Many years before he published his well-known American Dictionary of the English Language, he published a much smaller, more radical dictionary he called a Compendious Dictionary that included spellings such as w-i-m-m-e-n for "women" and t-u-n-g for "tongue." That dictionary was skewered and he dialed down the spelling reform in his final masterpiece. Yet still, Noah Webster, his affection for spelling reform, and the success of his final dictionary in 1828 are the reasons Americans spell words such as "favor" without a "u" (1), "theater" with an "-er" instead of an "-re" at the end, "sulfur" with an "f" and not a "ph" in the middle, and "aluminium" as "aluminum (2)." - See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/why-are-british-english-and-american-english-different#sthash.PDOcv1Ry.dpuf