Fowlers: “The King’s English” advises us to avoid words of Romance origin eg. French, Italian, Spanish and to use instead, words of Anglo Saxon provenance.

So far as that goes, our American friends are correct with their spellings. Center, meter, color, honor, in place of that we normally use, is desirable if you want to get as close as possible to the Germanic language of our early kin.

Churchill’s 1940 ‘fight on the beach’ speech is entirely Anglo Saxon save for one word – the very last – ‘surrender’.

John Green