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[ericthered]

Actually, the textbook would be wrong. Hansom Cabs began operating in London and Paris early in the 19th Century. The word Taxi is short for Taximeter Cabriolet, a vehicle used for transportation introduced in New York in...err...I believe the 1840's.
Essentially, this whole American/British English debate is odd. The British colonized America, then got royally slapped. Daniel Webster produced the first American English Dictionary. A few alterations of spelling, a whole lot of slang phrases and popular idioms and that is it. I make a point of telling my students that, if one removes the regional slang argot, youth-culture lingo and idioms, the basic difference between English as spoken in the US and that spoken in the UK is spelling and flat/long vowels.

[A-Train]

Sorry to be nit-picky, but I think you mean Noah Webster not Daniel.  The latter has an equal, but different claim to fame.

[ericthered]

D'oh...my bad...Yes, yes, Noah Webster was the chappie I meant...Honest mistake, please...I won't do it again...don't make me go down to the basement...please...

[randyjac]

Essentially, this whole American/British English debate is odd.

I try to emphasize to students that after the USA and Britannia parted ways linguistically, it was not like Merry Olde England dug in and defended to the death the purity of the tongue of the Bard. English spoken in the UK today is different from that of two-hundred years ago.

[Pashley]

Essentially, this whole American/British English debate is odd.

I try to emphasize to students that after the USA and Britannia parted ways linguistically, it was not like Merry Olde England dug in and defended to the death the purity of the tongue of the Bard. English spoken in the UK today is different from that of two-hundred years ago.

I once took an excellent course on English grammar, 3rd year U level in a linguistics department, from a Kiwi teaching in Canada. His specialty was dialect analysis; his grad students were doing theses on things like the Ottawa valley dialects in areas where successive waves of immigration were French, then Scottish, then German.

According to him, if you wanted Shakespeare pronounced the way he would have, you'd recruit your actors among American hillbillies.