Why Brits Can't Spell

It's surely been troubling for centuries that the people in the nations of the British Commonwealth spell words incorrectly. I have wondered why on many occasions. But, the wondering is over thanks to Andy Duncan. In a few succinct paragraphs, Andy provides an explanation. Here's a portion:

According to the story, when printing really got going around the King James period of the 1600s, just after the time of Shakespeare, there were two sets of British printers on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Back here in Olde Englande, on the hearty isle of yore, a powerful printing trade guild quickly established itself around the innovative technology of printing presses, with all the accoutrements of force-backed monopoly and its usual bean-feast of consumer exploitation.

As these guild printers were paid by the letter they sought every single possible intellectual excuse as to why every word should be spelt with as many letters as possible. Hence, the ridiculous 'through'. The printing guilds would take Greek derivations, or Latin derivations, or French derivations, or whatever derivation, as gospel, dependent upon whichever one gave them the longest possible 'correct' spelling.

Meanwhile, on your side of the Atlantic, in Newe Englande, British printers worked in a competitive free market with no guild and no force-backed monopoly, though still working on the basis of cost per letter printed. However, instead of trying to lengthen words, to maximise their charges to an obliged public, this competitive pressure made the Colonial printers try to find ways to shorten the 'correct' spellings of words, so as to reduce their prices, so as to make themselves more attractive to the burgeoning American marketplace. Hence, 'thru'.

And so, the relationship between the US and Britain, which is historically based upon the throwing off of an unwelcome force-based yoke, has been stamped ever since throughout the two printed languages right there in front of our eyes - so next time some subject of Her Majesty complains to you about your incorrect spelling of the word 'colour', ward them off with a forty minute libertarian rant about the oppression of Great Britain in Virginia, in the 1650s. Most excellent.

In a nutshell, British printers were doing unionized piecework (more letters, more pay) while the American printers had to deal with free market competition (fewer letters, less cost). It makes a lot of sense and explains why the Brits (and Aussies) say "Crikey!" and the Americans say the shorter "Gosh!"

To be fair, it must be noted that not everyone agrees with Andy's explanation. In fact, Andy even states that he has no evidence to support his story but it's sounds good enough to be believable.