Yo Ian,
on Sat, 29 Jan 2000 23:34:24 +0000, you wrote:
>actually the British version changed so the spelling would be more like
>the French.
Actually I think the words had their origin in the French language (at least
it is quite obvious that they have Romance rather than Germanic/Anglo Saxon
roots) and were adopted in English, which is why they had/have the u. Later,
the u was dropped in American English, thus simplifying the words -
simplifications like that are not limited to American English; most or all
languages tend to develop towards more simplicity, with the simplifications
usually first being regarded as wrong until more and more common usage
finally leads to their acceptance. This is a totally normal development.
But I guess this is beginning to lead us too far off-topic, so let's get
back to the Oly stuff, which is more fun anyway.
MtFbwy,
Volkhart
--
Volkhart Baumgaertner email: kyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MausNet: @MGN
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