Lost in Translation--US vs UK English words

[OC Richard]

Oh yes the spelling! The evil that Noah Webster cast over US English!

Many attempts at spelling reform in English have been proposed and attempted over the last 400 years, but the only one that got widespread usage was Webster's.

Noah made a dictionary, and decided to change spellings to whatever he felt made most sense.

Some were large leaps:

gaol became jail
kerb became curb

but often it was simply reversing the last two letters:

centre became center
theatre became theater (though I often see both theatre and centre around here).

Then there was leaving out doubled letters

jewellery became jewelery
travelling became traveling

or lopping off the end as in

catalogue becoming catalog
programme becoming program.

Then there's leaving out the u so that:
colour became color
honour became honor

and many many more.

I personally dislike all of Webster's innovations and prefer the original spellings.

What's odd is that I've seen a combination of US and old spelling in things written in Canada and Australia.