Ignoring Virginia's witty, perceptive and constructive contribution, it's obviously concerned with ease of pronunciation, as others have said.

In Latin it was autumnus, which is easy to pronounce because the two consonants belong to separate syllables - au-tum-nus - so there was no problem.

The problem arose when Romance languages removed the Latin case ending -us, leaving a consonant cluster which is virtually unpronounceable for English speakers (despite what françois says about other languages). Which is why we don't pronounce both opening consonants in 'mnemonic' or 'psychiatrist', for example.

So it seems that either m or n had to go; in Romance languages it was m, in English, for some reason it was n. But as goossun has shown, that is quite consistent with other -mn words in English, such as column.

While French and English kept the original double consonant, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian went for more phonetic spelling (as they often do, e.g. ph > f), dropping the m altogether: Italian - autunno, Spanish - otoño, Portuguese - outono

As for c's remark, it makes perfect sense: in autumnal, it is easy to pronounce both letters, as each of them belongs to a different syllable - au-tum-nal; the same cannot be said for m and n in autumn.

And now, for something completely different ...

As Speedwell2 rightly puts it, "according to" is usually used to introduce the opinion of a third person, and as others have said, possibly to add authority (or perhaps distance) to a statement, so is normally only used in the grammatical third person. But as joachim has hinted, it can be used in a humorous way in first and second persons:

A: You're for the high jump!
B: According to who?
A: According to me, that's who.

A: He's the best boss we've ever had.
B: According to you maybe; it's not what most of the rest of us think.

Incidentally, first person use is a mistake that a lot of foreign learners make, as in many languages similar constructions are entirely standard - in Polish, Spanish and Italian, for example. I say a mistake because, though it may be grammatically possible, it is idiomatically unnatural and so will sound strange to a native speaker, unless used ironically, as in my examples.

@Chris B - interesting. New Zealand seems to have quite a few little idiosyncrasies, some of which Hairy Scot has pointed out. Radio announcers also have their language, things like 'on the hour' , 'the news at this hour' etc. And you can add Polish to your list of 'half before' languages.

Vaguely connected - Brits use hundreds between 1000 and 2000, but thousands after that - fifteen hundred, but two thousand five hundred. I've noticed, however, that Americans don't seem to stop at 2000, and will say things like thirty-five hundred where we would say three thousand five hundred.

@Cherochaun - in case you hadn't noticed, some of us already have a hobby - chatting about English. In any conversation among interested people, the subject tends to wander a bit, and these threads are no different. I certainly don't come here to discover 'what is necessary', but what is interesting, for example what Chris B has said about NZ usage or what Skeeter Lewis said about 'a quarter of three'.

For some of us, I would suggest that the questions are merely the frames for the discussion, and very often the off-topic bits are the most interesting. I've learnt a lot since I started visiting this site, but probably more from these asides than from the actual answers. And if the answer is all you wanted, you didn't have to look far - Dave answered it in the first comment.

.

I've done a little research and posted it on my blog: http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2013/10/some-random-thoughts-on-tell-about.html

And there is also Standard Scottish English (SSE), a variant of Standard British English, which is to say "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools" (and in the media), especially where it differs from Standard British English.

This is not to be confused with literary Scots (as in the poems of Robbie Burns), or with the various different Scottish regional dialects, (sometimes referred to as broad Scots) which might use non-standard vocabulary and grammar. SSE has certain pronunciation features (such as rolled Rs) and some distinct vocabulary that wouldn't necessarily be understood in England:

bap - soft, floury morning roll
burn - brook, stream
clype - (verb and noun) - to tell or inform on somebody, the person who does it
crabit - grumpy
crowdie - cottage cheese
do the messages - do the shopping
dour - (pronounced do-er) glum, serious - but now pretty well-known outwith Scotland
dreich - dull, overcast, miserable
fish / pie supper - fish / pie and chips (fries)
guttered - very drunk
heavy (a pint of) - vaguely equivalent to a pint of bitter (traditional dark ale) in England
loch - lake
outwith - not part of, outside
peely-wally - pale, off-colour
pinkie - little finger
tatties - potatoes
wee - small
wheesht! - be quiet!

I don't speak a particular Scottish dialect, nor with a Scottish accent, but I have used all those words and expressions on occasion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/LILT/scottishse.htm

@Poppa Bear - OK, if you try with "bail was enlarged" you get slightly more (and more modern) results - 27. Eleven of these are from Australia and New Zealand, where the term seems seems rather more common, and is the expression used in the Queensland Bail Act 1980:

"that the defendant must not depart from the court unless the bail is enlarged"

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/ba198041/s20.html

The rest are mainly from British newspapers and if you dig a bit deeper, you find that this is a perfectly standard legal term in the UK as well, listed in, for example, The Oxford Dictionary of Law Enforcement ("To extend the bail to a later date. .."):

http://books.google.pl/books?id=aEq12csigIkC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=%22enlarge+bail%22

It is also discussed in, inter alia, Blackstone's Criminal Practice 2012:

"Instead of issuing a warrant for his arrest, the magistrates may simply adjourn and enlarge bail in his absence"

http://books.google.pl/books?id=M1nl_TLr9OcC&pg=PA1416&lpg=PA1416&dq=%22enlarge+bail%22

http://legaldictionary.lawin.org/enlarge/

It would seem that it's those who use the term 'enlarge bail' who are really old school.

I can't count - eight hits

@Poppa Bear - "the bail was enlarged" gets precisely seven hits on Google. Six are from Australia and New Zealand, all of which are from the nineteenth century, one is from The Court Gazette, London of 1843 and one is from the Massachusetts Supreme Court from 1833. This doesn't sound much like "usually" to me! It's rather dangerous to make unsupported sweeping statements like this in the internet age, wouldn't you say?

@Fitty Stim - sorry, but Standard English is an absolutely basic concept in linguistics. It's the language that's used in education, the media and publishing, and in my field, language teaching. Much of linguist David Crystal's 'The Stories of English' is about how this standard came about.

If we didn't have Standard English, what would linguists mean when they say that an utterance such as 'I ain't never seen him' or 'He were in t'pub' are non-standard? (both are absolutely normal in London and Yorkshire dialect respectively, but are considered non-standard. This would also apply to your 'so aren't you' - that's not a judgement - simply that the phrase is non-standard, or at least it is in BrE. And in my field, what would we teach foreign learners?

And that there are some general differences between British English and American English is pretty obvious. Take spelling for example: British and Americans may differ, but in each we all follow our own system. The same with vocabulary: there are regional differences of course, but there are certain words, like faucet, which are familiar to all Americans but which many Brits have no idea about (it's tap in BrE). And what about all those others: chips / crisps / fries, pants / trousers / knickers. There are even a few grammatical differences: many BrE speakers (and their media) prefer a plural verb with group nouns like team, government etc, but this seems anathema to many AmE speakers.

If I teach somebody Yorkshire dialect, as attractive as it is to me, its not going to get them very far, so of course I teach them Standard English. Then we have to choose which Standard English to teach; we need to be consistent. So for example, most students in Europe learn British Standard English, while not surprisingly those in Latin America learn American standard English.

So yes, there is definitely a Standard English, and as there are considerable general variations between the American sort and the British sort, it is entirely appropriate to talk of British Standard English and American Standard English. Otherwise why would the publishers of the Harry Potter books have seen fit to make so many changes for American publication?

Linguists discuss Standard English at University College London:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/standard.htm

Standard British English, grammar.about.com;
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/standbriteterm.htm

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English:
http://www.amazon.com/Columbia-Guide-Standard-American-English/dp/0231069898

BBC / British Council - American vs Standard British English:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/marcc22/american-versus-standard-british-english

British-domiciled American Linguist's blog comparing the two standards:
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/

@Riley Cox - I presume you are talking about grammatical objects, not objects as things, as you can lay a person down as well:

When I lay me down to sleep - Joseph Addison, The Spectator 1711
Now I lay me down to sleep - The New England Primer 1790s
She laid the baby down gently on the bed - Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary