J.A.Wines

1762, an Oxford professor called Robert Lowth produced a prescriptive text titled A Short Introduction to English Grammar, a publication so influential that it dominated grammar teaching into the twentieth century

In these commonly confused noun/verb pairs, the noun has a c and the verb has an s.†7

Noun

Verb

advice

advise

practice

practise

device

devise

prophecy

prophesy

licence

license

Webster was an orderly-minded man who disapproved of a lot of the spelling that Johnson had recorded (indeed, he disapproved of a lot about Johnson, saying that he was ‘naturally indolent and seldom wrote until he was urged by want. Hence… he was compelled to prepare his manuscripts in haste.’).

Webster’s dislike of words that weren’t pronounced the way they looked led him to decree that words such as centre and theatre should be spelled center and theater; he also dropped the silent u from words such as colour, favour and honour. In fact, Webster was single-handedly responsible for most of the differences between British and American spelling that survive to this day.