Americans speak English, yet they mis-spell English words - i.e. Colour becomes Color - why is this?

Question

Why does Microsoft offer "US English" and "UK English" as it's options when carrying out a spell check on word documents - there is no such thing as US English. English is English, not US.

Sorry Americans but I disagree - there is no such thing as US or American English - if you change the languauge then surely it should be called American - yes there are very slight differences but it's still not English if it's been changed.

Sorry Americans but still don't agree - if you liken the English language having "spawned" words from the French, Italian, German language then surely you are agreeing with what I have said because we then adopted our own language and it was called English therefore if you have spawned our language and changed it then it should be called American - not American English?

Thanks to everyone for taking part in this debate - to the ignorant person who deleted it - Its' back so why don't you try contributing with something intelligent?

Answer 1

Because US english is not English, it's an ugly distortion of it. If you think they misspell words in English you should hear them speaking it. Even Cockney is more elegant than US English.

Answer 2

Yeah, there IS such a thing as US English. Once upon a time English spawn off from Germanic language, and is now it's own, distinct language along with German, French, Spanish. There are less differences between UK English and US English, but there are distinct spelling and phonetic differences.
Neither is 'right' or 'wrong' - it just is. This is a natural occurrence in language when groups are separated into two different regions.

Edited to Add: No, they aren't two distinct languages. If they were, you and I wouldn't be understanding each other right now. They are the same language, with variations in spelling and speech. Just like Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Mexico are both Spanish but have differences in how they pronounce certain sounds and words. Also true with French in France and French in Canada. There are differences there but it's the same language.
Maybe all the languages in North America would have eventually evolved into completely different languages, but with the invention of air travel, computer, etc. that is quite unlikely to happen now.

Answer 3

Actually there is American English and English English. The words are not misspelled, just spelled differently. One of the differences is , as you mentioned, Americans spell color and flavor without the letter "U". There are also differences in word pronounciation and usage. Some of these differences go back to the time of the American Revolution when the Americans (formerly the Colonists) wanted to stress the differences between themselves and the English. That is also the reason why Americans drink coffee more than tea. During and after the Revolution, drinking tea was a sign of support for the British and the Monarchy while drinking coffee was a sign of support for the Revolution.

Answer 4

It's just the difference between English and American spelling,I really have no idea but at the same time there is an American band called Living Colour,but if they are an American band why do they spell it the way the Old Original English would, I will rate this as a good question.

Answer 5

Ah, not so.

The first thing to bear in mind that the biggest editors of the English langauge are the English themselves. If you look back at old spellings, you will see how words have been simplified.

For example, the sherrif is a shortening of the "shire reeve". The English had smoothed down, edited, simplified and homogenised much of their langauge long before the Americans got their hands on it.

There is a tendency to think of English as something that is time honoured, preserved, pristine and that the Americans came along with the sole intention of butchering the langauge of Shakespeare.

This is not so. English is ever changing, ever transforming.

The Americans did take to the further simplification and regularisation of English in the most systematic way throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The change was wide in scale and happened over a comparatively short period of time. Their variation became known as Amercian English.

In their view, and it is one that is not without some merit, many spellings were unneccesarily complex and did not reflect the pronunciation of the word. For example, boatswain is pronounced bosun, so why not just spell it bosun.

The differences can be put down at a base level to:
- spelling simplifications
- pronunciation differences
- American use of nouns to make verbs ("I will venue the meeting for you")
- different meaning of words (e.g. momentarily - in UK means, for a very short time, in US means soon: watch Brits catching flights in the UK get twitchy when the captain promises that they will be in the air momentarily).
- syntactical simplifications (petty example - one hundred twenty thousand in the US, but the Brits will say one hundred and twenty thousand).

The former colonies of the UK tend to use UK English, everyone else, American English (with an American accent).

get really into it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_english

Answer 6

Back when English people settled here in America, they spoke the same language as their brothers and sisters back home, and spelled everything the same. Since that time, American and British English has developed separately. Around 1800 our British cousins started adding French-looking spellings to their writing to fancy it up while Americans kept it simple and easy.

Not only has American English maintained proper orthography, we have also kept the rhotic "r" at the end of syllables and escaped the horrid vowel shift that the Australians and South Africans suffer from.

Answer 7

Since the United states is such a melting pot of other countries and their languages our English is different in some instences from the mother country. :) Also some words have just evolved and since they are mainstream they are put into the dictionary like y-all for you all.
It is just like when a different area has a different dialect. Some areas of the country pronounce the same word completely different than others.

Answer 8

English is both a language and a nationality.

The Scots speak English but has anyone tried understanding Sir Alex Ferguson? Jeez...

Just as there are different words, there are different rules for writing.

Similar differences also occur in the German spoken in Switzerland. They always write 'ss' instead of the 'ß'.

Answer 9

i know how you feel but the people in America often spell things slightly differently like color verses colour or theater verses theatre. England is very far away from America so different spellings were adopted. but yes both are English. There is just more than one way to spell a word.

Answer 10

Since you already made up your mind, you will disagree with me that there is a language called American (US) English, with dictionaries defining the proper spelling. It's a fact and the rest is denial.

Answer 11

Brits and Canadians use alot more 'ou's liek colour, neighbour as opposed to Americans who dropped it a long time ago. Other differences is the use of 'shop' instead of 'store' (more American). It's technically all English, it has just diverged to be more unique to the region it's spoken