When will *insert web site* learn to spell?

Ma Fellow Americans, what were you forefathers thinking?

In particular, what was Noah Webster (of Webster's Dictionary fame) thinking when he duplicated and modified common words in an attempt to "dumb down" English spelling 200 years ago?

Butterfly effect? A relatively small fiddle with a few words ripples across two centuries creating turmoil in the international language of commerce, programming, education and - as the Internet's franca lingua - has taken on a new and rapidly growing life.

Noah and Ben Franklin had noble intentions but why stop at a few dozen words and leave the other half million? Favourite or favorite, travelling or traveling, behaviour or behavior? ALL are too hard to learn if you've never spelt them before, so why bother? Great as these two men were, and dire was America's illiteracy, they sadly underestimated our ability with language.

Consequences followed as night, day:

• Americans found themselves with two spellings for each word

• The rest of the English-speaking world (today, conservatively, 300-400 million including bilinguals) must contend with "is my audience American or Everyone else?"

• All over the world, a million times a day, we are asked by software: "US English or English English?"

• US readers complain to non-US web sites about their lousy spelling - sadly unaware of all that is written here.

If we may pick on poor Noah (a man of far greater achievement than we can imagine) as somewhat misguided:

• He sought to unify American regional spelling by regionalizing American spelling withing the English speaking world!!

• A cheap shot, we know, but his first book titled "A Grammatical Institute of the English Language" was, by those lowly folk for whom it was ultimately intended, known instead as the "Blue-backed Speller" because of its blue cover. Wonder why? (yes, we know, that was part 1, the Elementary Spelling Book)

Dear reader, this website uses American (U.S.A.) English for most news and science stories.

Occasionally stories of local Aussi interest revert to English English. Actually, according to Microsoft Word and Windows 2000, it is 'Australian English' - but last time I looked there was no difference, except additional indigenous words. Perhaps the Redmond linguists believe Australians write with an accent (oops, we do. Link to article).

One part of me enjoys the living language. Since school days, the verb 'to lay' has universally replaced 'to lie' for reclining. Still, change is good. I am comfortable with American spelling, as I am with your accent, but still prefer to spell the way I was taught.

Another part of me is infuriated by imprecise communication. As millions of computer programmers know, syntax is precise, the penalty: failure. Programming languages might differ slightly, or completely, but stick to the rules or it won't work.

Some communication anecdotes - not spelling-related but 'errors' in meaning:

Not trivial. The verb "to table": British English speakers wnat things tabled immediately if important, while Americans would insist it not be tabled important! To the British the term means "discuss now", to Americans it means "defer".

Comical. Nothing gets the non-US television viewer's attention faster than those cute little phrases beloved of American news presenters. To the rest of us, "We'll be back momentarily" means "when we come back, it'll only be for a moment". A moment is renowned as being a really short time, like a second if you're lucky. This seems to be a case of highly remunerated communicators losing the plot while fumbling with their primary tool of trade (the cute reversal of meaning extends back to early last century. How does it happen?).

Ironically writing on the Web we have the worst of all worlds: two very similar languages with a large, often belligerent, audience unaware of this - believing others cannot spell. George Bernard Shaw observed the United States and Britain "two countries divided by a common language".

End of rant. For a much more intelligent and good-natured approach you would enjoy Reg Connolly's article.

And for one of those fabulous reference web sites which alone justifies the entire Internet infrastructure, bookmark NationMaster.com - have a looksee, y'all.