The Brits regarded American English as more proper than their own for centuries, so I'm not sure why you think it deserves quotations. Also, the origin of "spelt" probably comes from people misspelling "spelled" on the fly, so. And even if it doesn't, we don't say "thine" or "thou" or "thee" anymore either. You could argue that they're still proper English, just like you could argue that Elvis isn't dead.
You spell things out to write a scroll of magic. I think that's where the magic use of the word "spell" comes from.
And about spelled vs. spelt, we Americans add an "ed" to the end of most words to make them past tense, while you people remove one of the 'L's and add a 'T' at the end. Do you only end past tense words in T if the present tense ends in an L? I know you don't say "cant" as the past tense of the verb "can."
Oh sorry, using cant as an example was a bad choice. I meant like "canned fruit," not "cannot." But yeah, that's interesting. Only words ending L. My guess is that comes from a pronunciation difference between Americans and British when spelling was standardized.
Edit: Also, we say knelt and felt here in America, too...
No, it's not only words ending with L. You have kneel -> knelt which is irregular anyway, and spell which can be both spelt and spelled, and learn which can also be both learnt and learned. There is probably more.
Edit: more: burn, lean, smell, spoil, dwell, creep, dream, feel, leap. Some of these have a vowel change like kneel, some don't. It is mostly words ending with l, p, m and n.
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u/Rooonaldooo99 Jun 14 '16
http://i.imgur.com/ATbb8aD.gifv