leaving out the u
2007-01-26 01:34:32 · 15 answers · asked by johnc 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Other - Society & Culture
Color or colour...either way is technically correct. It's mainly a cultural difference, as you noted. I have no idea why it developed that way. Favor and favour are like that, too.
I always wondered about the difference when I was in school. I once tried to spell some of those words with the "u" since I found that way prettier, but got negative marks because I "misspelled" it. Then I got more negative marks when I showed my teacher the dictionary proving that either way was right.
Interesting. When I ran the spell-checker just now, "colour" and "favour" were considered to be misspelled. Ah, well. I never put 100% of my trust in these things. (I learned that the hard way when I typed a paper about the history of "Trance". In my haste, I typed a T instead of an F and the spell checker didn't see anything wrong with it. Luckily, the teacher has a good sense of humor [humour], and I didn't get a bad grade. So my labors [labours] were not in vain!)
2007-01-26 01:59:40 · answer #1 · answered by Avie 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Who says the Americans are wrong? The English did not invent the English language as it derives from the Germanic language.
When people emigrated to America years ago, they spelt the words phonetically not with silent letters. They still got the same message across to people. Spelling English words can be trick enough at times.
Alot of people could not read or write at the time, and this was easier.
There are some differences between American English and European English..
2007-01-26 01:55:01 · answer #2 · answered by Bastet 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
in the direction of the top of the nineteenth century a collection human beings teachers desperate to 'standardize' US English because of the fact they thought that words must be spelled as they sound. The 'u' in shade grow to be considered one of their 'victims' as grow to be the u in honour. They positioned z contained in the normalize and comparable words somewhat of an s. They did lots of this and maximum of it 'caught'. The French are doing this each and all of the time with their Academie Francais (i'm hoping the spelling is right). There are nevertheless astonishing US words, especially in pronunciationon. Herb case in point is spoken as 'erb contained in the U. S. and Herb in England.
2016-09-28 00:27:16 · answer #3 · answered by carol 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because when people first started to emigrate to the US they got confused by pronunciation and they started to change the spelling of some words to make it easier for them. At least thats what I've been told.
2007-01-26 01:42:55 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They don't "miss spell" it. They just spell it differently. The English "miss spell" Praha (Prague), Lisboa (Lisbon), Fiorence (Florence) and pretty much every other European city.
People in glass houses.
2007-01-26 01:54:12 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because it is easier to study the spelling color...
2007-01-26 02:08:48 · answer #6 · answered by bellefire016 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
They spell a lot of words differently to us Brits. We spell it manoeuvre, they spell it manoover. They tend to spell words as they're spoken, not as they should be spelt.
2007-01-26 01:52:53 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
they usto spell it colour but when they created computers to stsrt off with you could only iput 5 letter words so they changed it
hope this helps
2007-01-26 01:44:31 · answer #8 · answered by sexyxxxxx 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We just spell it differently.
2007-01-26 02:21:31 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yanks misspell most words as they are all retards, no in all seriousness they drop the u in alot of there words and it come from the fact that they are a nation made up of many languages and it was easier to write word phonetically so that all could understand them
2007-01-26 01:44:57 · answer #10 · answered by wang eyed lil 3 · 4⤊ 3⤋