• Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Noah Webster dropped the ‘u’ on words as well as otherwise changed the spelling of many words in ‘American’ English.

    • Chewget@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Words are changed when their commonly changed… webster took note. Lol

      • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Nah, Webster really did drop the ‘u’ and changed a lot of spelling. He also learned a lot of languages since back then there were many, many different languages/dialects in America at the time and he wanted to make it easier as he changed spellings, such as swapping ‘re’ to ‘er’ for phonetics. There was also a lot of anti-British sentiment at the time of course which certainly would have motivated acceptance.

        Webster is definitely also credited for this in histories and not newspapers outside of anecdotes.

        • Zip2@feddit.uk
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          1 month ago

          I’d also heard it suggested that the date was written the “British” way, and post civil war was when they started writing them incorrectly.