Way of track. German language question

[Patrick Chadwick]

And I thought Americanized English had most of the crazy rules.

Not so. In the matter of spelling, American English is often more rational: color, honor etc without the irritating redundant "u" introduced by British Francophiles. But there is one noteworthy exception. Americans are shy of the word arse (from Germanic "Arsch"), which is odd, considering the substantial numbers of settlers of German origins. An *** is an animal, a.k.a. donkey. The story of Baalam's *** was not about Baalam's posterior, but about his donkey. So the quaint old American invitation to kiss one's *** fails for the simple reason that we no longer have donkeys. But it is good to know that the folks on the West side of the pond are such animal lovers! And note that the forum software is not bothered by the word arse, but has replaced the word a-s-s- by ***. I wrote it as ***.

Otherwise, I favor those American spellings that move the English language just a wee bit in the direction of phonetic rationalisation. But I draw the line at thru!