Why do British people make such a fuss about the spelling of "colour" and other words with silent letters?

Question

What's the point of making a big deal about letters that aren't even pronounced in a word?

Answer 1

Colour ect. are the French spellings. Many words were borrowed from French and the British never wanted to reform English language spelling at all.

The USA did some minor reforms to the language, and it helps reduce on unnecessary oddities, especially that one.

The English tend to be very traditional, and the traditional spelling is their way of never changing.

I would go with the American style of writing as it's more logical, the language has enough pecularities already, and the world's leading nation (and also happens to be majority English speaking).

With the number of English speaking Americans dwarfing the British in physical number and marketsize, it's basically the American language. Most of the modern verbage is our creation, not the English. Like e-mail and internet. It's all Americanized now, just like the world.

Answer 2

completely don't care for silent letters, on your side.
quick history for the other though: English is a corrupted language in general that is how different languages come about, as for "old English" that is basically German, do you speak German? no you don't numb nuts. After old English there was Middle English, obviously, then Modern English which we don't even speak not even the British, an example of "modern English" would be Shakespeare do any of you talk like that outside of a Renaissance fair that I am sure you all attend at least once a year. So there you have it all languages spoken today are merely a bastardization of what they once were.

Answer 3

Why do American people spell words differently, and in simplistic fashion, and then feel they have to defend it by making a big deal out of putting down others? Many more countries use "colour" than "color", "harbour" than "harbor", "favour" than "favor", etc. Many more countries also pronounce z as "zed", not "zee" (a brand of paper towel). The English language is older than the United States.

Edit: This is the kind of lowly respect this person has for fellow YA users, and the reason he will not have his account for long!
"Hello Fred C,
You have received a message from another user!
From: DL_Miller1982
Subject: You
Message: Worthless, pedantic douchebags like you are the reason that British people have a bad name in this country.
To continue the conversation, click this link:"
Namecalling gets you nowhere in this world.

Answer 4

In the word "know" the k is silent. In the word "psyche" the p is silent. "Subtle" has a silent b and "eight" has a silent gh. There are many examples in the English language. I'm sure you could search on Google and find a website with the full list if you're really interested.

Answer 5

Why does any one make a fuss about spelling. You are considered stupid if you can not spell well, but if you have problems with mathematics than that is acceptable. I am a hopeless speller but far from stupid, topping my class in mathematics. In Australia we had adopted the English way of spelling in schools however our computer usually spell the American way. It is very confusing for our children.

Answer 6

Because English is not a purely phonetic language, or els eeven everiwun wood bee raiting laik this. It's the eccentricities of the English language that give it so much character and flavour. That is why we don't write phonetically, and that is also why we tolerate so many grammatical inconsistencies.

Yes, American spelling is somewhat simpler, but it's still not purely phonetic. If you're not going to spell it "kuhler," you might as well spell it "colour."

Answer 7

Well, what's the point of words like right and neighbor and phlegm and cough and remove and knight and knee and lamb?

I don't think the British have the monopoly on silent lettered words.

Answer 8

It's called the "Queen's English". It's screwy, but most countries are taught to write in Queen's English. Except for the far east, I believe. (Is calling it the "far east" even PC anymore? Shoot... I have a new question...)

Answer 9

i dont know, you're right. i went to a british school when i was young, and some of the words i spell are the same old way :/ kinda tough being here in the states.
i'm working on changing my accent too.

please help me with my question:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AucXISjcyPRVdFV_La9tKZXsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071028173117AAKZLar

Answer 10

The UK is close to France. French is known to have plenty of extra letters in its words (in case of blowouts.) So the Brits have a few extras to make the French more comfortable.