European CentER for Constitutional and Human Rights?!

servan   Thu Nov 01, 2007 2:57 pm GMT
Then it means that I must say "defence" instead of "defense" ?!

I don't know if "organisation" is a European spelling. I'll always write "organization" and I don't care if the European institutions use British spelling or not. I won't accept impositions on anyone else
Lo   Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:46 pm GMT
I beg you guys's pardon but spelling it "centre" just makes no sense whatsoever. No offense to the British and British lovers and the French and all the others that spell it like that but we (and the British, and British lovers.) pronounce it [sEnt@`]. Should it be pronounced [sEntr\`@] we would all happily spell it "centre," but it's not the case.
Provided that we say [sEnt@`] we should spell it "center." Even for the British that say [sEnt@]. The R in the middle still doesn't make sense.

I don't know who said Websters wanted to break with the Europeans but that just doesn't make any sense, Websters used his reasoning. There's no point in spelling something one way and pronouncing it another, and if it can be fixed, it should.
Thomas   Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:44 pm GMT
Hey people, don't get into a fight over British/American spellings again...

The question was whether it makes sense to use CENTER for the name of this European institute. And I must agree that it's not a very good idea, for the various reasons stated above.
EU   Sat Nov 03, 2007 12:03 am GMT
<<The question was whether it makes sense to use CENTER for the name of this European institute>>

Indeed it doesn't (centre it should be).

<<Hey people, don't get into a fight over British/American spellings again>>

Main problem seems to be that all too many minors (no offence) tends to get caught up with misplaced patriotic rants, and thus quickly forgetting the question which initially was presented.
John   Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:43 am GMT
"Center" is the way Germans would spell this word naively, Other words such as "Theater" "Liter" "Meter" also follow this convention in German. Perhaps whoever wrote that initially a) Was German b) Had spent time in the US c) May not be aware of the difference.

As an Irish born American, I can't help wonder why they British would want to spell things in such a Frenchy way anyway? Isn't English a Germanic language anyway? If I were a Brit I would use the American spelling as much as possible in an attempt to defrenchify the language in much the same way the French do with English in their language. I think the Americans have the "correct" spelling anyway.
Rick Johnson   Sat Nov 03, 2007 9:03 am GMT
Oh God not this discussion again!

The spellings "theater", "center", "plow", "rumor" "honor", "harbor" all appear in 17th Century British dictionaries- Webster didn't change the spelling he just picked one of two commonly used spellings at the time which had strong precedent in published literature.

"Organisation" is the spelling commonly used by the UK government and by newspapers. "Organization" is the preferred dictionary spelling used in the UK, the preferred spelling of most British book publishers and the only spelling considered correct in the US.
Guest   Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:37 pm GMT
<<Main problem seems to be that all too many minors (no offence) tends to get caught up with misplaced patriotic rants, and thus quickly forgetting the question which initially was presented.>>

It's clearly not just minors.