Noah Webster, who created the first "Dictionary of the American Language," was famous for changing the spellings of British English into what he thought were more sensible "American" spellings. The most common ones are: -our becomes -or. British colour is American color. -re becomes -er. British centre is American center. But there were quite a few other British spellings that he didn't like. He tried to change them, but his spellings were not popular and so were not adopted by American writers. Here are a few: ache --> ake cloak --> cloke determine --> determin sleigh --> sley soup --> soop sponge --> spunge tongue --> tung tough --> tuf women --> wimmen
