Benjamin Keil <bke### [at] indianaedu> wrote:

>povray.org admin team wrote:
> 
>> Over the years, Americans have modified various parts of the English
>> language to create these variants (another good example is the US
>> 'color' vs the English 'colour'). That's all well and good - we don't
>> dispute the right of Americans to change the language they speak.
>
>I do believe the English have also changed the language a bit over the
>centuries.  The English of Chaucer was not the English of the Beowolf
>poet, nor is Shakespere's English that of Chaucer.  The Brittish English
>of today is not exactly that which was spoken by Shakespere, either. 
>Language altering is not strictly an American habit, but in the passing
>of history nearly every language has developed it's own dialects, and
>every written language has made extensive changes to its orthography. 
>Let's be fair....

I was fair ... hence our statement that it's their right to change it.

Nevertheless, we don't sit in English class critisizing Shakespere for his
spelling :). We know that the language has changed. We know that, at the time
Shakespere wrote, the spelling he used was correct in the context of his time.

We (the collective 'we' here being, I suppose, any non-American English
speaker, though I can hardly profess to speak for all of them) don't mind
Americans changing the language in the least, as long as they don't act as if
they invented it, and give us a tongue-lashing when we don't spell it as they
choose. Which, after all, is the cause of this entire, long, thread.

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