Richard, I'll try and get back on your first point.

On your second, remember that the English spoken in America was the English they used to speak in 16th century West Country England (they still do speak like that in parts, I'm told). If you come to the Midlands - south Staffordshire and Warwickshire, anyway - they still sound like they did in Shakespeare's time, apart from vocabulary , and in the Black Country - Dudley, Walsall and so on, they still speak like they did in Chaucer's time. If yo cor mek out what we'm sayin, think how bad things would be today if the Pilgrim Fathers had come from Wednesbury (that's where Wyatt Earp's father came from!).

That's enough lecture! Steve