I read in !emc-pstc that Pettit, Ghery <ghery.pet...@intel.com> wrote (in <d9223eb959a5d511a98f00508b68c20c12515...@orsmsx108.jf.intel.com>) about 'English vs. American - very off topic, but in line with curre nt thread Re: Definition ?' on Fri, 25 Oct 2002:
>Not to mention the lack of agreement on how to spell certain words that are >used on both sides. Color vs. colour, for example. What's with these extra >letters, anyway? Got an uncle in the ink business? ;-) No, that was a phenomenon of the 12th to 15th centuries, when scribes were paid by the letter. That's how we got some of those English place names with unlikely pronunciations: Happisburgh ('Hazebury') Trottiscliffe ('Trosley') There are some personal names, too, which may have been affected in the same way. The 'color/colour' business is partly chance, AIUI, and partly various proposals for US spelling reform, e.g. those by Noah Webster, whose more outré proposals didn't catch on, but simpler ones did. When I was a small boy, the Dewey classification index, the biggest book on display in the public library, used Dewey's proposed spellings, and a footnote on every page said 'Topics in bold type **ar** subdivided.' -- Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Interested in professional sound reinforcement and distribution? Then go to http://www.isce.org.uk PLEASE do NOT copy news posts to me by E-MAIL! ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: majord...@ieee.org with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: emc-p...@hypercom.com Dave Heald: davehe...@attbi.com For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"