Computing and Politics

[James Knott]

Henry Spencer wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Hugh Reilly wrote:
> 
>>Actually, I just heard that the "American" spellings were created by Webster 
>>(of Webster's Dictionary fame) who was doing his patriotic duty...
> 
> 
> A number of them were created by Benjamin Franklin -- for example, he's
> responsible for us writing "jail" instead of "gaol" -- who simply got fed
> up with the obscure stupidities of British spelling, and as a writer and
> publisher, was in a position to popularize his own version.

Many of the British pronunciations are just plain strange.  I suspect 
that some of them were simply a fad at one point and became standard 
usage.  There are many where the pronunciation has little to do with the 
spelling.

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