It's no secret that American and the British spell many words differently organize is organise, theater is theatre, and color is colour. These are simple compared to how they treat words with similar meanings, as they use different terms. For instance, Americans would say "elevators," while the British would say "lifts." "Fries" for my American friends would be called "chips" by my British friends. Moreover, my American friends refer to the first floor of a building as "ground floor," but my British friends would call it "lobby." For nonnative speakers like us, English is English. How did their spellings become so varied? As it turns out, there's one person to blame: Noah Webster. Yes, he is the guy behind the famed Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
According to BBC America's "Anglophenia," people were more accepting of spelling variations up until 18th century. Even prolific writer Jane Austen had vicious spellings of the same words that would be considered misspellings today. Proper names were also spelled the way they sounded and had different variations. Moreover, texts from William Shakespeare's time spelled his name in 80 different ways, which range from Shappere to Shaxberd. More interestingly, Shakespeare also didn't spell his name correctly in his surviving signatures: Willm Shaksp, Willm Shakspere, and William Shakspeare.
It's very important to note though, that prior to and around 18th century, education is mostly for the privileged and wealthy only. This means that spoken language were deemed more important than written language by the majority of the population. That's until British lexicographer Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. It took some decades for the Brits to catch on, but they too, made serious headway towards standardized spelling.
By the time Samuel Johnson's Dictionary gained fame and momentum, the Americans had started "stirring up trouble across the pond". After deciding that they want to be an independent country, it's just natural to have their own lexicon too, and it involved a great deal of spelling modifications. Enter Noah Webster: "As an independent people, our reputation abroad demands that, in all things, we should be federal; be national," he wrote in a 1789 essay, "for if we do not respect ourselves, we may be assured that other nations will not respect us."
In order to distinguish American English from British English, Webster believed that American spellings must be free of the British English's "clamor of pedantry" or it's excessive attention to the rules or paying too much attention to the minor points. That meant removing unnecessary letters in words such as "humour", "analogue," and "programme." These modifications were made official with Webster's A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. This is considered the very first American dictionary, published in 1806
For Webster, language must be used practically, which means it's more efficient if most vocabulary are spelled the way they're pronounced. And so, a new dictionary with truly nationalistic spellings came about and enabled American people to move forward as an independent country. As for which version is better, American or British, it's really up to a person's preference. Generally, I use both spelling versions but I make sure that I'm consistent which version I use in my writings. That means when I start writing in British spelling, I stick to it throughout my composition.
And that's the story behind the differences in spelling between British and American English.
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