In some ways, compared to British English, American English differs in its grammar, phonology and vocabulary. Many of these differences were amplified by separate attempts in both Britain and the United States to standardize English usage. For example, Webster, and his Webster's dictionary,<ref> Full text online at [http://books.google.com/books?id=0UM-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:noah+inauthor:webster&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=1 Noah Webster, '' An American dictionary of the English language'' (1846), 1079 pages] </ref> was influential in firmly establishing many of the American spellings now in use today. Webster's dictionaries redefined Americanism within the context of an emergent and unstable American cultural identity. Webster's identification of his project as a "federal language" shows his competing impulses towards conservatism or regularity and innovation. The contradictions of Webster's project comprised part of a larger dialectical play between liberty and order within Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary political debates.
===Roosevelt===
[[File:TRSpelling.jpg|thumb|370px|Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the spirits of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.]]
During his presidency, 1901-1909, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] failed in efforts to simplify the spelling of 300 common words. He (and other spelling reformers) wanted to replace "dropped" and "chased" with "dropt" and "chast", and replace "through" with "thru" and "thoroughly" with "thoroly." He tried to force the federal government to adopt the system by ordering the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt explained, "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.<ref> Henry F. Pringle, ''Theodore Roosevelt'' (1932), pp 465-7; H.W. Brands, ''T.R.: The Last Romantic'' (1998) pp555ff</ref>
The [[Chicago Tribune]] also embarked on its own effort to simplify spelling and make it more phonetic.
==Today==