Typical of you to deliberately misinterpret something I've written, Shaw. I wasn't "railing" against anything; all the stuff I write for the group of word-interested friends has a somewhat humorous slant to it and, bar you, I doubt anyone here is likely to take the remark seriously (which they shouldn't, since it isn't).

As for US very spelling vs British spelling, the common tale is that Noah Webster (he of the Dikker) standardised his spellings away from British English where possible because he was an Anglophobe. Part true - he was an Anglophobe. But his actual raison d'etre was to simplify spelling by writing words how they were pronounced. One of his alterations that didn't catch on was masheen for machine.

In other cases, what's going on is less clear. Webster wasn't concerned with where a word came from, he was simply trying to make spelling easier to learn by doing it somewhat phonetically (you might argue that he should have changed centre to senter, rather than center). Take -ice, -ise, -ize endings for example. Practice or practise? The rule... but it isn't; it's a guideline. The guideline is -ice is a noun, -ise is a verb. But entice is a verb & exercise a noun. -ize vs -ise is just as bad. That also isn't British vs US spelling, although it is the case that America has largely standardised on -ize, whereas the British standardized on -ise (& yes, I did that deliberately). The OED's take is that if the source was the Greek ending -izo / -izein , then -ize is the closest match & therefore preferred from the etymological p-o-v.

But the roots of British English are complicated. Color is Latin; technically Webster was right? But we adopted a lot of words from Latin, Anglo-Norman, and French and sometimes from multiple sources. In A-Norman, colur, culur, coler, coloure, coleure, collour are all recorded, in Middle French, color, colour, coulour. In 1694, the French standardised their -ices & -izes into -ises, which also influenced us (rather than US! ;-) ). Short answer, there isn't really a right or wrong. Except possibly where -yse is concerned (which the US generally spells -yze). That's from a Greek stem of -lys-, on which Fowler (he of Modern Usage) has this to say:

“Analyse is better than analyze, but merely as being the one of the two equally indefensible forms that has won. The correct but now impossible form would be analysize (or analysise), with analysist for existing analyst.” There isn't really a right or wrong, just common usage.

Anyway enough of that! Stanron - I don't know how useful my method is either, to be honest. But I think it is of some help. Take today's Wordle - I got the first letter correct & another letter in the wrong place (2nd). Second line, I totally forgot to use the incorrectly placed letter, but got another ditto (4th). I'd also eliminated 4 of the 5 vowels. Given the 3 consonants I had, one fixed, and the compulsory vowel that was left, I really only had one choice. so it helps a bit, I think. How much is another matter!