I am asking this as an American living in Britain. I tease my English colleagues about the endless reams of paper and barrels of ink that are wasted on spelling that extra "U" in favourite, colour, honour etc.
As well my Microsoft word always shows these words as misspelled.
2006-07-14 03:59:18 · 8 answers · asked by marksculpture 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
It's an example of French influence on British culture.
2006-07-14 04:09:51 · answer #1 · answered by Kookiemon 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
it's considered proper English to add the u, e, or spell words with an s over a z. And like the answerer before said, it is a French influence (many curse words are vulgar because the French deemed the original English words so). The Americas were an ocean away and many things changed (accent, spelling, mode of dress) as they developed their own culture. That's why it's called American English. It's different. It's changed. Some may say improved, but not all do. Microsoft Word says it's misspelled because of limited programming. That's all.
2006-07-14 04:20:19 · answer #2 · answered by Ananke402 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually, there was an English teacher in early history that noticed that people were having problems with spelling because we, "Americans" do not pronounce all of the letters that we use in spelling words. He actually changed the spelling of words, and it cought on. That is what is the "American spelling" today. Wierd? Huh?
2006-07-14 05:34:20 · answer #3 · answered by rebecca 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe it was Ben Franklin that started a fairly major spelling reform shortly after the American revolution, solidifying more modern spellings of words into the ones we use today, whereas some of the older ones persist in the UK. Many words, for example, dropped the extra "e" at the end (I believe one example is "bald" used to be "balde", something to that effect).
The "u" isn't pronounced, so they just dropped it. Makes sense to me :)
2006-07-14 04:04:20 · answer #4 · answered by mike_w40 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Webster only came out with his dictionary after we split off. At one point, it was even considered a point of pride to spell a word "differently." Three of my ancestors were brothers who came from England in the early 1600's. The family name there was Battishill. When they came here, one spelled it Battershell, one spelled it Battershall, and one spelled it Battershill. And that's spelling their own names!
2006-07-14 08:03:10 · answer #5 · answered by cross-stitch kelly 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
lol, because america wanted nothing to do with the british ways after the revolutionary war. haha, i grew up in ny and thought it was funny, until i studied abroad and now i spell everything with a u. my microsift word is trained to see that as correct.
2006-07-14 04:29:58 · answer #6 · answered by sally mae 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because why do you need a U in those words anyway? IPlus when people use them it makes them look arrogant and haughty.
2006-07-14 04:03:32 · answer #7 · answered by finleydoo 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Probably the same reason we use the silent "K" in words like knife,kneel etc.....
2006-07-14 04:05:41 · answer #8 · answered by 2BaD4u 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋