May 2011

Culture Clash: British and American Spelling

The much anticipated royal wedding took place this month, and though the grand event didn't drive lookups of words like nuptial or princess, it does give us an opportunity to examine an oft-asked question: why do we spell words differently from the British?

Noah Webster was inspired to create a dictionary of American English because he was struck by the inconsistencies of English spelling and the obstacles it presented to learners. It also bothered him that Americans were learning from British texts; he wanted to establish a truly American language that would represent a declaration of cultural independence from Britain. In 1806 he published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. In it, he not only defined unique American terms but also Americanized spellings of words largely based on phonetics.