To go a bit farther afield, I'll mention Noah Webster, who saved us from "tyre," "gaol", "chequering", "waggon", and other peverse spellings in Brit-speak. Noah wrote the first American dictionary, circa 1828, and it was his aim in an era of anti-British sentiment following the War of 1812 and resentment following the burning of the White House, or whatever it was called then, to intentionally split away from English English.
Noah decided to both simplify the spelling, eliminate unnecessary vowels, and develop a true American idiom.
In the true the spirit of Noah that we Americans should use "checkering," "tire," "plow," and "jail" instead of the English equivelents. And he gave us lots of other useful words and ideas. It's due to him that it's OK to drop articles (a, an, the) when they are implied and thereofe unnecessary.
I'm no Anglophobe, but will continue to use "12 guage" rather than "12 bore," "shells" rather than "cartridges," and other words that sound pretentious to my American ears, unless they're used by an Englishman.
