At last, my seventh (and final) observation!

I love coffee.  In college, I admittedly spent waaaaay too much money on coffee—especially when Starbucks moved into the SLC! And in D.C., I’m pretty sure half of my paycheck (well, half of the half that was left after taxes…) consistently went to Starbucks and Swings. Americans are quite curious with their cultural coffee obsession. The worldwide spread of coffee shops like Starbucks, Seattle Coffee Company, and Gloria Jean’s serve as interesting examples of American influence—much of which actually comes from movies.

On the other hand, I have very few American friends who would regularly sit down and enjoy a cup of tea. Excluding my grandmother Baxter, I am hard-pressed to think of anyone that had any sort of habit of drinking tea. Conversely, here in South Africa, I think it would be difficult to find someone who didn’t have at least one cup of tea each day. While my South African friends tell me that coffee is exponentially growing in popularity—tea is still the drink of preference for most South Africans. Not to mention, instant coffee is king here in South Africa. I suppose it makes sense… why brew a whole pot of filtered coffee if you’re not sure who is going to drink what? Instant coffee innately seems less wasteful. And it’s quicker. Yet, until three months ago, I think I had been given instant coffee perhaps four times in my whole life.

You may ask yourself, why do Americans have such an affinity for coffee when most other former British colonies have a strong preference for tea?  Three words: Boston Tea Party.  Okay, so technically, it began before that with the infamous Townshend Act.  The Townshend Act, issued by King George and Prime Minister Lord North, outrageously increased the price of tea in the American colonies.  After years of exclaiming, “No taxation without Representation,” and smuggling in cheaper tea from Dutch importers—Americans began to turn to coffee as an additional form of protest.  As a result of the taxes, and the Tea Party, Americans viewed drinking coffee as patriotic…and drinking tea as unpatriotic.  Who knew our resulting addiction to coffee would have such a lasting impact on our young country?

My sixth observation…

(6) What are all of these “extra” letters for?

I will be the first to admit that I’m not a great “speller.”  Actually, I think it’s hereditary.  No one in my family can spell very well.  We are constantly asking each other how to spell relatively simple words, and attempting to locate dictionaries to aid our efforts.  Granted, that’s in American English, so you can imagine my distress when I’m trying to figure out how to spell words in British English/South African English.

Then again, when I see words like “colour” and “programme” they always remind me of Noah Webster.  In 1828, only 52 years after the United States declared our independence from the British, Noah Webster published his most famous work: An American Dictionary of the English Language.  In his dictionary, Webster intentionally changed the spellings of many British words.  He claimed that he was, “[rescuing] our native tongue from the clamor of pedantry that surrounded English grammar and pronunciation.”  In other words, Webster felt that British English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex.  A little harsh, perhaps, but he was steadfast in his belief that American English should better reflect the culture of his young country.  He sought to distinguish the language spoken in America from that spoken in England.  Another motivation in publishing his dictionary was to standardize American speech.  Often times, Americans in different parts of the country spelled, pronounced, and used words differently.

While I think it will take me a while to instinctively spell words like “favourite” and “realise” correctly, I am definitely trying my best to make the necessary adjustments!  It doesn’t help that I can’t figure out how to set my default spell-checker to South African English…

Fun Fact: Unauthorized printing of his books, and incongruent copyright laws that varied among the thirteen states, led Webster to champion our first federal copyright law (the Copyright Act of 1790).

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed… No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”  –Noah Webster