Re: All hail Bob!
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 12:04:24 GMT
Message-ID: <cLF8g.413$U25.157_at_trndny09>
"Frank Hamersley" <terabitemightbe_at_bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:bqu8g.1420$S7.799_at_news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
The divergence between British and American spellings was, in part,
conscious and deliberate. Noah Webster, author of the first American
dictionary, favored spellings that differed from British spellings so as to
accentuate the cultural independence of America from Britain. A lot of
water has gone under the bridge since that time.
It's not clear to me that simplification was ever the goal.
> This touches on a subject that I have often wondered about.
>
> With respect to the the USA does anyone know when and why, or even at
> all, the corporate decision was taken to "simplify" the spelling of some
> words? An archetype example for me is "metre" which as I routinely see
> on NASA/JPL sites as "meter".
>