Seems Ballistic went kinda ballistic on me. Here's my return salvo:
I've been a perfect speller since I was five years old since my favorite First Reader was the Dictionary, NOT "Dick and Jane", I have an M.A. in Spanish Language and Literature, I taught Spanish for fifteen years at the university level before becoming a Court Interpreter, I've been a Federally Certified Court Interpreter since 1993, I'm certified as a Court Interpreter by the State of California and do telephone interpreting for Texas Workforce Commission Appeals Hearings. Both my (American) English and Spanish have to be perfect because of what I do. I also taught university courses in Linguistics, from whence "Linguistic Economy" comes, not from Stanley Kubrick or George Orwell (by the way, wasn't he British?) and I get a kick out of how you blokes still consider your English to be the CORRECT version rather than A VERSION. You'll not hear me say that American English is the CORRECT version, as well. Spaniards have a similar prejudice regarding their own version of Spanish because since it started in Spain is MUST be the CORRECT one, right? That argument just does not hold water anymore among linguists, but maybe the general public.
I just looked up some words in my Webster's. Is he a good enough authority? In any case it is an authority, not my own words
color: [ME colour < Ofr. < Lat. color (seems the "ou" comes from French, the onetime Official Language of England).
neighbor: ME neighebor < OE neahgebur
judgement: var. of judgment
If you look at these examples and, more importantly, consult the Dictionary, you will be able to find many things to think about. You'll also notice that these examples show no connection to Greek, just to Middle English, Old French, Latin, and Old English, and I daresay it's NOT a case of "Americans can't remember all the different spellings" (do they not have the same kind of brain as Brits?) but rather a case of evolution of language and its different varieties, and what dictionaries tell us in spite of any ethnocentrism we may suffer from.
We don't "bop off" letters, either. It's interesting how lack of info about or lack of sympathy toward another country causes some people to BE ethnocentric rather than do some research to see if their prejudices are justified. I see by comments here how ethnocentrism even affects attitudes toward others that speak a different variety of the same language.
BTW, I don't have anything against Canucks, Brits, Aussies, Sewth Offrikens, etc, I LIKE the different ways we all use the English language and appreciate all the differing details. Let's have fun!!
