Apparantly I failed ... :D

Two words: Spelling reform.

Successful lexicographers are rare. Successful spelling reformers, even more so.

The British have Johnson's Dictionary (1755); which, while compendious and a wonderful work of philology and literature on its own, pretty much stuck to capturing then-current spelling and usage.

But Americans have long attempted to make this bastard child of a Saxon mother and a Norman father cut off hundreds of years of matted, tangled hair and present himself in an Ivy League and a three-piece suit. Fortunately, only one has had any lasting success: Noah Webster. Though Webster's politics were shamelessly chauvinistic, his "Blue-Backed Speller" and Dictionary (1825) were hugely successful and redefined written English in the US.

For that matter, Americans standardized their customary units of measure long before the British or the Continent; and when the metric system finally became attractive enough to adopt, American science, manufacturing, architecture, engineering, and surveying already had precise and entrenched systems. Only the basic sciences, which require international comprehension and do not produce interchangeable parts, have any good reason to adopt the metric system; in other endeavors, it is a stranger.

The problem with Websters as opposed to the standard UK English isn't really to do with understanding one another we know what color and colour are. The trouble usually manifests when non-English speakers are trying to learn the language they get confused with how a word is supposed to be said. While color might be spelt like that in the US it's still pronounced the same way as in the UK which needs the U. When you try to say it like color it actually sounds more like collar.

But then the English have been butchering their own language long before Dr Johnson was born. Having spent a long time in London I often catch myself saying wa'er instead of water.

Yes, but that makes the presumption that UK English is standard. There may be a standard English within the UK. That English hasn't been standard in the US for over two hundred years. I don't mean to dispute the quality of either standard of English. I just mean to point out that the US, with the intent of creating a standard suitable to the US, did create a different standard English.

I wasn't trying to say UK English is standard, any website needing a cookie will dispute that as it's very rare indeed to see a UK English option. I was just saying that to non-native English speakers they do think English is standard, not US or UK just English so it becomes confusing when they see the different spellings. Also leads to flame wars on the internet when people are accused of not knowing how to spell when they write colour :)

There's a whole load of languages that suffer from this very issue. It's not unique to English. I admit, it would be cool if we had standardized spelling like French (as in, if it sounds like this, it's spelled like that), but we don't and that has nothing at all to do with the spelling variations, it has to do with how English "evolved" and the fact that we didn't throw our shit out in the 1900s like the French did.

You forgot to say "Eu". =p
"Eu gosto!".

Just curious, what bands you listen to?

You know.. best gamegirl is someone sweet and pretty hot who plays games.. Not just triss merigold. Also.. In my bed I have 2 brothers and I thought that I don't fit, so like a bastard I gave my place to one of my brothers.. It was his birthday. Well.. We don't are used to be good with those things but I did good. So, I don't sleep. It's morning soon.. ^^ Infact.. It's morning already. Still, I'll drink my coffee in peace.

Ingenuity of people and their forum threads never seizes to amaze me… especially on GoG.com :)

So this proves my initial hypothesis that we are all closet lesbians. Also I introduced one of my 'girl friends' to prince of persia and she loved it....Think there's something wrong with her though.

Isn't that the best of that what you call forum? =)

Actually, I see this as an argument for hormones. Remember, your gender has as much to do with whether you took a testosterone bath at the right time in the uterus as it does with your chromosomes. Men's testosterone levels drop by 30% when their wives are pregnant. Hormones control a great deal with regards to how we act. You can argue ability to reason until you're blue in the face, most people, most of the time, are ruled by hormones (present company included).

You majored in Biology, didn't you ?

Computer Science:)

I think just our politics show that the 18th century view of reason is flawed.

However, to simplify everything to hormones is an equality gross oversimplification :).

I mean, if hormones were running everything, then why would we even have such a complex brain?

Hormones sure didn't help me pass my math tests at university.

Really, the answer is that human behavior is a complex thing that take into account a multitude of factors, some of which we still don't understand.

For my part, I did a specialization in Computer Sciences and Mathematics&Statistics Major.

However, I do like reading about politics, psychology and philosophy in my spare time not to mention that I did my 2 years of college in Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry and Biology were part of the curriculum).