Why are some English and American words spelt differently?

Gnomon

Americans went to America before the spelling of English had been standardised. When the two countries came to standardise, they did so independently and came up with different solutions. In particular, Noah Webster who wrote one of the first American dictionaries decided to drop the u from many -our words such as honour, colour etc. Jul 31 06, 2:47 AM

zbeckabee

Also, a couple of weeks ago we had this same question. One of the answers posted eluded to the possibility that "defiance" (toward the English) played a part in the U.S. changing certain spellings. Jul 31 06, 7:53 AM

darkpresence

Also, given the dynamic nature of language (i.e., always changing) it's almost impossible to say which spelling is "correct". Someone pointed out, for instance, that "color" is actually closer to the original latin. In this vein, I plan to post some questions on obsolete words, so prepare your dictionaries! Jul 31 06, 3:18 PM