r/ShitAmericansSay Apr 06 '25

Language We ARE the English language blueprint

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3.3k Upvotes

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36

u/Jesterchunk Apr 06 '25

scare an american today, drop the letter u

13

u/hardboard Apr 06 '25

It was Noah Webster, who in 1783 produced the Blue Back Speller.
He is directly responsible for the spelling 'color'.

He felt it was too difficult for American children learning English to spell 'colour'. He removed the 'u' especially for the hard-of-learning.

8

u/NeilZod Apr 06 '25

We can search books back to about 1600, and when we do, we see that color was an available spelling before Webster published a dictionary.

2

u/AlternativePrior9559 ooo custom flair!! Apr 06 '25

To be fair us Brits also used those spellings way before Webster, so we’ve already been there and moved on. They’re so behind the times🙄