Question about American-English?

Question

Concerning American-English, I would like to know why the "u" letter is omitted in words like colour and neighbour.

Answer 1

When Webster wrote the dictionary for American English, he changed around some words so that they could be better pronounced phonetically. He re-arranged many of the British spellings, including leaving out the "u" in certain words.

Answer 2

I do not know why there are the spelling variations in American-English..
One part undereducated, two parts untamed...
It may be a lingering scar from the nonexistent state of the educational system during the colonial period. There are occasional reminders that generations of people once lived here without knowing how to read or write at all. So, there were some vowels dropped from ye olde merrie queen's language to make it more concise and modern. Independence came in the time of the Enlightenment, and the framers ran with it.

It is all generally accepted now, and you can spell it whichever way you prefer.

Don't forget "grey"! ^_^

Answer 3

I don't really know...seems it's just extraneous. Americans don't use it....but England and the Queen's English still do use the "u". There are other pronunciation changes as well from one to the other. My answer is that the extra letter is not necessary in the word's pronunciation.

Remember too that kids used to be home schooled or went to little red school houses where all 8 grades were in one classroom that probably was comprised of 5 kids total. I would think not all the British rules were observed.

Answer 4

It is left out as conventional since the "u" is not pronounced and has no effect on the pronunciation fo he word. You'll also see this in such words such as "catalogue" which is often writeen as catalog and you also see it in words like "cheque" which is now common written as "check" but I DO use "cheque" (a note of monetary value) to differentiate from check (to verify).

This all started out with our dear old Benjamin Franklin who wanted to simplify American Englsih way back following the Revolutionary War. It didn't quiite take since his proposed changes caused more difficulties than even he imagine or expected. This is quite common in all languages, as they change in keeping with the times (look up a word in a dictionary and see where the word was derived from; some have obscure spellings from the Old Englsih and look rather strage now).

Answer 5

That's Old English

Answer 6

Allansc2005, you DO realise that we only started using the metric system a couple of decades ago, and in fact you use our old system. In fact, we're not completely metric now anyway. Many things are officially still done in imperial (like roads in miles and beer in pints) and most things the people still use imperial for unofficially.

But apart from that bout of stupidity, you were more or less right, they wanted to disassociate themselves from Britain in all ways possible.

Answer 7

The spelling rules for American English that you're referring to was created in the late 1700s by Noah Webster. (His name is now attached to a number of dictionaries.)

Answer 8

It was a 18th century attempt at making written English easier to learn by simplifying and standardising some of the spelling of words. I believe it was Noah Webster (as in the dictionary) who was one of the most influential people in making some of these changes.

Look up "american english spelling" in Google:
http://www.google.ca/search?hs=XL0&hl=fr&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=american+english+spelling&btnG=Rechercher&meta=
and in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_differences

Answer 9

This is the rationalisation of English by Americans.

Answer 10

For the same reason we omitted the metric system;we wanted British influence out of our society