# why does U.S spelling omit the 'u'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007 "2013-09-30T15:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/41 "2013-09-30T21:02:48Z")
> [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > I have never heard someone here in the US refer to a three-point turn as a U-turn. I have only ever heard U-turn to mean a turn in which direction is changed to the opposite way in one movement with no stopping. A three-point turn is a three-point turn. I call it a K-turn, but yeah, if I say u-turn, I mean I turned 180 degrees in one turn and everyone I’ve ever talked driving with has meant the same. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/42 "2013-09-30T21:03:04Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > **Sentrix** , could you explain to us (the best you can, considering we’re communicating by writing) what you hear as a difference between “color” and “colour”? Most Americans pronounce both spellings identically, and rhyme them identically with “poor” “pore” and “pour.” A few of us, however, do pronounce poor/pore/pour slightly differently, and rhyme color with one of them. What do you hear? As a British person who has lived for a long time in America, I have never heard anyone in either country rhyme “color” or “colour” with “poor”, “pore”, or “pour” (and if those three ever differ at all, it is extremely subtle). Those three words distinctly pronounce the R, whereas British and most varieties of American English do not do this for the R of “colour/color”: it is more like CUL-uh. (The R may be there a bit, but normally _a lot_ fainter than in “poor”, “pore”, or “pour”.) I think i agree with your underlying point, however, that there is no particular difference (beyond general differnces of accent) between how Americans say “color” and Brits say “colour”. (And the same goes for “honour/honor”, “flavour/flavor”, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/43 "2013-09-30T21:05:49Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Actually, in my experience, when Americans talk about a U-turn, they quite often seem to mean what a British person would call a [three-point turn](http://activerain.com/blogsview/505780/a-slice-of-life). Actual U-turns, however, are probably more commonly performed in the USA, given that most US roads are much wider than most British ones. A 3-point turn is used in the states, too. It is not a U-turn. It is used when the road is too narrow to make a U-turn. If and when you take a road test for a new or expired license, you will probably have to make that maneuver. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/44 "2013-09-30T21:08:10Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Forget unnecessary U’s. This, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem with the English language. The best thing that could happen to our language would be if we could get away from the “ough” combination, replacing it with more phonetic combinations, and consign this convoluted combination to dusty old books from bygone days. > > “Tho the tuff coff and hiccup plow him thru.” I think we’re mostly there with “thru”. Don’t traffic signs use this spelling? [Does a google [search](https://www.google.com/search?q=no+through+traffic+sign&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS509US510&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=audJUuDRHYfC2wXsxICQBg&sqi=2&ved=0CGoQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=979&dpr=1) ] Well, here it seems about even, but IME they mostly use “thru”. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/45 "2013-10-01T00:51:56Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Most Americans pronounce both spellings identically, and rhyme them identically with “poor” “pore” and “pour.” A few of us, however, do pronounce poor/pore/pour slightly differently, and rhyme color with one of them. What do you hear? Where in the US you at? Americans up North pronounce “color” with a schwa (ə) and a strong “R.” It does not come close to rhyming with “poor” “pore” or “pour.” And only “pore” and “pour” rhyme. “Poor” is pronounced as it’s spelt, “POOR.” ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/46 "2013-10-01T01:09:18Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > As a British person who has lived for a long time in America, I have never heard anyone in either country rhyme “color” or “colour” with “poor”, “pore”, or “pour” (and if those three ever differ at all, it is extremely subtle). > [@dropzone](#): > > Where in the US you at? Americans up North pronounce “color” with a schwa (ə) and a strong “R.” Geez folks, I’m trying to understand what the OP hears differently in “color” and “colour” by using examples of different “O” sounds, not what WE hear differently. And for the record, I pronounce it “cuh-lore” with the second syllable rhyming with pore and pour, but not poor. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/47 "2013-10-01T01:29:54Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > And only “pore” and “pour” rhyme. “Poor” is pronounced as it’s spelt, “POOR.” I don’t understand what this means. Pore, pour, and poor are all homophones to this American English speaker. I offer [“The Pourhouse”](http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/pour_house/Location?oid=3665771) as my evidence that I’m not alone. Can you elaborate on how these are different to you? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/48 "2013-10-01T01:44:25Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I don’t understand what this means. Pore, pour, and poor are all homophones to this American English speaker. > > I offer [“The Pourhouse”](http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/pour_house/Location?oid=3665771) as my evidence that I’m not alone. > > Can you elaborate on how these are different to you? They’re different to me as well. Pore and pour rhyme with ‘or’; poor rhymes with ‘boor’ and ‘lure’. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/49 "2013-10-01T01:58:30Z")
That’s odd. I’m a 'murrican, and for me, “Pore” rhymes with “snore”, but “pour” rhymes with “Tony MacLure”. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/50 "2013-10-01T02:00:24Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > They’re different to me as well. Pore and pour rhyme with ‘or’; poor rhymes with ‘boor’ and ‘lure’. That’s approximately how I say it, as well. Poor sounds sort of like “foot.” As for “pore” vs. “pour” some people swear they’re pronounced differently, with the latter coming out as a drawn out “or” sort of like “po-oar.” OTOH, in some places everything comes out as “po” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/51 "2013-10-01T02:17:50Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Geez folks, I’m trying to understand what the OP hears differently in “color” and “colour” by using examples of different “O” sounds, not what WE hear differently. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I don’t understand what this means. Pore, pour, and poor are all homophones to this American English speaker. > > I offer [“The Pourhouse”](http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/pour_house/Location?oid=3665771) as my evidence that I’m not alone. > > Can you elaborate on how these are different to you? That’s why I asked where **kunilou** lives and is from (where he or she learned English) in the US. I was born in Minnesota and mostly lived in Northeast Illinois. I generally speak with a Northwest Suburban Chicago accent, mostly Generic Flat Midwestern, AKA [General American](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American), with a more-sibilant closing S. Not the extreme “da Bearss” sibilance of Chicago itself, though. Poor is pronounced with an “oo” sound, like “poop” and “droop” (IPA: /pʊɹ/) Pore and Pour are both pronounced with a long O sound, like “core” and “lore” (IPA: /poɹ/) I lived long enough in Virginia that “car” and “core” (and “pen” and “pin”) are sometimes homophones, but thanks to a thread in GD I’m a Yankee firebrand tonight. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/52 "2013-10-01T02:26:57Z")
> [@sentrix](#): > > phonetically though, the ‘u’ is necessary but if it is not translated into the spelling mode this confuses kids later on. This might be important if English was a phonetic language. Of course if it were, that word would start with an f not ph… ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/53 "2013-10-01T02:40:31Z")
Pore, poor, and pour are all the same, and color don’t rhyme with none of them. (It does rhyme with per, sir, cur, and fur, however. ) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/54 "2013-10-01T04:10:40Z")
> [@Rucksinator](#): > > What were some of his other changes that didn’t catch on? Were they in his original dictionary? If so, did he (or someone later) change them to what everybody was using? Here’s [H.L. Mencken on Webster.](http://www.bartleby.com/185/32.html) > [@](#): > > A great many of his innovations, of course, failed to take root, and in the course of time he abandoned some of them himself. In his early “Essay on the Necessity, Advantage and Practicability of Reforming the Mode of Spelling” he advocated reforms which were already discarded by the time he published the first edition of his dictionary. Among them were the dropping of the silent letter in such words as head, give, built and realm, making them hed, giv, bilt, and relm; the substitution of doubled vowels for decayed diphthongs in such words as mean, zeal and near, making them meen, zeel and neer; and the substitution of sh for ch in such French loan-words as machine and chevalier, making them masheen and shevaleer. He also declared for stile in place of style, and for many other such changes, and then quietly abandoned them. The successive editions of his dictionary show still further concessions. Croud, fether, groop, gillotin, iland, instead, leperd, soe, sut, steddy, thret, thred, thum and wimmen appear only in the 1806 edition. In 1828 he went back to crowd, feather, group, island, instead, leopard, sew, soot, steady, thread, threat, thumb and women, and changed gillotin to guillotin. In addition, he restored the final e in determine, discipline, requisite, imagine, etc. … There’s much more on the various changes, when they originated, and their fate in the article. American spellings would be far more different from British ones if all of Webster’s reforms had taken hold. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/55 "2013-10-01T06:48:01Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Poor is pronounced with an “oo” sound, like “poop” and “droop” (IPA: /pʊɹ/) > Pore and Pour are both pronounced with a long O sound, like “core” and “lore” (IPA: /poɹ/) Same here, but we’re from the same accent region. I vacillate on the pronunciation of “poor.” Sometimes, it rhymes with “lore.” Sometimes with “lure.” In fact, [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poor?s=t) lists only one pronunciation, and it’s not the one that is homophonous with “pour.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/56 "2013-10-01T07:46:54Z")
Any language big enough to encompass multiple dialects and accents is going to have problems being represented in standard written phonetic form. Standard spelling was a great solution to the idiosyncratic writing of individuals - it meant that if you could read _something_, you could probably read _anything_, but as soon as - No - _before_ a standard spelling for any word is defined, it’s already wrong for some people. Take the spelling of the number 8, for example. To many people, it would seem obvious that this should not be spelt ‘eight’, but should be ‘ate’ or ‘ayt’. Except that there are English-speaker for whom those two spellings don’t make sense either - in some Scots dialects, it sounds like (how I would write) ‘aycht’ (or maybe ‘eh-cht’). In northeast England, it sounds like (how I would write) ‘eeyit’. Even as I write these renderings, I know they are going to make less sense to anyone outside of my own dialect. Standard spelling is impossible, but it’s the least worst solution we have come up with so far, for the English language. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/57 "2013-10-01T08:20:32Z")
> [@sentrix](#): > > language is ever evolving. Proper capitalization is still looked upon favorably though. ---
**Author:** ![sentrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac8455/32.png) [@sentrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sentrix)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/58 "2013-10-01T11:12:03Z")
i’ll capitalize if you start using a ‘u’. as a favour of course. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/59 "2013-10-01T11:47:52Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Poor is pronounced with an “oo” sound, like “poop” and “droop” (IPA: /pʊɹ/) > Pore and Pour are both pronounced with a long O sound, like “core” and “lore” (IPA: /poɹ/) Maybe not the best examples, as poop, droop, and food are typically /Cu:C/ for USers. “Foot” is a good example of /CʊC/. “Long O”, of course, means nothing, but you might be after /Coəɹ/, /Cɔːɹ/, or /Coʊɹ/, depending on locale. Dipthongs are really hard without a personal vowel map and a spectrogram of each example. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007/60 "2013-10-01T12:13:04Z")
> [@sentrix](#): > > i’ll capitalize if you start using a ‘u’. as a favour of course. But will you, really? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-u-s-spelling-omit-the-u/670007.md?page=4)