BROADCASTS.com

I\u2019m going to explain why you might get frustrated at spellcheck on your phone or computer\u2026and the answer has to do with a guy named Noah\u2026 no, not that Noah from the bible with the ark\u2026another one\u2026\n\nNoah was annoyed\u2026as a proud new American, he believed that his new country needed to set itself apart from its former colonial masters in every way possible so they new nation could truly be different and independent and separate\u2026\n\nBy 1828, there was no need to take up arms anymore, so Noah picked up his pen\u2026as an author of schoolbooks, his annoyance had to do with the way the British spelled some of their words\u2026why could \u201ccolour\u201d have that extra \u201cu?\u201d\u2026the proper way to spell \u201ccentre\u201d was \u201cc-e-n-t-e-r,\u201d not \u201cr-e\u201d\u2026everywhere he looked, he saw what he believed to be nonsensical spellings\u2026\n\nHe made a list of such annoyances\u2026and in 1828, at the age of 70, Noah Webster published his \u201cAmerican dictionary of the English language\u201d\u2026and it was a hit\u2014largely because Noah was already that guy with all the spelling books being used in school\u2026\n\nAnd so came to pass that Noah\u2019s preferred spellings\u2014again, modifications to the original British versions of these words\u2014became adopted by America\u2026and these spellings are what\u2019s accepted today as correct in the U.S\u2026\n\nThat means if you have a computer or a phone or whatever and you have your default language set to \u201cEnglish,\u201d it\u2019s most often means \u201cAmerican English\u201d by default\u2026and that means if you try to spell certain words the British or the Canadian or Australian way, you get a squiggly line underneath\u2026\n\nThat really annoys me (and maybe you, too)\u2014almost as much as when my iPhone insists that I mean to spell \u201cducking\u201d\u2026but that\u2019s another story\u2026but this story does explain why your device seems to hate your spelling skills\u2026it goes back to grumpy Noah Webster and his nationalistic demands on language\u2026\n\nRock music has been with us since the early 1950s\u2026that\u2019s long enough for many things to become entrenched, familiar, and basically just part of the scenery\u2026there are so many things about rock that we just accept and don\u2019t really question or wonder about\u2026\n\nBut just like the spellcheck on your phone, if you start thinking about some of these things, you might wonder where they came from, why we do it, or who came up with the idea in the first place\u2026let\u2019s see if I can help\u2026I call this episode \u201cthe rock explainer\u201d\u2026\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices