Thanks to Darrell Clarke for the informative reply (sent to all).

Dan Wilson's rejoinder is below.  (And I certainly enjoy the mild
barbs he throws at us "non-speakers" of the Queen's English!)

... So, when I'm in the UK I wear "trousers", and otherwise I suppose
that I wear "pants."   Is wearing pants or trousers optional?  ;-)

• ----------------------------------
|         Robbie Rhodes            |
| Return-Path: rrhodes@foxtail.com |
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•- - - - -

Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 01:05 BST-1¶
From: dwilz@cix.compulink.co.uk (Daniel Wilson)¶
Subject: Re: The Worldwide Queen's English¶
To: rrhodes@foxtail.com

Robbie --  How to invent Esperanto, very slowly !

The Latin nations welcome unchanged spelling in Latin-derived
words (when you see a Spanish-English dictionary you realise just
how many words are closely similar), and the Germanic nations
welcome unchanged Germanic-derived spelling. Friesian (coastal
Dutch) is almost modernised Anglo-Saxon.

I don't think an Australian can make too much of a thing about the
"..or" ends. They have the Labor Party, after all.

I did some research on an English Victorian engineering family
about 20 years ago. Their letters were peppered with "..or" and
"..our" endings without preference or consistency. I don't think
the UK standardised (..ized !) "..our" until around 1910. It's a
non-issue. The important thing is to respect different usages,
like "vest" and "pants", when you're in another country's
discussion.

All best¶
Dan Wilson