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 it helps decide the spelling and pronunciation – but getting rid of that 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 th firsthings the new country did was decide what language to use - many did not want glish at all....butto this dat 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 don't see what your personal circumstances have got to do with anything... apart from scant knowledge of linguistics – but primarily that's hardly important... I have over 20 years of education in Thai – but started in Europe (and Morocco) in the 1990s in industry, commerce and university mostly. I've also taught in Laos.... - I also was a consultant and had to interview and employ teachers – some for government schools. - I was not interested in how much they were paid; my concern was could they do the job. - Lots of the native English speakers might have had the qualifications (TEFL degree, etc) but they didn't get the job because I felt they wouldn't go in a classroom. - There was a huge number of applicants who thought because they were native English speakers, they could teach, but they were deluding themselves and had little or no knowledge of English syntax, grammar and how it worked for students – neither knowledge of the language nor how to appropriately teach it. I think one thingto take away bout Wnglish language teaching in Thailand is that many of those in charge are very shonky characters at best - I di not have to worry about the cost, I was only concerned with their ability to teach - I was amazed at the appalling standards of some of the British and American applicant - tyey basically could teach - I was employed to interview as most of the Rhai business owners and school directs were THai and had no idea whether the interviewess are any could or not and didn't have the language skill levels to do it.....of course if you are motivated soley by money and how much you can keep for yourself, you are going to end up with drgs for the most part. I did a lot of recruitment for TOEIC and TOEFL, and in those cases I often recruited Thai, Filipino or other nationalities because, unlike the English-speaking applicants, they were au fait with the technicalities needed for that set of English skills - most of these had degrees in Enlgish langauge and were a lot better qualified than some old git in cargo shorts from Rotherham who swore he didn't have a speech impediment
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