Eddie Izzard has a very funny take on this whole issue. At a gig in San Francisco, he was musing on the differences in spelling and pronunciation between American and European English, and said something along these lines:
"You say "Tomayto", and we say "Tomahto". You say Aluminum, we say Aluminium. And you say 'erbs, and we say herbs... because there's a fucking 'H' in it!"