You probably noticed that sometimes when writing a word colour, the type checker wants to change it to color, or sometimes it is vice versa. Why does it happen, what is the difference between colour and color and their spelling?
It is quite simple and comes from Shakespeare’s times. The main difference nowadays is that colour is used in British English and color in American English.
Background
If we go a bit more into details, then the main point to consider when parsing today's words is the ending -our. It existed in Middle English (around 12th to late 15th century), where it came from the French -our (now -eur in French). In Shakespeare's works, the endings -our and -or were used equally, and only towards the end of his work did William switch to the stable -our. Later in the next century, -or came back into fashion for a while. However, with the change of the English language by the Americans “for themselves” (including shorter -or in endings). On the other hand, the British began to use -our instead of -or more actively. What we see in our example today: color - colour.
Examples:
1) I love wearing brightly coloured clothes!
2) I think the bright green color is not popular anymore in the US.
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