Someone asked me what is the difference between "call center" and "call centre"? Well, there is actually none, ask Microsoft Word, its spell check is okay with both the terms. Basically, it’s the difference between American and British spelling styles.
According to British usage, some words of French (they love to hate them but
can’t help these words), Latin or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by –re. Pronunciation wise the –re sound is subtle and/or unstressed. Most of these words like ‘call center’ in US end with –er. Not sure about other words, but with ‘call center’ they don’t give stress to the consonant, the ‘t’ letter kind of goes mute. Quite opposite to the British Style.
Read about American and British English spelling differences in Wikipedia
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I am tottaly agree with your statement about deffernace between call center & call centre it's American and British English spelling differences. In British usage, some words of French, Latin, or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced. Most of these words have the ending -er in the US. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings theatre, goitre, litre, lustre, mitre, nitre, reconnoitre, saltpetre, spectre, centre, titre; calibre, fibre, sabre, and sombre all have -er in American spelling.
Posted by: Anju | June 23, 2008 3:12 AM | Permalink to Comment