5-4-Friday… American Englands

The Oxford Dictionaries’ site says;

“There’s a widespread belief that these spellings belong only to American English, and that British English should use the ‘-ise’ forms instead, i.e. realise, finalise, and organise.

In fact, the ‘-ize’ forms have been in use in English spelling since the 15th century: they didn’t originate in American use, even though they are now standard in US English.”

So you have a choice. However, neither correct spelling nor conventional grammar concerns most posters here. It makes a refreshing change when a poster ends a sentence with a full stop and starts the next one with a capital letter.

Aluminium was originally spelt and pronounced the American way before being changed to fit in with the convention of ending elements with ium. Coming from the Latin “alumen” for bitter salt, aluminum does seem like an appropriate spelling.

In 1847, Oscar Wilde wrote in The Canterville Ghost;

‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.’

You’re quite right; it was apparently published in 1882.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900); I wonder what career his parents had in mind for him when they chose those names.

Some of the American spellings were deliberately introduced by Noah Webster;

“He believed fervently in the developing cultural independence of the United States, a chief part of which was to be a distinctive American language with its own idiom, pronunciation, and style.

“One facet of Webster’s importance was his willingness to innovate when he thought innovation meant improvement. He was the first to document distinctively American vocabulary such as skunk, hickory, and chowder.

“Reasoning that many spelling conventions were artificial and needlessly confusing, he urged altering many words: musick to music, centre to center, and plough to plow, for example.”