Round cruller
And British English itself has a ton of variants, but this thread is about spelling, not dialects.
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.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone claim that English has any purity in any of its forms. It’s a mishmash no matter what angle you’re coming from. British English isn’t pure, it just predates American spelling, 'tis all.
For some people, that’s all that matters, it seems. “Purer” is how some people have put it to me, but also “more traditional” and the like. Me, I use the English spellings, but I don’t fetishize them.
English is a language you don’t so much speak as you chew on it and spit it out.
If you want tradition, how about this: the English were attempting spelling reform long before there was such a thing as America.
Since Webster, a number of famous and otherwise influential Americans have proposed simplified spelling. The Simplified Spelling Board was:
Melville Dewey, yes, the Dewey Decimal Dewey, was such a nut on the subject that when he was the librarian of Columbia University he changed the spelling of his name to Melvil Duy. The Board said uh-uh you nut. Dewey left instead of giving in. But he compromised and for the rest of his life he spelled his name Melvil Dewey.
You might also notice Mark Twain’s name on the list. He has a famous little piece on the subject.
That doesn’t read like Twain’s writing, which in turn makes me suspicious about the Carnegie and Dewey stories. I can think of other reasons why Dewey’s name was spelled inconsistently, such as the fact that variant name spellings were ridiculously common before the increasing literacy and record-sharing enforced standardization.
Can you provide a cite that it isn’t a modern piece attributed to Twain?
I found this:
Not often I get fooled, but I guess I did. Sorry about that.
That Twain advocated spelling reform is beyond doubt. A Simplified Alphabet is a real piece from 1899, found in any number of Twain collections.
Variant spellings of names were common in Shakespeare’s time, but not the late 19th century. That Dewey shortened his name is well know. Here’s a mention in print from America’s College Fraternities. However, most references cite his spelling as Duiinstead of Duy. I’ve done a lot of research on him: he had fingers in an amazing number of pots.
No worries—happens to everyone.
In genealogy research, I find tons of name variation in the 19th century. These are poorly educated people having their names written down by officials who didn’t know them personally, though; nothing comparable to Dewey’s situation. Here I’ll defer to your expertise.
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”?
My point being that English is the language of England, hence the name. There’s English and there’s American English, which is a dialect. Now, there are many dialects of English, but the authoritative way to spell English is the English way. That’s why English is called English.
I mean, you can claim that the French dialect of Senegal is somehow more important than French French, if you like, but outside of Senegal you’re going to look pretty silly. Well, to me, that’s not much different from Americans calling English “British English”. No, it’s English. What Americans speak is a dialect thereof.
I have often asserted on the Straight Dope that the English invented a language they cannot speak.
It seems that Mark train didn’t actually write this - It seems that the “original” was
actually written in the 1940s. The writer was W.K. Lessing, who wrote
the piece under the pseudonym of Dolton Edwards, although this is disputed - maybe someone on TSD can find the answer?
This, however is much more recent, although the author is also unknown:
*The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English.”
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c.” Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k.” This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f.” This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v.”
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis & evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.*
You are making an argument based on geographical priority (the people in England speak the main dialect). You could equally make an argument based on historical priority (the first people to codify the spelling win—England again) but you could also make an argument on numerical priority (the largest country wins), in which case US spelling makes the most sense. Or you could try to make an argument based on consistency of internal logic, in which case they all lose.
You’re acting as if there was one English dialect in England. In fact there are 63,042. One for each village, and a half-dozen for each city.
Surely India has more English speakers than the US? Or am I wrong about that?
Not more L1 speakers. I don’t know about L2 speakers, or L1 + L2. But sure, through Indian spelling into the mix.
It depends on whether you include only those who are fluent (English speakers) or just being able to get by in a basic conversation (English users). The former, you get somewhere around 125 million, or less than half as many as the U.S. With the latter, you get 350 million, or about 50 million more.