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Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g., colour, flavour, honour, neighbour, rumour, labour) end in -or in American English (e.g., color, flavor, honor, neighbor, rumor, labor). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: contour, velour, paramour, troubadour, are spelt thus the same everywhere.
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Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States.
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In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, in British usage the u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (neighbourhood, humourless, savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (favourite, honourable, behaviourism); before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u may be dropped (honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious, invigorate), may be either dropped or retained (colo(u)ration, colo(u)rise), or may be retained (colourist).
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Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere and have never had a "u", for example inferior or exterior.
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Many words spelled with -re in Modern French are spelled with -er in both British and American usage
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The ending -cre, as in acre[41], lucre, massacre, mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/[citation needed].
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Centring is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable.
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The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while poetic metre is often -re, pentameter, hexameter, etc. are almost always -er
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American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly there are the American pretense and British pretence; but derivatives such as defensive, offensive, and pretension are always thus spelled in both systems.
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kielipuoliAmerican and British English spelling differences in Wikipedia (English).
languages BritishEnglish AmericanEnglish spelling Delicious-import English Wikipedia writing
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