Rant: The Lost Letters

Fans of this blog, and I know there's at least one of you, will no doubt be aware that I'm not averse to having a little rant. A vent. A bit of letting off steam time. And this one won't take long.

It concerns changes to the spelling of words that I haven't been made aware of. I must have missed the email that said it was now OK to stop spelling these words the way I was taught to spell them, and OK to now spell them the way people used to mis-spell them.

I am talking about two words in particular, though I am sure there are more and you should look out for a future RANT about them. Without further ado, the words are

Yoghurt

and

Verandah

I have come into contact with the latter quite frequently of late, through the writing of property reviews in my guise as a copywriter (well, a moderately unsuccessful writer has to earn some corn somehow).

I thought I was going mad, because every time I saw the word on various websites, there was no 'h' and I wondered if this had always been the case and I was the one at fault.

But no, having read some Bernard Cornwell for the first time recently, I did indeed see the word spelt the good old way.

And then there's the dairy produce, often to be found with bits of fruit inside, but apparently no longer with an 'h' inside its collection of letters.

Why have both these words dropped the 'h'? Who said it was OK for supermarkets to label one of the staples of their dairy aisles without using the letter?

I spent a good degree of my youth remembering to include the h in both spellings of the words, and now you're telling me I needn't have bothered?

Does modern society deem it acceptable to drop a letter from words without giving notification to the populace?

To whom do I complain about this rubbis. ?