"Eiron" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]

> Don Pearce wrote:

>>>> Exactly - we don't have variants, we have the correct
>>>> spelling. I understand there is an American variant,
>>>> however.
>>>
>>> Yes, I suppose that's correct if you insist your
>>> viewpoint is the authoritative one.
>>
>>
>> Well, certainly original. I think we have to agree that
>> a variant is that which came after - not before.
>
> You're on shaky ground here. In many cases the American
> spelling is the original and the Brits changed it later.

As the story goes, color is truely a variant of colour. Some
decades ago an American decided to cut the waste out of
traditional spellings of common words. Some of his ideas
like "color" made it all the way into the only accepted use
in the USA, while others like "nite" are understood by all
americans with any reasonable amount of training and IQ, but
the more wasteful spelling "night" is still acceptable and
commonly-used.

Remember that the UK is only about as big (land, population,
wealth) as two or three of the larger 50 US states, and the
relevance of their ideas about the so-called English
language sorta pops into focus. ;-)

They may own the name, but we own the market!