What explains the difference between English and American accents? On this episode of Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta explains that this spoken phenomenon starts with the written word. -- On American versus English Spelling -- Why Do Brits and Americans Spell Words Differently? http://www.livescience.com/33844-british-american-word-spelling.html Americanize, Anglicise: Why Do Brits And Yanks Spell Words Differently? http://io9.gizmodo.com/americanize-anglicise-why-do-brits-and-yanks-spell-wo-1671334487 Present Day American Spelling from The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume 6 https://books.google.com/books?id=ia5tHVtQPn8C&pg=PA352&dq=american+and+english+spelling+differences&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KmWtVNOoEoLksATGpoDgCg&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=american%20and%20english%20spelling%20differences&f=false -- Main Sources for this Episode -- A History of the English Language by Elly van Gelderen http://www.historyofenglish.net/ Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction by Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/ISBN/1413015891?cid=GB1 Why Do Americans and Brits Have Different Accents? http://www.livescience.com/33652-americans-brits-accents.html When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents? http://mentalfloss.com/article/29761/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents Received Pronunciation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation -- Previous version of this episode contained -- - Hudson Cycle – Nico Muhly - I’m Afraid of Americans (V1) – David Bowie - Americans – Oneohtrix Point Never - Paper Crumpling R – Sesame Street - Messages Received – Cabaret Voltaire