[OT] American versus British spelling and pronunciation (was: Arbitrary abbreviations in phobos considered ridiculous)

[James Miller]

On 9 March 2012 01:23, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 08/03/2012 11:04, Regan Heath wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:21:00 -0000, Derek <ddparnell at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:38:08 +1100, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:
>>>
>>>> British English may be the more "official" English, with American
>>>> English as a mere
>>>> variation ...
>>>
>>>
>>> In one sense, American English is often a sort of abbreviated version in
>>> which seemingly
>>> superfluous letters are omitted. But in other cases, it more accurately
>>> reflects
>>> pronunciation (colorize verses colourise).
>
>
> Indeed.  Sometimes the British spelling is more logical (judgement versus
> judgment). Sometimes the American spelling is more logical (skeptical versus
> sceptical).
>
>> In Britain (where I live) there are people to pronounce the 'u' in colour,
>> and colourise.
>> The difference is subtle, and I've found many people simply cannot hear
>> it.
>
> <snip>
>
> I'm finding it hard to figure how someone would pronounce the "o" and "u" in
> "colour" separately.
>
> But to me, it's just the same phoneme as found in most -er and -or words.
>
> Stewart.

Being British means that I do notice the differences in pronunciation,
I've pretty much done the opposite to Reagan, gone from England to NZ.
I tend to get frustrated when I can't even correct pronunciation
because nobody can hear the difference!

--
James Miller