Not really the French alone – it stems from an 18th-century spelling reform led by American lexicographer Noah Webster, who thought he could "simplify" the English language largely as a nationalistic thing. The truth is he failed pretty miserably, as compound and longer versions of the same root words couldn't follow his ideas – some were simply not taken up at all. In the meantime, British English had "standardised" through the compilation of dictionaries and written laws. The origins and etymology of the words are often useful to have, as they help decide the spelling and pronunciation – but getting rid of them obscured their usage history and meaning. Most of the words Webster tried to change were Franco/Latin in origin and used universally in European languages and around the world – so it was an isolationist policy that was eventually dropped. Webster was a product of the Revolution – the new US was basically isolated from the rest of the western world and populated by non-English-speaking immigrants - one of the first things the new country did was decide what language to use – many did not want English at all...but to this day, there is no official language requirement in the USA It manifests itself in US culture in that they are the only country in the world who have not adopted the metric system and have very poor foreign language abilities, being unable to apply a universal logic to many words. I could never understand this innate feeling. superiority that teachers had just because their students couldn't speak, read, write or listen to English very well when half of those teachers could hardly speak Thai, let alone the rest of those skills.....
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