Re: [OT] British vs. American English

[Lisi <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

On Sunday 02 October 2011 15:51:52 Nate Bargmann wrote:
> * On 2011 02 Oct 07:59 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote:
> > Similarly, center is the
> > American spelling and centre is the British spelling.  Same word,
> > same meaning.  How the spelling differences came about I have no
> > idea.
>
> I always though the 're' instead of an 'er' was a French thing.  Only
> within the past few weeks have I learned that the Brits claim the
> credit/accept the blame for that one.  ;-)

Which Brits??  I have never met anyone who would claim that!!  -re is, as you 
say, French and came over originally with the Normans.  -er is American 
(used, anyhow in the United States).

But British English uses both, which, as a child who attended French, American 
and British schools in turn, I found very confusing and only finally sorted 
out recently. Logic works however:  i.e. the length came over form France, 
but a good deal more recently than 1066, and is spelt metre, but the use of 
electric power came over from the States, so a machine for measuring/keeping 
track of electricity is called a meter.

Lisi