Russell wrote:

G'day, here in Australia we speak English, and play Cricket, Mate.

In reality, American English is based on an older English by about 2
centuries. The main reason also why some of the spelling is different (e.g.
colour - color) is also because until ww2 a high percentage of Americans
were illiterate. The US army claimed to have taught about 2-3 million men
how to read and write during that time. They simplified some of the spelling
to help fast track the process. That is why it is more phonetic or so I have
been told.



A cute way to refer to 20th Century Americans as largely illiterate, but that
story's a bit off.

It was well before WWII that differences began to surface. A quick look at
Wikipedia, not because it's a defintive source, but a convenient one at having
more in one place briefly than doing a more scholarly search using more of a
bibliography, yields this:



American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and
British English differences. In the early 18th century, English spelling was not
standardised. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of
influential dictionaries. Current British English spellings follow, for the most
part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Many
of the now characteristic American English spellings were introduced, although
often not created, by Noah Webster (An American Dictionary of the English
Language (1828)).

Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological
and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the U.S. by Webster
himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board, never
caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of
those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words
proved decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in Britain had little effect on
present-day U.S. spelling, and vice versa. While in many cases American English
deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, on the other hand
it has also often retained older forms.



A quick look at words like: cheque, centre, and manoeuvre show why someone might
wonder why the language was spoken as English but written as French.

An interesting topic, but we're straying off base here.

So:

Here's a low-res pan I stitched together of the B-17 "Thunderbird" bombardier's
station at the Georgetown, Texas Airshow in 2001:

[Image]


Cheers!!!

BobbyG