Spelling change (or not), and Americanisms

Right then - today we looked at spelling history, and some of the reasons why English spelling is far removed from what it used to sound like. (The sheets you have were written by a guy called Steve Campsall, who runs the rather spiffing www.englishbiz.co.uk site; I'd feel a bit cheeky linking them here and seemingly claiming them as my own, so if you've lost yours come and see me). Trust me - these will help.

Following that, we looked at this old text, and I'm about to point you in the direction of some more just like it.

I really can't believe I haven't pushed the British Library site more than this, but there you are; I'm doing it now. Over half term, set aside an hour to have a good root around. I'll be setting homework from this in the next couple of weeks, but for now, I command you to kill 40 minutes checking this out. Solid gold.

Anyway, from there we started to look at the future of spelling, and the use of American English. To be honest, I reckon it's a little tricky to separate American spellings from American lexis (in terms of a discussion about them becoming more widespread in British English), but I don't think it'll distract you from the point.  Anyhow, start by reading this article here - if you can't tell me what Jean Aitcheson would make of the article then there'll be trouble... (and if you're feeling bone idle, then you can check out the audio version here)

Secondly, have a look at Dan Clayton's take on it, which he covered on his blog, with some excellent points that I'm not going to paraphrase, but do look at the blog Separated by a Common Language that he mentions - some of it might appear a bit steep, but check out the tags on the left hand side and you'll quickly find something that is accessible.

Finally, make sure you check out the infographic about UK and US spelling differences - it's on a previous post because it was my first attempt at embedding code on my blog and....and... please don't judge me. I'm a sad case. I know.