I looked this up and found that the word comes from French and is spelled with the “que” in English to differentiate from the verb “check”. Makes sense. Why does the U.S. not use this different spelling, and when did people in the U.S. decide to make this change?
Because spelling in both Britain and America wasn’t standardized until the late 18th century, at which time there was a minor political disagreement you may have heard of that prevented those nations’ respective dictionarians from comparing notes.
Also, the trend in the U.S. was to “simplify” spelling and remove “extraneous” letters. Hence “Color” instead of “Colour”, “Theater” instead of “Theatre”, “Plow” instead of “Plough” and so on.
Actually, Noah Webster wrote the American English dictionary around the time of American Revolution. He hated the British and decided for us (the new Americans) to have our own English and drop the “u” out of those nouns that today have the extra “u” in British English. The only word in which this did not catch on was “tongue”. He tried to drop the “u” from this word, too, but it dd not take. Perhaps, it looked too awkward? I don’t have a cite, but I wager some Googling on “Noah Webster” would support this.
Always wondered this. Obviously the US simplifies a lot of UK spellings like this but it seems a bit odd to do it with the technical term for quite an important legal instrument…
Wasn’t “bank” once spelled “banque”?
Sheesh! IMHO “tongue” is the one word amongst these that really needs its spelling simplifying. I have no problem with color/colour, honor/honour etc., in either British or American forms, or check/cheque, but “tongue” regularly confuses me (on the rather rare occasions I need to write it. Here I used cut-and-paste!)
Yeah, this is basically the answer. There was a huge move toward simplified spelling in this country. Noah Webster’s highly influential dictionary had a lot to do with this, but IIRC it continued long afterward - I believe Andrew Carnegie tried to put together a simplified spelling board or something to that effect. Not all of the simplifications caught on (I specifically remember that they tried to change “through” to “thru”) but many did.
I don’t see how it’s odd. It’s a word like any other. And, as others have noted, standardized spelling in English became common some time after the American Revolution. Before that, people spelled everything – including words for “important legal instruments” – however they wanted.
Just an aside, how is ‘theater’ simplified compared to ‘theatre’?
“Theatre” looks like it should be pronounced “Theatruh.” When you’re pronouncing the word “theater”, there’s a vowel sound between the “t” and the “r”. There’s not one at the end. The only reason e-at-the-end looks right is because you’re used to it.
It’s more logical orthographically speaking. In “-er,” the letters representing the sounds come in the same order as the sounds are spoken. In “-re,” they’re reversed. (In a rhotic accent, anyway.)
Ok- it was grouped in an earlier post with words simplified by removing extraneous letters (lettre? :)) so I thought there was more to it.
Merci!
Would someone please czech the references in this thread?
Webster may have started it, but it was Teddy Roosevelt actually did more to achieve it, by requiring the GPO to use simplified spellings. He was using recommendations from the Simplified Spelling Board, which included Mark Twain, Melvil Dewey (of the Decimal System), publisher Henry Holt, and others, and financed by Andrew Carnegie.
Roosevelt’s attempt was overruled by Congress, but it brought the reforms into the spotlight, and many of them were eventually adopted.
And for this example, I see “theatre” more and more in American usage, in both proper names and as a common noun, so I don’t think it really took.
I don't understand why we don't spell "Marquee" Marky.Or champagne,shampain.Everything would be so much easier if we spelled words fonehticklee.I don’t know, I thinque the British style has soume charm to it. 
We could have gone whole hog, and listened to Ben Franklin:
“Theater” is the standard spelling in all style guides. The use of spellings like “theatre” and “centre” by commercial entities is no different than the use of “thru” in road signs or other intentional commercial misspellings like “Mop ‘n’ Glo” or “Rite-Aid.”