Center or Centre?

Michael asks:
What is the difference between the words centre and center?

This is one of the reasons why Oscar Wilde described America and Britain as "two great nations divided by the same language."

The words are identical in meaning, but "center" is an American spelling. I believe it's a result of Noah Webster's efforts to rationalize American English spelling in the early 19th century: he also dropped the "u" in "harbour" and "colour" and tried to establish "thru" for "through," and "nite" for "night."

British English borrowed a lot of words from French, including the spellings. Usages like "centre" and "theatre" persist not only in the United Kingdom but also in Canada and other parts of the former Empire. It's become a way of distinguishing one's identity.

In fact, Canadian newspapers and magazines used to use American spellings if they made the word shorter (like "harbor" and "labor"), but they went back to mostly British spellings in the 1980s because their readers preferred it. (We always spell words like "curb" and "tire" the American way—not "kerb" and "tyre.")

However, my Funk & Wagnalls Canadian College Dictionary gives "center" as the preferred spelling, with "centre" as "Brit." for "center." When spelling it in the British style, we are to also to write "centred" and "centring." So Canadians would have to be self-consciously British to spell it "centre."

While English spelling is chaotic and inconsistent, we would be worse off with phonetic spelling. English dialects have so many differences in accent and pronunciation that we would have big trouble understanding people writing phonetically in their own dialect. "Emma Chizzit" is supposedly Australian for "How much is it?" And I'll always remember the time a New Zealand friend baffled me with a comment about "Eric's lend load." Turned out he meant "our ex-landlord."

Comments

[nw10jb]

I am dyslectic. I write things omitting words which can change their intended meaning and do not notice these omissions when proof reading what I have written before I publish these posts.

In my last post I should have said that no UK dictionary has "by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen" printed in them, other than the Oxford dictionary.

[nw10jb]

Generally speaking "er" is used in a verb (an action), while "re" is used in a nown (a tangible object).

For example: you may have heard military people refer to the actions carried out on a battlefield as the theater of war. We don't expect this to mean that a battle was fought in a building.

In this context: theater refers to all the individual sctions as a whole, that occurred during that battle and not just one single action.

On the other hand, you might watch a battle in a Theatre. This would mean that you would be watching a re-enactment of a battle.

[nw10jb]

my last paragraph should read: on the other hand, you might watch a battle in a Theatre. This would mean that you would be watching a re-enactment of a battle by actors on a stage located inside a building constructed solely for the purpose of entertaining people.

[nw10jb]

Regarding English spelling. You may or may not be aware that English is a comparatively new written language. In Shakespeare's day English, in written form, did not exist. This is demonstrated in all of his plays and other written material. Shakespeare wrote words how he assumed they should have been spelt if a dictionary had been created for the English written word, which one had not.

In fact, in many of his essays Shakespeare constantly spelt words completely differently to the way he had spelt them before. I suppose if he had been less of a genius and had produced fewer prose, he might have been able to remember the way he had spelt dozens of these words before and aimed for a little more uniformity, which evidently, he was in reality able to do.

[nw10jb]

my last post omitted the word NOT, in it's last sentence. This should have read: ...dozens of these words before and aimed for a little more uniformity, which evidently, he was in reality NOT able to to.

[Jean-Richard Pelland]

I must say that I am surprised to see making a distinction between centre and center where non exists. Centre is standard English, whereas center is American English. This modified spelling was one of Webster's many proposed changes to the English language. Fortunately, only a few were accepted by the American public. Similarly, there is no distinction between theatre and theater; that is just contrived nonsense.

[ndlz84]

@Vasco Almeida: ^"Emma Chizzit" Scottish?? Have any of these people heard a Scottish person talking? "Haewmarch izzeh" is more Scottish.
"Eric's lend load", a lot of English regions sound like this as well.
Why do Americans feel the need to mess with the English language? Why drop our beloved 'u's? Without them, the words are spelt incorrectly. This author seems biased towards America too. I'm Welsh, but I respect the Queens English.

[ndlz84]

@nw10jb ;; Why don't you try writing a reply in a small word processor before posting it? I'm just thinking, you must waste quite some time correcting your own posts. You should change the background and text colour((that's right!)) and maybe increase text size of said word processor to help you recognize mistakes. My girlfriend suffers from dyslexia.

[Rujiroj]

1000% incorrect. In Canada it is spelled "centre". I would never believe this source for two reasons: 1. Funk and Wagnalls is an American publisher, and 2. In Canada, we don't use "college" like they do, we use "university". So a "Canadian College Dictionary" already raises all kinds of red flags.