why does the word "Labor" in Labor party not have a "u" in it, in Australia?

[Toadstoolman]

And England??

[CalMeacham]

Why does "Labour" not have a "u" in it in America? And colour and flavour and savour, for that matter?

[hawthorne]

It is an odd thing. Australians generally spell it labour, but it's the Australian Labor Party. So it's not uncommon to see references to the labour movement's influence on Labor. According to the ALP (http://www.alp.org.au/about/history.html#our)'s own page During the early years of the ALP, the Party was referred to by various titles differing from colony to colony. It was at the 1908 Interstate (federal) Conference that the name "Australian Labour Party" was adopted. In its shortened form the Party was frequently referred to as both 'Labor' and 'Labour', however the former spelling was adopted from 1912 onwards, due to the influence of the American labor movement

[cart]

There's also the Progressive Labour Party.

Originally posted by CalMeacham
Why does "Labour" not have a "u" in it in America? And colour and flavour and savour, for that matter?
Post-revolutionary nationalism from Noah Webster. He proposed many more changes that never caught on (eg "tung" for "tongue").

[everton]

Originally posted by Toadstoolman
And England??
It does (http://www.labour.org.uk/). Why did you think otherwise?

[Toadstoolman]

The official Australian English is supposed to be the same as the English English, which means we have u's in words like colour, labour and flavour and other things like s's instead of z's etc.
Of course not everyone follows this system formally, let alone informally, but naming a political party is a fairly important thing I would think, and I'm wondering if at the time they were trying to make some sort of anti-British statement, or what???
I've seen the British party spelt Labor in the papers here, but that looks like a mistake.

[Richard Pearse]

Link (http://www.alp.org.au/about/history.html)


During the early years of the ALP, the Party was referred to by various titles differing from colony to colony. It was at the 1908 Interstate (federal) Conference that the name "Australian Labour Party" was adopted. In its shortened form the Party was frequently referred to as both 'Labor' and 'Labour', however the former spelling was adopted from 1912 onwards, due to the influence of the American labor movement.

[Richard Pearse]

Originally posted by CalMeacham
Why does "Labour" not have a "u" in it in America? And colour and flavour and savour, for that matter?

Me thinks you misunderstood the question.

[amanset]

Originally posted by Toadstoolman
And England??

The only time I have seen the British Labour Party's names spelt "Labor" is in the American media. I guess a better question woul dbe why does the American media often miss-spell the name of a political party?

[everton]

For the record, the British media often (but not always) refers to Donald Rumsfeld as the US Defense Secretary – cite (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1638455.stm) and cite (http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,925325,00.html). In my opinion this pattern ought to be standard.

[Bryan Ekers]

Well, Austrialia was founded as a penal colony.

The "U" was stolen. QED.