![]() Plus, z is a much cooler letter to write, so there’s that. He did the same to words ending in -ise to make them -ize, because he thought American English spelling should reflect the way it was said. He dropped the letter u from words like colour and honour – which had developed from the French influence in England – to make them color and honor instead. Webster wanted American spelling to not only be more straightforward but different from UK spelling, as a way of America showing its independence from the former British rule. ![]() The American and British dictionaries are very different, because they were compiled by two very different authors with two very different perspectives on language: the UK’s dictionary was compiled by scholars from London (not Oxford, for some reason) who wanted to just collect all known English words, while the American one was made by a lexicographer called Noah Webster. 3. American spelling was invented as a form of protest This is why British English has more linguistic similarities to French than American English, and also explains our obsession with croissants. ![]() Of course, Americans were already living their lives across the Atlantic and didn’t take part in this trend at all. The second time was during the 1700s, when it became super trendy in the UK to use French-style words and spelling. It didn’t stick around, but instead evolved into Middle English, which was a mashup of all the linguistic influences around at the time. The first time was when William the Conqueror invaded Britain in the 11th Century (more on the history of English here), bringing Norman French with him and making it the high language – used in schools, courts, universities, and the upper classes. 2. British English is more like Frenchįrench has influenced English in more ways than English speakers would care to admit. Basically, if you speak English from London, you sound more posh. It also explains why many places outside the south of England still have rhotic pronunciation as part of their regional accents. Of course, these people were posh and everyone wanted to copy them, so this new way of speaking – which British people now refer to as Received Pronunciation – spread across the rest of the south of England. ![]() Meanwhile, back in wealthy southern cities of the UK, people from the new higher classes wanted a way to distinguish themselves from everyone else, so they started changing their rhotic speech to a soft r sound, saying words like winter as “win-tuh” instead of “win-terr”. When the first settlers set sail from England to America, they took with them the common tongue at the time, which was based on something called rhotic speech (when you pronounce the r sound in a word). This isn’t something you should tell to a British person, because we’re the country that gave birth to America as we know it today – but this fact really is true. ![]() But never fear! If you’re learning English in London and want to know what makes your accent different from your friend learning in New York, here’s what you need to know. Everything from putting a z everywhere to words that are spelt the same but sound entirely different when you say them – there’s a whole ocean of linguistic differences (plus an actual physical ocean) between the world’s two major English-speaking players. We may share a language but there’s nothing similar when it comes to hearing someone from the US speak to someone from the UK. ![]()
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