# Spelling: American v. British **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889 "2016-06-20T14:22:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889/41 "2016-06-22T13:48:46Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Not more L1 speakers. I don’t know about L2 speakers, or L1 + L2. But sure, through Indian spelling into the mix. And then we throw in your spellchecker 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889/42 "2016-06-22T15:11:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And then we throw in your spellchecker 😃 Aaugh! Those aren’t even homonyms! (At first I didn’t even spot the error, and thought you meant that the default spellcheckers in MS Word, etc., are set to US English.) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889/43 "2016-06-22T23:51:52Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > And while I’m posting in the thread, does anyone know why some of Webster’s reforms were picked up and made standard American spelling, while others were dropped like hot potatoes, like “iland”? Not sure we can say for sure. But note that his spelling books had much more influence than his dictionaries. That may be the main reason right there. Also note that the spelling changes he wanted changed over time. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889/44 "2016-06-23T00:29:08Z")
Here is the NGram Viewer chart for /color, colour/ in American usage. Americans preferred “colour”, until about 1830, when “color” began to appear, and within about 30 years, the changeover was complete. > **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=color%2Ccolour&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccolor%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccolour%3B%2Cc0)** > > Google Books Ngram Viewer ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889/45 "2016-06-27T04:02:11Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > But there’s no “Commonwealth spelling” either. Most Commonwealth countries are more likely to use the same spelling as Britain rather than the US, but this varies. In Australia, for example, “program” is the standard spelling for all senses of that word (as in the US, but not as in the UK). And I’m pretty sure that some US spellings are standard in Canada also. Hmm… actually we call it “the Queen’s English”, or “King’s English”. Its not a strict rule, no need to cite counter examples. As to weather Webster was the responsible person , I’d say so, because when Carergie’s mob tried to simplify spelling, they did check through the three most popular dictionaries for the USA, for the current popularity of their first 300 words to official declare (if it succeeded , it might have then become known as Carnegie’s English, Roosevelt’s English or The Presidents English… ) They found that the later dictionaries had more of the Webster reforms than the older Webster dictionary, see the following URL, nytimes 1906. I suppose they counted the change of the suffix “ed” to “t” as one word, so as to keep it from making the statistics look bad. Thats one reform that won’t be mist. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E03EEDC1E3EE733A2575BC1A9609C946797D6CF](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E03EEDC1E3EE733A2575BC1A9609C946797D6CF) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-american-v-british/757889.md?page=2)