There once was a lady from Venus...

[JM1776]

Grammatical pedants like yelling
At other folks' variant spelling.
But the rules that they use
Tend to daze and confuse
And many won't buy what they're selling.

Good one, Christopher.

In reply:

Pretentious 'free thinkers' will often
Assert that the pedants should soften
Their unyielding stance
But they too look askance
When some imbecile spells coughin' 'coffin.'

 

[MikeS]

On those examples--whose scientific community? I notice you come from England, so your spelling rules do not hold here no matter how much you might think you can enforce them.

From where do you think English originated?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

On those examples--whose scientific community? I notice you come from England, so your spelling rules do not hold here no matter how much you might think you can enforce them.

From where do you think English originated?

While the language originated in England, spelling rules were extremely inconsistent when America first started to be colonized. The settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, for instance, occurred in 1607. It took until about the 1800s for all spellings to stabilize--by which time America was not only its own nation, but had been physically separated from the UK for nearly 200 years (that long separation also explains why our accents are so different from most other English-speaking countries). This is a very different situation from, say, the colonization of New Zealand and Australia, where by then the spelling system HAD been codified, as well as a different situation from Canada, which continued to answer to the British Crown beyond the point where the spelling system became codified, whereas America did not.

 

[Christopher]

What "codified" spelling systems was the emergence of dictionaries. Basically, spelling had previously been fluid, adapting to shifting pronunciations and regional dialects. Dictionaries locked spelling down into a single standardized form no matter how much pronunciation changed across time and region (which is why so many spellings seem strange and counterintuitive today). Basically (and this is a simplification), British English spellings reflect the way British English was pronounced in 1755 when Samuel Johnson published his dictionary, and American English spellings reflect the way American English was pronounced in 1828 when Noah Webster published his dictionary.

 

[MikeS]

I must admit that after reading Bill Brysons "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" I believe the Americans had it correct in the Aluminium - Aluminum debate. (Aluminum follows the pattern set down by Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium and Calcium)

You may wonder why some countries use the aluminum spelling and others use aluminium. Well, the metal was discovered in the early 19th century by the British scientist, Humphrey Davy, who also discovered potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. It is perhaps surprising that aluminium was discovered so late in human history given that it is the fourth most abundant element on earth.
Davy called the metal alumium which has the -ium ending adopted for most metallic elements. But later he decided to change the name to aluminum, and this name was picked up by Americans. However, the British word smiths where unhappy that this did not follow the rules of English so invented the name aluminium.

 

[S'kai]

There once was a lady from Venus,
Who was seriously into Green-ness.
When I went to a tree
Cause I had to pee,
She tried to cut off my penis.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

There once was a captain named Picard
Who told his first officer, the retard
"Hey, you stupid joker,
I beat you at poker
Now I'm gonna go fuck Troi really hard"

 

[NCC1968]

At least she was not from Nantucket..........

 

[JoeD80]

What "codified" spelling systems was the emergence of dictionaries. Basically, spelling had previously been fluid, adapting to shifting pronunciations and regional dialects. Dictionaries locked spelling down into a single standardized form

Some other random spelling facts: I and J were the same letter for some time, Thomas Jefferson used the initials T. I. Also, U and V were still the same letter in the early 1900s. Los Angeles' library still says "PVBLIC LIBRARY" on the front, and the older books are stamped the same way. My question is, why isn't vacuum spelled vacwm. They didn't want W to be a sometimes-vowel too?

 

[Lord Langford]

There once was a lady from Venus
Who's body was shaped like a penis
she thrust her hips
whilst she danced for tips
and told us she wanted to please us

 

[Mojochi]

There once was a lady from Venus
Whose species was noted for cleanness
They made her the ship's doctor
But treating Riker shocked her
When she saw the state of his penis

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

A Trek mod who was from Kentucky
Was feeling unusually lucky
That threads long dead...
Oh, screw it ... thread closed.
CLANG!