I have learned recently that the 'e' dispute is a modern contrivance that simply was not an argument in the past. People spelled it whichever way they felt appropriate and nobody gave them guff.
Ol' Kentuck corn likker and Pensylvanee-state strate rye.
Further back you have things like uskebeaghe and uisge beatha, which are about as old as it gets.
I'd wager the Irish and the Scottish were arguing about who made it first before anyone took a matter of letters to it.
