OK. Until Will signs with Little Rock, let's all regularly use the archaic spelling of the word. You never know: it might send a subliminal message.

It's not "archaic" if nearly every other English-speaking nation still spells it that way.

Nearly every other English speaking country is in the British Commonwealth and uses the Queen's spelling. Only "archaic" in dictionaries used in the USA.

(07-14-2010 04:06 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Nearly every other English speaking country is in the British Commonwealth and uses the Queen's spelling. Only "archaic" in dictionaries used in the USA.

Touche'

(07-14-2010 04:22 PM)Robert C Wrote:  

(07-14-2010 04:06 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Nearly every other English speaking country is in the British Commonwealth and uses the Queen's spelling. Only "archaic" in dictionaries used in the USA.

Touche'

You make a very good point. It is interesting how quickly favour became favor, etc.

(07-14-2010 06:15 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  

(07-14-2010 04:22 PM)Robert C Wrote:  

(07-14-2010 04:06 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Nearly every other English speaking country is in the British Commonwealth and uses the Queen's spelling. Only "archaic" in dictionaries used in the USA.

Touche'

You make a very good point. It is interesting how quickly favour became favor, etc.

Noah Webster either invented or championed the "simplified" American spellings and made them "official" at least in the USA. It was a deliberate attempt to create an American English--to "do English" better than England! On the other side of the coin, a great deal of American English grammar and diction is seen as "archaic" in the British Commonwealth because of what we held onto versus what they changed after we split. I'm just talking about the commonly accepted usage and grammar standards (it's the same all over the country), not the slang and dialects of English.

(07-13-2010 07:05 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  OK. Until Will signs with Little Rock, let's all regularly use the archaic spelling of the word. You never know: it might send a subliminal message.

I don't care how they spell it as long as he's wearing a UALR jersey!

I have a copy of "Our Southern Highlanders," written about 100 years ago, which is the definitive work on the prototypical hillbillies in the Appalachians ranges. The author lived among them for several years. He has an entire chapter devoted to their speech patterns. It is interesting how many of their expressions that we would consider ignorant and backwoodsy were actually correct older English usages that had been brought over from the old country and preserved in the almost complete isolation of the mountains.

I learned the same thing taking a course in Old English Literature in college. Words and expressions used by my father and others his age which I thought were backward and due to lack of education, I discovered were correct English as taught to them as they grew up. It's amazing how an innocent post on this board can evolve.