> *Totally off topic, did you know that the correct spelling of foetus is actually fetus, i.e. the American Way. It wasn't until the 18th Century that "Educated" Englishmen began bringing the dipthongs back into English. Which is why Americans spell it one way, and English (and Australians) spell it the other: the languages went their separate ways before the Renaissance. Similar to the American Accent and the British one. They split off 400 years ago, when the British sounded alot more like the Northern Americans. So Shakespeare is meant to be spoken in an American accent. As I said, totally off topic.

The first standardisation of English spelling happened in 1755 with the publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Before this, true, "fetus" would have been a common enough spelling, but no more common than "feetas" or "featus". Certainly it doesn't make much sense to say that one of these is the "original spelling" and is "more correct" than other spellings.

As for the idea that British accents used to to more like American accents, I find it very difficult to imagine what you might mean: I can be fairly certain that British accents like Cornish, Geordie or even Black Country haven't ever been similar to any accent you could hear in America. And it's hard to imagine what evidence there might be for the more moderate British accents. So far as I'm aware, there are no voice recordings available from the period.

winter"Or am I completly off-base here?"mute