yog(h)urt

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When people ask me what I like about living in England, I have usually said (in this order):

1. the National Health Service
2. the trains
3. hearing about people's hobbies

Now, I know that 1 & 2 are not the best of their kind in the world, but you have to consider where I come from. Regarding (1), the NHS saved my life and made sure my child was delivered safely and never asked me to open my purse. I will be a fan for life.  On (2), in my last US town, the train came twice a week (and even then, it came several towns away). Now I don't own a car, I take the train every day, and I never want to go back to car-ownership again. But the magic is wearing off for (3). I was fascinated by hobbies that were new to me when I first came (Morris dancing, lawn bowls, trainspotting), but they are old to me now--and there are just as many interesting hobbies in the US (and, indeed, a lot of trainspotting).  So, I need a new number 3. And it's so obvious what it should be: yog(h)urt.

Let's do the linguistics first. This word comes to English from Turkish yoÄŸurt, but English doesn't have the letter ÄŸ or the sound that goes with it, so we had to figure out what to do with it. I'm relying on Wikipedia here, but it says that in some dialect(s) ÄŸ is not pronounced as its own sound, but instead lengthens the preceding vowel. That would explain why it turns up as yaourt in French (and has also made appearances with that spelling in English). In another dialect(s?), ÄŸ is pronounced as [É°], which is a velar approximant. So, it's like a [w], but without the lip-rounding. This is all to say that it's not a hard-g sound at all. Now, the word first appeared in English in the 17th century, so it's had a long time to be 'nativi{z/s}ed' and for people to assume it follows English spelling rules with the hard 'g' before 'u'. What I don't know is why there's ever an 'h' in it (Update: Mats in the comments section has the answer! Yay!). The h-less and h-ful spellings of the word have been present in English from the start. 
I see yoghurt more in the UK than in the US, though both Oxford and Collins list yogurt as the first choice (as do American dictionaries) and most brands spell it without the 'h'. (The pictured one here is an exception.)  My on-line grocer* mostly spells it yogurt, but sometimes puts the h in, even if the brand itself doesn't (but a search for either term brings up the same range of dairy products). The yogurt:yoghurt ratio is more than 1000:1 in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. 
I can't help but think that the relative popularity of the yoghurt spelling in the UK has something to do with how its pronunciation is evolving. This is one of those where if you think 'older' or 'more like the source language' means 'more correct', you'll have to give up on the belief that '(modern) British' means 'more correct'. (I'd rather you gave up on all of them, but in case you won't, I'm pointing out that you can't believe all of them at the same time.)  The OED records the pronunciation as: 

( /ˈjɒɡət/ , older /ˈjəʊɡʊət/ )

This is to say: a frequent, modern British pronunciation of the word has a first syllable that rhymes with dog (in the same dialect, at least. The [É’] vowel of British Received Pronunciation (RP) does not really exist in American English.) The older pronunciation there is the RP version of the /o/ vowel.  The American version of that vowel is closer to /o/, but tends to be lengthened with an off-glide.  If all of this is gibberish to you, then listen to the GOAL-vowel recordings for the [əʊ] sound and the LOT-vowel recording for the /É’/  at the British Library's very helpful guide to RP vowels.

Americans pronounce it more like the older pronunciation--except without that cent(e)ring of the vowel that RP does. And if you're still having a hard time imagining any of these sounds, listen to the first two pronunciations of yogurt at Forvo. The first is the modern British, the second American.  Actually, Forvo also has a Turkish pronunciation, the vowel of which doesn't directly correspond to any of the English ones (it's this one).
(This post was supposed to be a quick one. I am very bad at quick.)
So, back to my list. Yog(h)urt, no matter how you spell it or pronounce it, is a thing to love about England--and Europe, generally.  The question is: Why is American yog(h)urt so disgusting by comparison?  I am not the only one asking this question. I typed 'why is American yogurt' into Google, and it auto-completed with 'so bad'. I found the answer for what's different between American and other yog(h)urts at a blog dedicated to the question. But they copied this from somewhere else--its not clear where:

Q: What is the difference between European and American yogurt?
A: Indeed there is a difference. The difference is based on the dry matter and the ingredients. For European yogurts, there are actually two main types. Classical European yogurt, from the culture side, contains only two strains (of bacterial cultures), while mild European yogurt also contains other lactobacillus cultures such as acidophilus.
The difference between European and American yogurt starts exclusively with the selection of the starter cultures and continues with some technical or process development, e.g., homogenizing heat treatment, etc. There is also a big difference in the use of stabilizing ingredients and sweeteners. European yogurts use little of either of these, whereas American yogurts tend to be very sweet and contain a variety of stabilizers, European yogurts rely more on cultures and process for stabilization.

There are plenty of very sweet UK yog(h)urts, but it's the texture that really differs, and even the low- and no-fat versions are much less watery and sour than American versions. It's so much more pleasant--and I can't for the life of me understand why the runny, non-homogenized American ones continue to sell. While the internet tells me there's increasing demand for 'Greek' yog(h)urt in the US, no one over here seems to be clamo(u)ring for the American kind. I am not surprised.  
Before I go, here's a link to a piece I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education's Lingua Franca blog. It balances out all this living-in-England-loving with a little something-I-miss-about-America.

 * Wait! Wait! Shopping for your groceries on-line and having them delivered! That's what really deserves to be number 3 on my list of reasons to love living in England--though it didn't really exist when I moved here. Still, yog(h)urt is definitely top-10 material.