Posted by Robert Dilley on October 28, 2004 at 03:07:33 from 206.186.189.208 user rdilley.
In Reply to: despatch or dispatch posted by Ed Kiser on October 28, 2004 at 01:34:10:
Ed, you must have known that disucssion of vocabulary would wake me up. My 1944 Cape impression of WH has "despatch" in both places you cite, and elsewhere that I could find it.
Webster's, Oxford and my trusty Chambers all seem to think "dispatch" is the standard spelling and "despatch" a British variation.
My guess is that AR used "despatch" throughout, and some inefficient subeditor in the US changed it to "dispatch" but missed a lot of occurrences (doubtless because he didn't have Ed's wonderful search engine).