The word "world" was originally spelled "whirled", and meant literally "a habitable body spinning on an axis". Because the very etymology of the word as it stood contradicted Roman Catholic dogma of the time that the habitable world is the still point at the center of the turning universe, the Church imposed the false spelling and took other measures to suppress knowledge of that etymology. The effort of suppression succeeded in England until Henry VIII broke with Rome, and for a long time after the truth was rediscovered, nobody cared.