On Dec 21, 2007 12:25 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I ran across this little anecdote today, buried in a biography of a moderately-unknown British general of the Second World War. It may amuse people, given the amount of time and stress we put into caring about The Correct Spellings and the equal amount of time and stress we put into caring about Not Antagonising People Over Them. "Churchill failed to understand the delicate balancing act involved in running an Allied staff. Had he fully appreciated the complete fusion of staff and working relationships which Wilson had managed to achieve he would not have objected, as he did in one of the many telegrams he sent to Wilson, to the spelling of the word 'theater' rather than 'theatre' sent out from Allied Forces HQ."
- Michael Dewar
One can draw two morals from this: a) If you get worked up over spelling differences, you're in good company, Churchill did too. b) Even Churchill ought to have remembered when to keep quiet for the good of consensus, so nyah. ;-)
And now we know the real reason why D-Day was 6/6/44...
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Peter in Canberra