What do you think about british/american spelling differences?

Often American differences from current English are because of a very curious reason. That reason being that the American spelling was the traditional one when they left British shores, and the British are the ones who have updated the spelling. Happens more often than you'd think.

Although Aluminum is a strange one. The British discoverer called it alum, alumina, aluminum and finally aluminium. Aluminium was the preferred name in the USA too, except dictionary editors preferred aluminum. At the end of the Victorian age, both spellings were used equally in the USA and then the use of aluminium just dropped off until it finally became virtually extinct.

No-one is to blame. No-one is wrong. All you're seeing there is the evolution of words throughout time. They're like rocks rubbing against each other; always liable to be shaped differently over time.

The most important thing to note is that because one person is right, it doesn't make someone who disagrees with them wrong. They could also be right too, even contrarily.

North America is 1000s of miles away from the origin of the language, so expecting them to maintain every aspect of English over 100s of years is unreasonable.

Languages develop and evolve naturally, and diverge over time from their roots. We might wrinkle our noses up because we find certain spelling or grammatical differences weird to us, but that's not a reason to say one is right and the other is wrong.

The only thing I get annoyed with is when I'm corrected by an American when I've spelt (not spelled) a word the standard British way. We should all accept our linguistic differences, and if we think something is incorrect, make sure we have evidence more than just "That's not how I would write it!"

does it really matter? seriously people are we so immature that we are fighting about spelling differences????? i think we should all step back and rethink our attitudes

I couldn't care less so long as the meaning's clear.

I don't think either of them are "more correct". Anyone who gets self-righteous about it being "their language" is welcome to die in a fire.

Since the founding of America the language on both sides of the pond has changed so dramatically that I wouldn't be opposed to calling it a new language entirely. No, Americans are not speaking the same language the British made up all that time ago. Neither are modern Brits.

Even if you don't buy that it's a new language, at the very least it's a new dialect, again, on both sides of the pond. No one in the world is speaking the same English that was invented in Britain.

I am from Canada, and we use alot of the same spellings as our British Fore fathers. And I bloody well feel that our way of spelling the English Language is the only way to go. I feel that our American Counterparts have not only botched our way of spelling but also the way to use the English language. Ta-ta.

4392Moron

The British spellings are actually adaptations from proper English, but are considered more "modern" and "up-to-date" so they're mostly used by douchebags

I think sometimes British people are just trying to be contrary!!

Everyone should know that they are two distinct languages by now. We didn't want to be a part of England and we still don't want to be. Who wants to be compared to those butter toothe bastards? Not me.

Does not matter in the least.

Who Gives a fuck? does it really matter which spelling you use? As long as I know what you are saying, I could care less how you spelled it. (But I have joked with my sister about text speak all the time lol)

British spellings are correct. The reason why American English spellings are wrong, is because it is not the correct evolution of the English language. The language comes from England, therefore it should follow the way the English help it to evolve.

It you want to get technical, and day American English is correct, because it has the original spellings, then you would have to go further, and say that Elizabethan English has the right spellings, since it is the earliest form of our type of English. You would have to spell 'friend' as 'frend', and place the verb before the subject in a question: 'to where went thou?', instead of 'where did you go?'.

colour beats color. grey beats gray. its only logical.

I like the differences. It adds character and context to the written word.