"But I wish you would quit the implication that somehow the colonials are messing everything up. Your problem lies in your neck of the woods."

Oh puh-leese . . . don't start this bilge Mick. There ain't no problem, and no-one thinks of you yanks as colonials anymore, time to find something else to feel victimised about - some of those Iranians really hate you guys, you know that? We love you!

"Further to my link above, whilst the spelling of some words have been changed in America to make them more phonetic"

Yawn, little Englander pish . . . many of the spellings used in the US are the original spellings that have been preserved rather than changed by the citizens of the states, along with may other words and terms (and indeed, English music in the case of the people of the Ozarks and Appalachians). The changes made to the spellings in the UK are affectations to make them appear more cosmopolitan.

MthGM - what programme are you using? Changing the flags only changes the system dictionaries itself not other applications, and you might have to change the dictionary in each program's Preferences file.

There are plenty of 'UK pedants' because here in the UK we love our languages and take them very seriously; it's often a topic of conversation. So far from being pedantry it's simply people taking an interest in the language and taking pleasure in it. The French are the same and they argue endlessly about the genders of nouns and the like; in fact they get quite heated about the whole matter.

Of course, on our islands we've developed a right old hotch-potch of in English of words taken from almost every other language pre-Celtic (yes - England has a celtic heritage - shock horror), Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, Germanic, French and lord knows where else. We integrate words from the Indian sub-continent (cuddies) and everywhere else. Dialect is also massively important and there are some superb words still used but in danger of dying out (spugee, yaff) and believe me the dialects of Geordie and Cockney can't be a threat to the language because they are the language.

I love the way the language evolves, and being lucky enough to have a broad ancestry from these islands I use words from all across the place. Don't worry about us taking works from the Americans, they colour and enrich the language in the same way as everyone else.

Ever heard of the Profanisaurus? Now that's the evolution of the English language. Look it up.

Viva language pedantry! Twll dy din di!