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THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 страница






CAPITAL: Washington, DC (District of Columbia)

AREA: 9,629,091 sq km (3,717,813 sq mi)

POPULATION: around 300 mln

ANTHEM: The Star-Spangled Banner.

HOLIDAYS: New Year’s Day, 1 January; Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., 3rd Monday in January; Presidents’ Day, 3rd Monday in February; Memorial or Decoration Day, last Monday in May; Independence Day, 4 July; Labor Day, 1 st Monday in September; Columbus Day, 2nd Monday in October, Election Day, 1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday in November; Veterans or Armistice Day,

11 November; Thanksgiving Day, 4th Thursday in November; Christmas, 25 December.

TIME: Eastern, 7 am = noon GMT; Central, 6 am = noon GMT; Mountain, 5 am = noon GMT; Pacific (includes the Alaska panhandle), 4 am = noon GMT; Yukon, 3 am = noon GMT; Alaska and Hawaii, 2 am = noon GMT; western Alaska, 1 am = noon GMT.

LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT

Located in the Western Hemisphere on the continent of North America, the United States is the fourth-largest country in the world. Its total area, including Alaska and Hawaii, is 9,629,091 sq km (3,717,813 sq mi). The conterminous United States extends 4,662 km (2,897 mi) ene - wsw and 4,583 km (2,848 mi) sse - nnw. It is bordered on the n by Canada, on the e by the Atlantic Ocean, on the s by the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico, and on the w by the Pacific Ocean, with a total boundary length of 17,563 km (10,913 mi). Alaska, the 49th state, extends 3,639 km (2,261 mi) e-w and 2,185 km (1,358 mi) n-s.

It is bounded on the n by the Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea, on the e by Canada, on the s by the Gulf of Alaska, Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, and on the w by the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, Chukchi Sea, and Arctic Ocean, with a total land boundary of 12,034 km (7,593 mi) and a coastline of 19,924 km (12,380 mi). The 50th state, Hawaii, consists of islands in the Pacific Ocean extending 2,536 km (1,576 mi) n-s and 2,293 km (1,425 mi) e-w, with a general coastline of 1,207 km (750 mi). The nation’s capital, Washington, DC, is located on the mid-Atlantic coast.

TOPOGRAPHY

Although the northern New England coast is rocky, along the rest of the eastern seaboard the Atlantic Coastal Plain rises gradually from the shoreline. Narrow in the north, the plain widens to about 320 km (200 mi) in the south and in Georgia merges with the Gulf Coastal Plain that borders the Gulf of Mexico and extends through Mexico as far as the Yucatan. West of the Atlantic Coastal Plain is the Piedmont Plateau, bounded by the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians, which extend from southwest Maine into central Alabama - with special names in some areas - are old mountains, largely eroded away, with rounded contours and forested, as a rule, to the top. Few of their summits raise much above 1,100 m (3,500 ft), although the highest, Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, reaches 2,037 m (6,684 ft).

Between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains, more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) to the lays the vast interior plain of the United States. Running south through the center of this plain I draining almost two-thirds of the area of the continental United States is the Mississippi River, starting from the source of the Missouri, the longest of its tributaries, travel almost 6,450 km I mi) to the Gulf of Mexico.

The eastern reaches of the great interior plain are bounded on the north by the Great Lakes, i are thought to contain about half the world’s total supply of fresh water. Under US jurisdiction s 57,441 sq km (22,178 sq mi) of Lake Michigan, 54,696 sq km (21,118 sq mi) of Lake Superior, 245 sq km (8,975 sq mi) of Lake Huron, 12,955 sq km (5,002 sq mi) of Lake Erie, and 7,855 sq km J3 sq mi) of Lake Ontario. The five lakes are accessible to oceangoing vessels from the Atlantic tfte St. Lawrence Seaway. The basins of the Great Lakes were formed by the glacial ice cap that down over large parts of North America some 25,000 years ago. The glaciers also determined (direction of flow of the Missouri River and, it is believed, were responsible for carrying soil from t is now Canada down into the central agricultural basin of the United States.

The great interior plain consists of two major subregions: the fertile Central Plains, extending the Appalachian highlands to a line drawn approximately 480 km (300 mi) west of the sippi, broken by the Ozark Plateau; and the more arid Great Plains, extending from that line to (foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

The Continental Divide, the Atlantic-Pacific watershed, runs along the crest of the Rocky lins. The Rockies and the ranges to the west are parts of the great system of young, rugged lins, shaped like a gigantic spinal column that runs along western North, Central and South rica from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Chile. In the continental United States, the series of western s, most of them paralleling the Pacific coast, are the Sierra Nevada, the Coast Ranges, the de Range, and the Tehachapi and San Bernardino mountains. Between the Rockies and the Nevada - Cascade mountain barrier to the west lies the Great Basin, a group of vast arid aus containing most of the desert areas of the United States, in the south eroded by deep canyons. The coastal plains along the Pacific are narrow, and in many places the mountains plunge:ly into the sea. The most extensive lowland near the west coast is the Great Valley of California,

; between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges. There are 71 peaks in these western ranges of; continental United States that rise to an altitude of 4,267 m (14,000 ft) or more, Mt. Whitney in fomia at 4,418 m (14,494 ft) being the highest. The greatest rivers of the Far West are the orado in the south, fl owing into the Gulf of California, and the Columbia in the northwest, flowing >the Pacific. Each is more than 1,900 km (1,200 mi) long; both have been intensively developed to erate electric power, and both are important sources of irrigation.

Separated from the continental United States by Canadian territory, the state of Alaska occupies extreme northwest portion of the North American continent. A series of precipitous mountain ges separates the heavily indented Pacific coast on the south from Alaska’s broad central basin, jugh which the Yukon River flows from Canada in the east to the Bering Sea in the west. The ntral basin is bounded on the north by the Brooks Range, which slopes down gradually to the Arctic

l. The Alaskan Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, sweeping west far out to sea, consist of a i of volcanoes, many still active.

The state of Hawaii consists of a group of Pacific islands formed by volcanoes rising sharply tfawn the ocean floor. The highest of these volcanoes, Mauna Loa, at 4,168 m (13,675 ft), is located on |*e largest of the islands, Hawaii, and is still active.

The lowest point in the United States is Death Valley in California, 86 m (282 fit) below sea level. At 6,194 m (20,320 ft), Mt. McKinley in Alaska is the highest peak in North America.

CLIMATE

The eastern continental region is well watered, with annual rainfall generally in excess of 100 cm (40 in). It includes all of the Atlantic seaboard and southeastern states and extends west to cover Indiana, southern Illinois, most of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and easternmost Texas. The eastern seaboard is affected primarily by the masses of air moving from west to east across the continent rather than by air moving in from the Atlantic. Hence its climate is basically continental rather than maritime. The Midwestern and Atlantic seaboard states experience hot summers and cold winters; spring and autumn are clearly defined periods of climatic transition.

Only Florida, with the Gulf of Mexico lying to its west, experiences moderate differences between summer and winter temperatures. Mean annual temperatures vary considerably between north and south: Boston, MA, ll°c (51°f); New York City, NY, 13°c (55°f); Charlotte, NC, 16°c (61°f); Miami, FL, 24°c (76°f).

The Gulf and South Atlantic states are often hit by severe tropical storms originating in the Caribbean in late summer and early autumn.

The prairie lands lying to the west constitute a sub humid region. Precipitation usually exceeds evaporation by only a small amount; hence the region experiences drought more often than excessive rainfall. Dryness generally increases from east to west. The average midwinter temperature in the extreme north - Minnesota and North Dakota - is about -13°c (9°f) or less, while the average July temperature is 18°c (65°f). In the Texas prairie region to the south, January temperatures average 10- 13°c (50-55°f) and July temperatures 27-29°c (80-85°f). Rainfall along the western border of the prairie region is as low as 46 cm (18 in) per year in the north and 64 cm (25 in) in the south. Precipitation is greatest in the early summer - a matter of great importance to agriculture, particularly in the growing of grain crops. In dry years, the prevailing winds may carry the topsoil eastward (particularly from the southern region) for hundreds of miles in clouds that obsciirg*the ^n"«-iЈ

The Great Plains constitute a semiarid climatic region. Rainfall in the southern plains averages about 50 cm (20 in) per year and in the northern plains about 25 cm (10 in), but extreme year-to-year variations are common. The tropical air masses that move northward across the plains originate on the fairly high plateaus of Mexico and contain little water vapor. Periods as long as 120 days without rain have been experienced in this region. The rains that do occur are often violent, and a third of the total annual rainfall may be recorded in a single day at certain weather stations.

The contrast between summer and winter temperatures is extreme throughout the Great Plains. Maximum summer temperatures of over 43 °c (110°f) have been recorded in the northern as well as in the southern plains. From the Texas panhandle north, blizzards are common in the winter and tornadoes at other seasons. The average minimum temperature for January in Duluth, Minnesota, is - 19°c (-3°f).

The higher reaches of the Rockies and the mountains paralleling the Pacific coast to the west are characterized by a typical alpine climate. Precipitation as a rule is heavier on the western slopes of the ranges. The great intermountain arid region of the West shows considerable climatic variation between its northern and southern portions. In New Mexico, Arizona, and southeastern California, the greatest precipitation occurs in July, August, and September, mean annual rainfall ranging from 8 cm (3 in) in Yuma, Ariz., to 76 cm (30 in) in the mountains of northern Arizona and New Mexico. Phoenix has a mean annual temperature of 22°c (7l°f), rising to 33°c (92°f) in July and falling to ll°c (52°f) in January.

North of the Utah-Arizona line, the summer months usually are veiy diy; maximum precipitation occurs in the winter and early spring. In the desert valleys west of Great Salt Lake, mean annual precipitation adds up to only 10 cm (4 in). Although the northern plateaus are generally arid, some of the mountainous areas of central Washington and Idaho receive at least 152 cm (60 in) of rain

per year. Throughout the intermountain region, the uneven availability of water is the principal factor jfeping the habitat.

The Pacific coast, separated by tall mountain barriers from the severe continental climate to the is a region of mild winters and moderately warm, dry summers. Its climate is basically maritime, westerly winds from the Pacific Ocean moderating the extremes of both winter and summer natures. Los Angeles in the south has an average temperature of 13°c (56°f) in January and 21°c in July; Seattle in the north has an average temperature of 4°c (39°f) in January and 18°c (65°f) Ally. Precipitation in general increases along the coast from south to north, extremes ranging from annual average of 4.52 cm (1.78 in) at Death Valley in California (the lowest in the United States) more than 356 cm (140 in) in Washington’s Olympic Mountains.

Climatic conditions vary considerably in the vastness of Alaska. In the fogbound Aleutians and the coastal panhandle strip that extends southeastward along the Gulf of Alaska and includes the ', Juneau, a relatively moderate maritime climate prevails. The interior is characterized by short, summers and long, bitterly cold winters, and in the region bordering the Arctic Ocean a polar te prevails, the soil hundreds of feet below the surface remaining frozen the year round. Although in winter, continental Alaska is relatively dry.

Hawaii has a remarkably mild and stable climate with only slight seasonal variations in ature, as a result of northeast ocean winds. The mean Januaiy temperature in Honolulu is 23°c; the mean July temperature 27°c (80°f). Rainfall is moderate - about 71 cm (28 in) per year - much greater in the mountains; Mt. Waialeale on Kauai has a mean annual rainfall of 1,168 cm in), highest in the world.

FLORA AND FAUNA

At least 7,000 species and subspecies of indigenous US flora have been categorized. The eastern Crests contain a mixture of soft - woods and hardwoods that includes pine, oak, maple, spruce, beech, larch, hemlock, walnut, gum, and hickory. The central hardwood forest, which originally stretched ■obroken from Cape Cod to Texas and northwest to Minnesota - stills an important timber source - snpports oak, hickory, ash, maple, and walnut.

Pine, hickory, tupelo, pecan, gum, birch, and sycamore are found in the southern forest that stretches along the Gulf coast into the eastern half of Texas. The Pacific forest is the most spectacular of all because of its enormous redwoods and Douglas firs. In the southwest are saguaro (giant cactus), yucca, candlewood, and the Joshua tree.

The central grasslands lie in the interior of the continent, where the moisture is not sufficient to support the growth of large forests. The tall grassland or prairie (now almost entirely under cultivation) lies to the east of the 100th meridian. To the west of this line, where rainfall is frequently less than 50 cm (20 in) per year, is the short grassland. Mesquite grass covers parts of west Texas, southern New Mexico, and Arizona. Short grass may be found in the highlands of the latter two states, while tall grass covers large portions of the coastal regions of Texas and Louisiana and occurs in some parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

The Pacific grassland includes northern Idaho, the higher plateaus of eastern Washington and Oregon, and the mountain valleys of California.

The intermountain region of the Western Cordillera is for the most part covered with desert shrubs. Sagebrush predominates in the northern part of this area, creosote in the southern, with saltbrush near the Great Salt Lake and in Death Valley.

The lower slopes of the mountains running up to the coastline of Alaska are covered with coniferous forests as far north as the Seward Peninsula. The central part of the Yukon Basin is also a region of soft wood forests. The rest of Alaska is heath or tundra.

Hawaii has extensive forests of bamboo and fems. Sugarcane and pineapple, although not native to the islands, now cover a large portion of the cultivated land.

Small trees and shrubs common to most of the United States include hackberry, hawthorn, serviceberry, blackberry, wild cherry, dogwood, and snowberry. Wild flowers bloom in all areas, from the seldom-seen blossoms of rare desert cacti to the hardiest alpine species. Wild flowers include forget-me-not, fringed and closed gentians, jack-in-the-pulpit, black-eyed Susan, columbine, and common dandelion, along with numerous varieties of aster, orchid, lady’s slipper, and wild rose.

An estimated 428 species of mammals characterize the animal life of the continental United States. Among the larger game animals are the white-tailed deer, moose, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear, and grizzly bear. The Alaskan brown bear often reaches a weight of

1,200-1,400 lbs. Some 25 important furbearers are common, including the muskrat, red and gray foxes, mink, raccoon, beaver, opossum, striped skunk, woodchuck, common cottontail, snowshoe hare, and various squirrels.

Year-round and migratory birds abound. Loons, wild ducks, and wild geese are found in lake country; terns, gulls, sandpipers, herons, and other seabirds live along the coasts. Wrens, thrushes, owls, hummingbirds, sparrows, woodpeckers, swallows, chickadees, vireos, warblers, and finches appear in profusion, along with the robin, common crow, cardinal, Baltimore oriole, eastern and western meadowlarks, and various blackbirds. Wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and ring-necked pheasant (introduced from Europe) are popular game birds. There are at least 508 species of birds found throughout the country.

Lakes, rivers, and streams teem with trout, bass, perch, muskellunge, carp, catfish, and pike; sea bass, cod, snapper, and flounder are abundant along the coasts, along with such shellfish as lobster, shrimp, clams, oysters, and mussels. Garter, pine, and milk snakes are found in most regions. Four poisonous snakes survive, of which the rattlesnake is the most common. Alligators appear in southern waterways and the Gila monster makes its home in the Southwest.

POPULATION

The population of United States is about 300 mln people, which placed it at number 3 in population among the 193 nations of the world. The population density was 31 per sq km (80 per sq mi) with major population concentrations are along the northeast Atlantic coast and the southwest Pacific coast. The population is most dense between New York City and Washington, DC.

The capital city, Washington, DC (District of Columbia), had a population of 4,098,000 in 2009. Other major metropolitan areas and their estimated populations include: New York, 18,498,000; Los Angeles, 12,146,000; Chicago, 8,711,000; Dallas, 4,612,000; Houston, 4,283,000; Philadelphia, 5,325,000; San Diego, 2,818,000; and Phoenix, 3,393,000. Major cities can be found throughout the United States.

ETHNIC GROUPS

The majority of the population of the United States is of European origin, with the largest groups having primary ancestry traceable to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland; many Americans report multiple ancestries. According to 2004 American Community Survey estimates, about 75.6% of the total population are white, 12.1% are blacks and African Americans, and 4.2% are Asian. Native Americans (including Alaskan Natives) account for about 0.8% of the total population. About 1.8% of the population claim a mixed ancestry of two or more races. About 11.9% of all US citizens are foreign-born, with the largest numbers of people coming from Latin America (17,973,287) and Asia (9,254,705). Some Native American societies survived the initial warfare with land-hungry white settlers and retained their tribal cultures. Their survival, however, has been on the fringes of

North American society, especially as a result of the implementation of a national policy of resettling Native American tribes on reservations.

More than three out of four black Americans live in metropolitan areas, notably in Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Newark, Baltimore, and New York City, which had the largest number of black residents. Large-scale federal programs to ensure equality for African Americans in voting rights, public education, employment, and housing were initiated after the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling that barred racial segregation in public schools. By 1966, however, in the midst of growing and increasingly violent expressions of dissatisfaction by black residents of northern cities and southern rural areas, the federal Civil Rights Commission reported that integration programs were lagging.

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the unemployment rate among nonwhites in the United States was at least double that for whites, and school integration proceeded slowly, especially outside the South. Also included in the US population are a substantial number of persons whose lineage can be traced to Asian and Pacific nationalities, chiefly Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese. The Chinese population is highly urbanized and concentrated particularly in cities of over 100,000 population, mostly on the West Coast and in New York City. According to 2004 estimates, there are over 2.8 million Chinese in the United States. Asian Indians are the next largest group of Asians with over 2.2 million people in 2004. About 2.1 million people are Filipino. The Japanese population has risen steadily from a level of 72,157 in 1910 to about 832,039 in 2004. Hawaii has been the most popular magnet of Japanese emigration.

Hispanics or Latinos make up about 14% of the population according to 2004 estimates. It is important to note, however, that the designation of Hispanic or Latino applies to those who are of Latin American descent; these individuals may also belong to white, Asian, or black racial groups. Although Mexicans in the 21st century were still concentrated in the Southwest, they have settled throughout the United States; there are over 25 million Mexicans in the country. Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans, who often represent an amalgam of racial strains, have largely settled in the New York metropolitan area, where they partake in considerable measure of the hardships and problems experienced by other immigrant groups in the process of settling in the United States; there are about 3.8 million Puerto Ricans in the country. Since 1959, many Cubans have settled in Florida and other eastern states. As of 2004, there are about 1.4 mullion Cubans in the Untied States.

LANGUAGES

The primary language of the United States is English, enriched by words borrowed from the languages of Indians and immigrants, predominantly European. Very early English borrowed from neighboring French speakers such words as shivaree, butte, levee, and prairie; from German, sauerkraut, smearcase, and cranberry; from Dutch, stoop, spook, and cookie; and from Spanish, tornado, corral, ranch, and canyon. From various West African languages, blacks have given English jazz, voodoo, and okra. According to 2009 estimates of primary languages spoken at home, about 81% of the population speak English only.

When European settlement began, Native Americans living north of Mexico spoke about 300 different languages now held to belong to 58 different language families. Only two such families have contributed noticeably to the American vocabulary: Algonkian in the Northeast and Aztec-Tanoan in the Southwest. From Algonkian languages, directly or sometimes through Canadian French, English has taken such words as moose, skunk, caribou, opossum, woodchuck, and raccoon for New World animals; hickory, squash, and tamarack for New World flora; and succotash, hominy, mackinaw, moccasin, tomahawk, toboggan, and totem for various cultural items. From Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, terms such as tomato, mesquite, coyote, chili, tamale, chocolate, and ocelot have entered English, largely by way of Spanish. A bare handful of words come from other Native American

language groups, such as tepee from Dakota Siouan, catalpa from Creek, sequoia from Cherokee, hogan from Navaho, and sockeye from Salish, as well as cayuse from Chinook.

Professional dialect research, initiated in Germany in 1878 and in France in 1902, did not begin in the United States until 1931, in connection with the Linguistic Atlas of New England (1939-43). This kind of research, requiring trained field-workers to interview representative informants in their homes, subsequently was extended to the entire Atlantic Coast, the north-central states, the upper Midwest, the Pacific Coast, the Gulf States, and Oklahoma.

The New England atlas, the Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest (1973-76), and the first two fascicles of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (1980) have been published, along with three volumes based on Atlantic Coast field materials. Also published are atlases of the north-central states, the Gulf states, and Oklahoma. In other areas, individual dialect researchers have produced more specialized studies. The definitive work on dialect speech, the American Dialect Society’s monumental Dictionary of American Regional English, began publication in 1985.

Dialect studies confirm that standard English is not uniform throughout the country. Major regional variations reflect patterns of colonial settlement, dialect features from England having dominated particular areas along the Atlantic Coast and then spread westward along the three main migration routes through the Appalachian system. Dialectologists recognize three main dialects - Northern, Midland, and Southern - each with subdivisions related to the effect of mountain ranges and rivers and railroads on population movement.

The Northern dialect is that of New England and its derivative settlements in New York; the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa; and Michigan, Wisconsin, northeastern South Dakota, and North Dakota. A major subdivision is that of New England east of the Connecticut River, an area noted typically by the loss of /r/ after a vowel, and by the pronunciation of can’t, dance, half, and bath with a vowel more like that in father than that in fat. Generally, however, Northern speech has a strong /r/ after a vowel, the same vowel in can’t and cat, a conspicuous contrast between cot and caught, the /s/ sound in greasy, creek rhyming with pick, and with ending with the same consonant sound as at the end of breath.

Midland speech extends in a wide band across the United States: there are two main subdivisions, North Midland and South Midland.

North Midland speech extends westward from New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania into Ohio, Illinois, southern Iowa, and northern Missouri. Its speakers generally end with with the consonant sound that begins the word thin, pronounce cot and caught alike, and say cow and down as /caow/ and /daown/.

South Midland speech was carried by the Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania down the Shenandoah Valley into the southern Appalachians, where it acquired many Southern speech features before it spread westward into Kentucky, Tennessee, southern Missouri, Arkansas, and northeast Texas. Its speakers are likely to say plum peach rather than clingstone peach and snake doctor rather than dragonfly. Southern speech typically, though not always, lacks the consonant /r/ after a vowel, lengthens the first part of the diphthong in write so that to Northern ears it sounds almost like rat, and diphthongizes the vowels in bed and hit so that they sound like /beuhd/ and /hiuht/. Horse and hoarse do not sound alike, and creek rhymes with meek. Corn bread is corn pone, and you-all is standard for the plural.

The sounds of American speech can be identified with a number of public figures. President John F. Kennedy spoke the Northeastern coastal dialect associated with Boston, while President Jimmy Carter spoke with a Southern coastal dialect. The North Midlands speech is familiar to those who have heard Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, while the South Midlands speech was the speech of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

In the western part of the United States, migration routes so crossed and intermingled that no neat dialect boundaries can be drawn, although there are a few rather clear population pockets.

Spanish is spoken by a sizable minority in the United States; according to 2009 estimates, about

11.4% of the population speak Spanish as the primary language of their household. The majority of Spanish speakers live in the Southwest, Florida, and eastern urban centers. Refugee immigration since the 1950s has greatly increased the number of foreign-language speakers from Latin America and Asia.

Differences in British English and American English

American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English, some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20th century language reforms (e.g., Turkey's alphabet shift, Norway's spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers.

The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time America was a relatively new country and Webster's particular contribution was to show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes were initiated unilaterally by Webster.

Webster also argued for many "simplifications" to the idiomatic spelling of the period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into common usage alongside the original versions, resulting in a situation even more confused than before.

Many words are shortened and differ from other versions of English. Spellings such as center are used instead of centre in other versions of English. And there are many other variations. Conversely, American English can sometimes favor more wordy or elongated versions of British English, as in transportation for transport.







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