2 Noah Webster balked on acre because of its obvious mispronunciation
when it is spelled acer.
3 Noah Webster had good commercial reasons for wanting the USA to
spell in a different way to the rest of the world. In An Essay on the
Necessity, Advantages, and Practicality of Reforming the Mode of
Spelling …, Noah Webster wrote:
But a capital advantage of this reform in these states would be, that
it would make a difference between the English orthography and the
American. This will startle those who have not attended to the
subject; but I am confident that such an event is an object of vast
political consequence. For, … The alteration, however small, would
encourage the publication of books in our own country. It would render
it, in some measure, necessary that all books should be printed in
America. The English would never copy our orthography for their own
use; and consequently the same impressions of books would not answer
for both countries. The inhabitants of the present generation would
read the English impressions; but posterity, being taught a different
spelling, would prefer the American orthography.
4 The spelling of metre has changed from time to time in the USA.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson consistently used the spelling
— metre — from about 1780. I have not seen it, but I accept your
statement that Congress used Noah Webster's spelling — meter — in
1866. The USA signed the Treaty of the metre (note spelling) in 1875.
In 1971, Chester H. Page of the National Bureau of Standards NBS (now
National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST) approved a
translation of the defining SI document (from 1960) that showed the
basic unit of length as the metre and it was understood that a
'gentlemen's agreement' had been made whereby the USA would accept the
-re in metre and litre as a trade-off for Britain's giving up the -me
in gramme and kilogramme. Chester H. Page is listed as an editor of
the (UK) National Physical Laboratory English language translation of
Le Système International d'Unités (SI), but his name does not appear
on the American version because he refused to allow it when the (USA)
Government Printing Office insisted on the Noah Webster notion that
the American spelling of metre should be meter. This spelling debate
has continued in the USA since then. (For a more detailed history and
discussion see http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/Spelling_metre_or_meter.pdf
)
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
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