# American Incorrect Spelling
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 7, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185 "2005-10-07T14:12:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/1 "2005-10-07T14:12:20Z")
Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly?
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### Author:  [@antich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antich)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/2 "2005-10-07T14:16:00Z")
> [@The Flying Dutchman](#):
>
> Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly?
Buggy spellchecking programs.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/3 "2005-10-07T14:17:58Z")
We’re rebels! (No, really.)
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/4 "2005-10-07T14:19:16Z")
I’m so sorry. I just realized this was GQ. Ok, I think it does have something to do with us rebelling from you guys, and changing a lot of things at that point so we wouldn’t seem inferior or just a spawn of you. But I can’t say for sure, so I’ll slink away now. Apologies.
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### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/5 "2005-10-07T14:21:09Z")
> [@The Flying Dutchman](#):
>
> Why do Americans spell “colour” incorrectly?
Because it’s too much labor to put the “u” in there.
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/6 "2005-10-07T14:22:14Z")
Because there has yet to be an American born who can resist getting Canadians mildly annoyed.
Oh yeah, and because of [this guy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster)
> [@](#):
>
> As a spelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced American spellings like “color” instead of the English “colour”, “music” instead " of “musick”, “wagon” instead of “waggon”, “center” instead of “centre”, and “honor” instead of “honour”. He also added American words that were not in English dictionaries like “skunk” and “squash”. At the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828.
Anyway, there’s almost 300 million of us, so we win. 😃
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/7 "2005-10-07T14:22:49Z")
Actually, we spell it correctly. According to [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=color):
> [@](#):
>
> [Middle English \*colour[/i[, from Old French, from Latin _color_. See _kel-_[sup]1[/sup] in Indo-European Roots.]
You guys screwed it up from the original Latin, and we fixed it.
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/8 "2005-10-07T14:25:25Z")
Americans misspell _color_ for several reasons.
1. _Favor._
2. _Flavor._
3. _Harbor._
4. _Odor._
5. Your a looser, you morron.
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/9 "2005-10-07T14:27:11Z")
Think of all the ink saved over the years by not printing those extra "u"s.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/10 "2005-10-07T14:33:11Z")
Actually, we Americans don’t spell it incorrectly. We spell it correctly for American English. One could just as easily ask why the English spell _jail_ as _gaol_. Neither spelling is incorrect–they’re just in different versions of English.
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/11 "2005-10-07T14:35:33Z")
I believe **Anaamika** is closer to the truth on this one. I don’t currently have a cite but for some reason that is what I am remembering from my college days.
To the OP, I realize you may be trying to be cute but you do realize neither way is wrong. It’s strictly cultural. What is acceptable and “correct” in England may not be so here and vice versa. One thing that appears to be happening, however, with so much instant global communication is that Americans and British are swapping/melding a lot of vocabulary and speaking styles. Personally, I think it’s cool.
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### Author:  [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/12 "2005-10-07T14:38:15Z")
> [@Duke of Rat](#):
>
> Because it’s too much labor to put the “u” in there.
I think it’s more a question of honor.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/13 "2005-10-07T14:40:01Z")
I’ve used the ‘u’ since I was a kid, because I found it more aesthetically pleasing.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/14 "2005-10-07T14:45:28Z")
There’s another side to this question: why do British, Canadians and Australians spell it “colour”? Just as Noah Webster is the main influence on US spelling, a big influence on British spelling was Samuel Johnson, and he preferred “colour”.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/15 "2005-10-07T14:57:31Z")
We needed all those u’s to spell United States after freeing ourselves from your British tyranny!
😃
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/16 "2005-10-07T15:05:08Z")
If your next question was going to be “Why don’t Americans spell Alumin(i)um with an ‘ium’ like all of the other elements in the periodic table?”, just be warned that the last person who asked this got smacked around the head with a large chunk of Molybdenum, causing him to fall to his death in a vat of molten Platinum.
Or, if you want the proper answer, it was us (the English) who changed the name Aluminum to Alumin **i** um; the yanks just left it as it was.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/17 "2005-10-07T15:09:01Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> Or, if you want the proper answer, it was **us** (the English) who changed the name Aluminum to Alumin **i** um; the yanks just left it as it was.
Wouldn’t the proper way to spell the bolded pronoun be _we_? 😃
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/18 "2005-10-07T15:12:29Z")
It was we who changed the name…
It was us who changed the name…
If you say so - I’m not a grammar expert ‘we who’ doesn’t roll off the tongue though, does it (I understand that this doesn’t make it wrong).
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/19 "2005-10-07T15:13:30Z")
Actually, shouldn’t the ‘who’ be ‘that’?
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-incorrect-spelling/325185/20 "2005-10-07T15:13:32Z")
> [@Monty](#):
>
> Wouldn’t the proper way to spell the bolded pronoun be _we_? 😃
Do you say “It is me” or “It is I”?
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