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Subject:ANSWER: British vs. American spelling From:Alex MacDonald <Alexander -dot- MacDonald -at- ABNAMRO -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 20 Oct 1997 13:49:48 -0500
Hello,
A question has been posed:
>>a) does it bother you?
Does it bother me? A resounding Aye!
I remember when I was a small boy...I was five, maybe six...my father was
rustling in the kitchen far earlier than usual, as an apprentice cobbler he
arose well before the red fingers of dawn rose over Mother England and into
the wilds of Colonial America. I crept down the stairs, worried with a
child's premonition of horror. There were savages in the kitchen! In my
memories, I see a whole tribe, dozens of Delaware warriors. Though now, I
realize, there were no more than three or four men. I don't remember ever
seeing one before, but I recognized the feathers and war paint that they
were said to wear.
But they were not Indians...I recognized the weathered breaches of my
father to which I would cling as he kicked me to bed. They were men
dressed as Indians! I remember also their hushed conversation:
'The redcoats will surely rue the day they passed the ruthless and
oppressive Stamp Act of 1775,' one man said, I believe it was the barrel
maker, John Cooper.
'Aye,' said my father, his voice was rough already from whisky. 'And the
ruthless and oppressive tax on our beloved tea.'
'When we dump this tea into the bay, it will turn the bay a brownish
colour,' another man said, he was tall and held a single lit lantern. It
was the local tooth doctor, whom I dreaded visiting and whom I called Dr.
Paul.
My father leered angrily at Dr. Paul, 'That's *color*, you Benedict
Arnold!'
I crept back upstairs before my father turned his wrath upon me. That
summer, I think it was summer...my memory is not so sharp as it once
was...put a stain on my childhood that has not faded, nor has my anger
toward the people who caused that stain faded. It will never fade.
