tidbit versus titbit?

[Rachel Sommer]

David Mar, an Australian, writes in the annotation to his Irregular Webcomic
(http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1731.html):

The etymology of the word "titbit" is interesting. As best I can ascertain
> without access to a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, the original form
> was "tidbit", from the Middle English *tyd*, meaning choice or special,
> and *bit*, meaning a small morsel. At some point the British converted
> this to "titbit" for some reason I haven't been able to uncover, and this
> spelling and pronunciation is now the most common in the UK and Commonwealth
> nations. The "tidbit" spelling remains as an alternative in use in the USA,
> although it seems to have been a relatively recent re-invention, appearing
> in the US only as recently as the mid-19th century. It's not that the US has
> *preserved* the original spelling, but that they have for some reason *gone
> back to it* after an intervening couple of centuries when everyone used
> "titbit".
>
> There is some speculation that the (relatively) recent American change was
> prompted by a prudish desire to sanitise the language of "rude syllables",
> changing the potentially titillating (pun intended) "tit" for "tid".
> However, there doesn't appear to be any solid evidence for this as the
> reason.
>

Anyone know why we USAians are different?

-- 
-- 
Rachel Sommer
As the Italian proverb says:
L'aritmetica non è opinione (arithmetic is not an opinion).

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