British spellings conserving the FRENCH spellings !

Dear speakers of English !

I don’t understand why the British spellings are obsessed in conserving the FRENCH spellings of many English words ?

Center vs Centre

French spelling don’t make any sense in the English way of pronunciation!

For example CENTRE is French and is pronounced “sentr@” in French, and in English “sent@r ! so CENTER makes more sense for English !

I am not pro American by far, but is just that the French British spelling don’t make any sense!

Why conserve something that is not even yours?

The thing when one speaks of "conserving French spellings" is that you cannot consider *current* French spellings, but rather Old French spellings, in many cases specifically Old Norman French spellings. For example, consider the word "color"/"colour". The current French spelling is "couleur", *but* the spelling of such in Old French at the time it was borrowed was actually "color". Consequently, one cannot at all speak of "colour" as being conservative, as it is effectively a pseudo-French affectation made by individuals who were not aware of the actual spelling of the original borrowed Old French word which just happened to stick.

Yes, "center" is marginally more indicative of English pronunciation than "centre" is but I don't think people who use such spellings should worry too much about it (and they apparently don't). English as spelled by everyone (whether those using American or British spellings or some hybrid) has a lot of words which have very Gallic spellings (even at the expense of obscuring pronunciation) so it's a lot more than just the "-re" words. If you're looking to Anglicize spellings, Eu-ropean, you're going to have to pick at a lot more words than just the "-re" ones! Since I'm an American I learned and grew up with "-er" for words like "center" but many other words (most) in English are spelled the same in American and British orthographic traditions, so that means we Americans also use a lot of Gallic spellings in our written English--it's not just a British thing :)

>>I am not pro American by far, but is just that the French British spelling don’t make any sense!

Why conserve something that is not even yours?<<

On behalf of non-speakers of English, I agree with your opinion, EU-ropean! Go ahedd!

Travis,

Die altfranzösiche Sprache hatte verschiedene Möglichkeiten.

Abkürzungen : AF = altfranzösisch, UAF = Ultramanicas altfranzösisch, MF = mittelfranzösisch, Fr = französisch (neuzeitlich) et En = englisch.

<OR> ENDUNG
AF <favor>, <fervor>, <flaor> = En <flavour>/<flavor>, <flor> = En <flour>/<flower>, <honor>/<onor>, <humor>/<umor>, <odor>, <parleor>, <rancor> und <rigor>;
UAF <favor>, <fervor>, <rancor> et <rigor>.

<UR> ENDUNG
AF <clour>, <honur>/<onur>, <humur>/<umur>, <odur>, <parleur>;
UAF <flur> = En <flour>/<flower>, <honur>/<onur> und <parlur>.

<OUR> ENDUNG
AF <clamour>, <flaour> = En <flavour>/<flavor>, <flour> = En <flour>/<flower>, <labour>, <rancour>, <rigour>, <savour>/<savoure>, <savëour> = An <saviour>/<savior>, <valour> und <vapour>;
UAF <honour>/<onour>, <odour>;
MF <esplendour>.

<EIR> ENDUNG
AF <en deveir> ~ Fr <en devoir> [Ãd@vwaR] = En <endeavour>/<endeavor>.

<ER> ENDUNG
AF/Fr <(se) démener> = En <demeanour>/<demeanor>.

Danke für die interessanten Beispiele, greg :)

=>Why conserve something that is not even yours? <=

When I read this sentence© I inmediatly© thought, is he serious©?! So words in the English language© are subjected© to copyright© , and ownership is claimed© by French? How ridiculous©, in that logic© a letter© in French would have a '©' after nearly every word, and at the bottom of the letter© it would say:

Copyright © 2005, Vulgar/Classical Latin, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

And we did?! Was that supposed to be funny?

As I showed in a thread the other day titled "Why Americans can't spell", many American spellings were standard spellings in the 1600s. "or" and "our" spellings were both used; even on the same word in the same paragraph. This has led to many strange British spellings where in some forms the "u" is dropped:

rigour but rigorous
labour but laborious
vapour but vaporize (or vaporise)
honour but honorary
colour but coloration and colorific

For some reason when the word is lengthened the Latin forms such as honor and labor etc are preferred.

As for spellings such as "centre" becoming popular in Britain, I think that 18th Century Francophile Samuel Johnson is in part to blame

That's why British English is slightly more difficult than American English.

They only have "labor/laborious.

Whereas we have to frop the "u" - "labour/laborious."

Some people say that in British English you are supposed to use BOTH spelling depending -

"Center" would be a synonym for "middle". (He stood in the center of the circle.)

"Centre" would be the word used to describe a gathering place. (The crowd gathered at the new Arts and Innovation Centre.)

Whereas in American English, only "center" is used.

<<Whereas in American English, only "center" is used.>>

But in the UK only centre is used, I take your point in one sense tho'

This is why British english is superior.

"This is why British english is superior. "

I agree with that.

But I think you should use a different name.