Should the US adopt British spelling?

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

And you should learn to drive on the left side of the road as well.

Uh, no. Most of the world drives on the same side as the United States. Countries like yours (Australia) are in the minority.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

There are more Americans among the native English speakers of the world than there are Britons, so if anything they should be the ones adopting our spelling.

Yeah but due to British colonization, British spelling is used more frequently around the world.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Anyway, to OP's question, NO. The United States should not adopt British spelling.

I'm biased but American spelling is generally more phonetic so I feel that it's better. Also, American spelling just removes a lot of unnecessary letters from words.

It would be funny though if we did adopt some British spelling (like Canada), it would be even one less difference between the US and Canada.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

The amusing part is that this is not the case elsewhere: e.g. the sounded vowel in 'colour' is not an 'o'. Anyway, having a spelling system that operates according to a particular set of formalized rules is one of the things that makes 'American English' a genuine distinct form of English (i.e. 'American English' is a real phenomenon, whereas there is no 'Canadian English', simply English as spoken by Canadians) and that fact in itself is now an important part of American culture.

Well, yes and no. Technically, Canadian English can be considered it's own thing and many Canadians will argue that.

However, many linguists don't think that Canadian English is distinct enough from American English, so they will be categorized together as "North American English". Much to the dismay of Canucks lol.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

A former colleague of mine in England was an avid student of the language and its dialects.  He once told me there was more English language variation in a single English county than in the entire U.S., and more variation in a single U.S. state than in all of Australia.  I don't know if that's really true or a bit of exaggeration.

That is fairly accurate.

the internet will "fix" that problem

Hopefully.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Only partially. I prefer -our and -re spellings. The latter are pretty common in the US already. Theatre and centre are very common in the US. Oxford-style spelling is probably the best overall though. Noah Webster seriously bastardized the English language. We should be fortunate that not all of his proposals were adopted.

Theatre, I will give you, but not centre (though "theater" is still the dominant spelling in America). The spelling "Centre" is extremely rare in the United States. For example, there's Centre Street here in NYC, Centre County in Pennsylvania, and Centre College in Kentucky. However, those places got their names before there was standardized spelling in the United States.

Just looking at Google Trends will show you that "Center" is clearly king over "Centre" in the United States (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=centre,center). Americans would almost never write or type "centre" unless it was a mistake or they were trying to be British, Canadian, Australian, and so on.

The "-our" word spellings are unnecessary. The extra u is not needed. Most of the "-or" word spellings are how those words were originally written in Latin. In Spanish, "color" is "color" and in Italian "color" is spelled "colore". The French added the unnecessary u (and this spread to the British through the Norman invasion, who in turn spread the "-our" when they colonized the world).

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

If you're going to bring the French into this, what about some of the pronunciations? What about "fillet"?

Um, this thread is about spelling NOT pronunciation.

Theatre is still prevalent overall. The Oscars have been presented at either the Kodak Theatre or the Dolby Theatre. We also have large theatre companies such as AMC Theatres.

I literally said that I will give you "theatre". However, "theater" is still the dominant spelling. Did you just not read my post at all?

Centre is less common than theatre, but I've seen it in many places. It's usually around plazas or shopping centres. If we pull in the Constitution, we should using -our and -ce spellings. The Constitution uses "behaviour" and "offence" and "defence".

How is any of that relevant? The Constitution was written BEFORE American English had standardized spelling.

Also, the spelling "centre" is extremely rare in the United States. The fact that you have "seen it in many places" is shocking.