# American Incorrect Spelling **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 7, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185 "2005-10-07T14:12:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cstamets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@cstamets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cstamets)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/41 "2005-10-08T13:20:54Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Libertarians would win. We have all the guns! 😃 Guns shmuns… Libertarians would win becasue they have Jesse Ventura. Republicans may think they’d win because they have Arnold, but I’d take Jesse over Arnold in a steel cage any day. If the Libertarians pushed for a six-man tag match, they’d win for sure. Who is Arnold going to get to team with? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/42 "2005-10-08T16:40:04Z")
One more point for you Brits to ponder: what you call your mother. A mommy is who kisses you at bedtime A mummy is a wrapped-up corpse. Got it? ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/43 "2005-10-08T16:43:22Z")
> [@The Flying Dutchman](#): > > Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly? Why do British spell “color” incorrectly ? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/44 "2005-10-08T18:08:10Z")
Is an American “pedophile” someone sexually attracted to feet? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/45 "2005-10-08T19:03:27Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > It was we who changed the name… > > It was us who changed the name… > > Actually, shouldn’t the ‘who’ be ‘that’? No. It shouldn’t. People are “who” and objects are “that.” ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/46 "2005-10-08T20:44:09Z")
Why do we British write colour and you guys color? As intimated above, Johnson and Webster are the respective reasons. Mencken in [The American Language](http://www.bartleby.com/185/32.html) gives the details. Excerpt begins: During the eighteenth century, however, and especially after the publication of Johnson’s dictionary, there was a general movement in England toward a more inflexible orthography, and many hard and fast rules, still surviving, were then laid down. It was Johnson himself who established the position of the u in the -our words. Bailey, Dyche and other lexicographers before him were divided and uncertain; Johnson declared for the u, and though his reasons were very shaky and he often neglected his own precept, his authority was sufficient to set up a usage which still defies attack in England. Even in America this usage was not often brought into question until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. True enough, honor appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson’s original draft it is spelled honour. So early as 1768 Benjamin Franklin had published his “Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Remarks and Examples Concerning the Same, and an Enquiry into its Uses” and induced a Philadelphia typefounder to cut type for it, but this scheme was too extravagant to be adopted anywhere, or to have any appreciable influence upon spelling. It was Noah Webster who finally achieved the divorce between English example and American practise. He struck the first blow in his “Grammatical Institute of the English Language,” published at Hartford in 1783. Attached to this work was an appendix bearing the formidable title of “An Essay on the Necessity, Advantages and Practicability of Reforming the Mode of Spelling, and of Rendering the Orthography of Words Correspondent to the Pronunciation,” and during the same year, at Boston, he set forth his ideas a second time in the first edition of his “American Spelling Book.” ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/47 "2005-10-08T23:57:29Z")
Isn’t it really the fault of the French that the English misspell these “our” words? Isn’t that “u” really a vestigial, romantic, extraneousness? Seems like it might be a pretention of royalty and the influence of the French language on the rulemakers injected into English spelling rules. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/48 "2005-10-09T00:20:08Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Isn’t that “u” really a vestigial, romantic, extraneousness? Probably, but the same could be said of just about any part of the English language; on the whole, it really is rather unphonetic and is littered with legacy and redundancy; that America has decided to adopt a handful of what are considered to be corrections, is rather trifling compared to that which remains ‘uncorrected’. For example, the word ‘eight’ - what’s that all about? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/49 "2005-10-09T00:20:12Z")
> [@Fridgemagnet](#): > > US English spelling will ultimately supplant UK English spelling, purely due to cultural domination and Microsoft spell checkers. A shame really, but all things must pass I suppose. Actually, you can change the dictionary used for Spellcheck from the default American English one. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/50 "2005-10-09T00:25:53Z")
> [@dwalin](#): > > Actually, you can change the dictionary used for Spellcheck from the default American English one. I don’t remember _needing to_; the MS Office installer must have detected my regional settings from Windows. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/51 "2005-10-09T00:46:16Z")
> [@The Flying Dutchman](#): > > Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly? This is probably the 8,915th time the missing/present “u” thing has been brought up on the SDMB, usually in a snotty, “why do you do it wrong?” fashion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/52 "2005-10-09T01:04:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > This is probably the 8,915th time the missing/present “u” thing has been brought up on the SDMB, usually in a snotty, “why do you do it wrong?” fashion. Thankyou for your answer to my question, and you can be sure that I won’t trouble you again with this question. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/53 "2005-10-09T07:18:30Z")
> [@The Flying Dutchman](#): > > Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly? It’s because we don’t like “u”!! ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/54 "2005-10-09T07:46:55Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > For example, the word ‘eight’ - what’s that all about? Man get outta here! No really! That is so weird! 8 days ago I posted about [the Ogdoad](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6641694#post6641694) and tonight I bought items at a gas station that totaled $8.88. The shirt of the employee that helped me posed a profound question, “What’s in your tank?”. I thought to myself, “A small fortune in octane?” Eight has been imposing upon me in the cosmic scheme lately and it makes me question it’s randomness and greater meaning… ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/55 "2005-10-09T12:03:59Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Or, if you want the proper answer, it was us (the English) who changed the name Aluminum to Alumin **i** um; the yanks just left it as it was. Having been caught out by this before, I did some research. In fact, it started out with its oxide being named “alumine” from the root alum, when it was theorised to be an oxide of some unknown metal. When that metal was found and shown to be elemental by Davy, “alumium” was proposed with the “-ium” added for consistency with _most_ of the rest of the periodic table. This being somewhat awkward to pronounce, both aluminum (Davy) and aluminium (some unknown guy) were more or less simultaneously and independently adopted. Again, the reasoning behind the latter spelling was to preserve consistency, “-inum” elements being undeniably less common. It wasn’t a US / rest-of-world thing, either, as “aluminium” was actually quite prevalent in the US (appearing in Webster’s in 1828 and even 1913), and the two were used widely just about everywhere for most of the 1800s. It only became the US standard after Hall started advertising his process with “aluminum” after patenting it. But in his patent, he used “aluminium”. So basically, anyone who says “ours is the right one” is wrong, and let that be an end to it. We didn’t change the US one, they didn’t change ours; we both changed “alumium”, farted around for about 80-90 years using both spellings, then by fluke of fate ended up using different ones. [Cite](http://www.world-aluminium.org/history/language.html), [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Nomenclature_history). ---
**Author:** ![Sarah\_Woodruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sarah\_Woodruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarah_Woodruff)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/56 "2005-10-10T08:17:12Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > When my mom was working at Gibbs Flight Service (MYF, San Diego) one of the pilots who rented there would say, ‘Whom, I?’ **Johnny** you should check out [Dick Emery](http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/d/dickemeryshowthe_7772490.shtml). “Are you the Vicar?” DE: “I am he!” **seosamh** , that mistake could have been because the Australian party is called the **Labor** Party. Stupid but hey, it was renamed so we couldn’t confuse it with the English Labour Party. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/57 "2005-10-10T09:01:20Z")
While we’re on the subject (sort of), does anyone know why **theatre** became **theater**? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/58 "2005-10-10T09:15:40Z")
I think that (and centre-\>center) was also part of Webster’s spelling reform. ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/59 "2005-10-10T09:43:12Z")
**Sarah Woodruff** - You are right; that’s probably why the mistake was made. “Jeez! Those Poms can’t even spell their own name right!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185.md?page=2)