The case of the missing “u”s in American English
美式英语缺失的u
When my American editor asked me to research why Brits spell their words with so many extra ‘u’s, I immediately knew he had it all wrong. As a British journalist, it’s perfectly obvious to me that we have the correct number of ‘u’s, and that American spelling has lost its vowels along the way.
我的编辑，美国人，约我写文探讨英国人拼写词汇时用到的那么多额外的u，我第一反应是他从提法上就错了。在我这位英国记者看来，毫无疑问，我们用的u不多不少，是美国人不知从何时起丢掉了一些元音。
“Color,” “honor,” and “favor” all look quite stubby to me—they’re positively crying out to be adorned with a few extra ‘u’s.
像color，honor，favor这样的词，以我看来又粗又短——正不停哭叫着要找回那些额外的u来装扮其容貌。
But it turns out that the “o(u)r” suffix has quite a confused history. The Online Etymology Dictionary reports that –our comes from old French while –or is Latin. English has used both endings for several centuries. Indeed, the first three folios of Shakespeare’s plays reportedly used both spellings equally.
但其实，o(u)r这个后缀来历挺复杂。查在线词源词典，-our来自古法文，-or来自拉丁文。曾经有好几百年，两种结尾同时在英文里使用。例如，在莎士比亚戏剧前三版的对开本里，据说两种拼写就不加区分。
But by the late 18th and early 19th centuries, both the US and the UK started to solidify their preferences, and did so differently.
但在十八世纪后期至十九世纪前期，美国人和英国人各自确立了截然不同的偏好。
The US took a particularly strong stand thanks to Noah Webster, American lexicographer and co-namesake of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Webster was a language reformer and, as Merriam-Webster.com notes, the creator of a dictionary in 1806 that attempted to rectify some of the inconsistencies he observed in English spelling. He preferred to use the –or suffix and also suggested many other successful changes, such as reversing “re” to create “theater” and “center,” rather than “theatre” and centre.”
美式拼写立场特别明确，这要归功于美国词典编纂家诺亚·韦伯斯特，即《韦氏词典》的韦氏。韦伯斯特是当年的语言革新人物，据公司官网Merriam-Webster.com 提供的资料，他在1806年出版词典，目的之一是澄清某些不一致的英文拼写。他选择了后缀 -or，除此还有很多得到采用的改动，比如对调 -re为-er后，造出theater和center，代替了原有的theatre和centre。
However, other Webster proposals, such as changing “tongue” to “tung,” “women” to “wimmen,” “island” to “iland,” and “thumb” to “thum” were ultimately rejected.
韦伯斯特也有过一些别的提议，后来没有得到认可，例如把tongue换成tung，women换成wimmen，island换成iland，thumb换成thum。
Meanwhile in the UK, Samuel Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. Johnson was far more of a spelling purist than Webster, and decided that in cases where the origin of the word was unclear, it was more likely to have a French than Latin root. “We have few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, which are not French,” wrote Johnson. And so he preferred –our to –or.
而在英国，塞缪尔·约翰逊博士于1755年编就《英文字典》。约翰逊博士远比韦伯斯特更热衷于拼写纯正化。并且断定，如果一个词来源不清楚，那它更可能拥有法文词根，而非拉丁词根。约翰逊博士的说法是：“我们平常用的词里面，非法语来源的拉丁词不多。”所以， -our与 -or之间他选择 -our。
“I have endeavoured to proceed with a scholar’s reverence for antiquity, and a grammarian’s regard to the genius of our tongue,” he wrote. As such, he “attempted few alterations.”
他写道：“学者崇奉古老传统，语法家则看重吾辈口舌之灵巧，我始终以此两者自勉。”有鉴于此，他“尽量不作改动。”
So while the UK chose to preserve linguistic roots, the US opted to modernize spelling. And if you’re wondering which country got it right, the answer is, well, neither. Language is constantly evolving, and the US and UK simply went their different linguistic ways.
总而言之，在英国人选择保护词源时，美国人则选择改革拼写。谁对谁错的问题没有意义。语言在不断地演变，英美只是走上了不同进化道路，如此而已。
翻译：林翠(@cwlinnil)
校对：小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
编辑：辉格@whigzhou