I’ve been reading some Canadian newspapers and they all refer to the place that the Japanese attacked on Dec 7, 1941 as “Pearl Harbour”.
I understand fully the different spelling, but shouldn’t this be an exception. Namely, because Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is a definite place with a specific name. And it’s not in a different language. It’s just an alternate spelling for many of the English speaking world.
This may be an IMHO as I don’t know if there is an answer to this.
The same place can have different names in different languages.
Germans call their country Deutschland.
The French call it Allemande.
We call it Germany.
It’s not inconsistant for Canadians to apply their own spelling conventions to a specific place name.
Sorry.
The French call it Allemagne.
Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about.
My point though, is that, unlike the examples with Germany, it’s still the same language.
The 2001 film was released in Canada and the UK as “Pearl Harbor.”
Could be something as simple as the autocorrect spelling function in Word changing it to Harbour. Or it could just be that is what the journos are used to so that’s what they type in.
I’m basically with you, Bob, but I can see how there’s really no elegant solution to the problem.
If they were to keep the American spelling of the proper noun, they’d then be forced to write stuff like, “When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they nearly succeeded in sinking the battleship Nevada in the mouth of the harbour,” or something hopefully less contrived. Now, personally, I think that’s preferable to altering the spelling, but it may grate on some others.
As you point out, all bets are off when it’s a different language. Yo soy de Nueva York is among the sentences I recall from Spanish lessons. 
If I may be permitted to inject something that’s sort of related, as an example: There is not universal agreement about whether a period should be placed after the “S” in “Harry S. Truman” since the letter is not actually short for anything.
The Harry S. Truman library acknowledges this, but points out that their name is “Harry S. Truman Library” (with period), and that you can’t change that if your preference is otherwise:
I’d think this general philosophy regarding proper names would apply here, too. The name of the place is Pearl Harbor, but whether it’s a harbor or a harbour depends on your country of origin.
The promotional title used in the UK was “Pearl Harbour”.
I don’t have any problem with a sentence like “The harbour in question is Pearl Harbor”, or “the Union Pacific Railroad is a famous railway”. Why not?
I read Canadian newspapers every day, and to be honest I hadn’t noticed that. The correct spelling is “Pearl Harbor” and I think they usually get it right.
The movie was called “Pearl Harbor” in Canada, which I was glad to see, almost as happy as I was that they correctly spelled “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
Survey Results
I did some searches of Web sites for Canadian newspapers.
TORONTO STAR:
Pearl Harbour: No hits
Pearl Harbor: Six hits, only one related to the movie
GLOBE AND MAIL:
No hits either way
NATIONAL POST:
With a U: Can’t find any
Without a U: 3 hits, none related to the film
MONTREAL GAZETTE:
Nada
CALGARY HERALD:
Can’t find the search function
So a brief and unscientific survey reveals no uses of “Pearl Harbour.”
Then I guess my battle has been won.
To be honest, I was reading Canadian sports websites.