Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English (e.g. colour, flavour, harbour, honour, humour, labour, neighbour, rumour) end in -or in American English (cf. color, flavor, harbor, honor, humor, labor, neighbor, rumor). Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, this does not occur: e.g. contour, velour, paramour and troubadour are spelled thus the same everywhere.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
1 comments:
British English spelling seems to prevail in most British Commonwealth countries whereas American English spelling is found in the US. Since Canada is adjacent to the US I imagine they have adopted the US spelling too but I could be wrong.
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