The most obvious difference in American and British theat{er/re} is the spelling, but on top of that there are a number of meaning differences. And then the meanings interfere with the spellings again. Much fun, but this is why I can't write short blog posts. Here we go...
The fashion (for these things are fashion) of using the French spelling has won out in Britain for this and many other words of its ilk: centre, calibre, litre, lustre, sombre, etc. But the fashion is not consistent. Cloister, coriander, and disaster (among others) have -re spellings in French from -rum spellings in Latin, but -er spellings in all standard contemporary Englishes. And then there's metre and kilometre but perimeter and thermometer, etc. Note, though, that despite their common Latin/Greek etymology (metrum), they have different vowels in the me syllable in BrE. American pronunciation of kilometer as 'kill LAH mitter' drives some Brits I know batty, as it obscures the relation between the met{er/re} and the kilomet{er/re}. They prefer 'KILL-o-meetah'. (I just tried to get Better Half to say it. He said 'kill LAH mitter' and explained 'I'm disarmingly transatlantic'.)
This particular difference has a lot in common with the -or/-our difference: variant spelling in early modern English, then American English settling on the more phonetic spelling, and British English settling on the more French spelling. I've more to say about that, but that's going in the book.
(By the way, I'm trying to get into the habit of listing BrE/AmE variants alphabetically. I may not always succeed, but it's why the ones in this post are listed in those particular orders. I'm also trying to alternate which goes first in British/American, US/UK, BrE/AmE, etc. )
There are of course other uses of theat{er/re} that extend from the 'drama place' use--e.g. political theat{er/re}. They are generally the same in both countries, but for spelling.
While theater is the general American spelling, one does see theatre in the US in place or organi{s/z}ation names, like the Signature Theatre Company in Arlington, Virginia. The same happens with centre in American place names (but never for the 'middle' meaning of center), such as Robinson Town Centre, a (AmE) outdoor mall, or power center/(BrE) retail park in Pittsburgh. The namers of these places are taking advantage of the fact that you can spell names however you like, and using the British spelling to make the place sound ‘classy'. Needless to say, we don’t see the reverse in the UK.
the spelling
Theater is one of those American spellings that is attributed to Noah Webster.* But like most of successful American spelling reforms, it wasn't made up by an American. It was a long-standing spelling in England, and the predominant spelling at the time when the English colonies in America were first being settled. The OED says:The word started as theatrum in Latin, and in French it lost its -um. The French pronunciation makes sense with the -re spelling, but the modern English pronunciation does not. However we pronounce that syllable, in whichever English accents we have, it is the same syllable that is spel{led/t} -er in words like butter or later. It's thus no wonder that English writers preferred the -er for some time (and Americans have preferred it for most times), since it is the more Englishy spelling, if by 'Englishy spelling' we mean (as I do) 'spelling that reflects English pronunciation'.
The earliest recorded English forms, c1380, are theatre and teatre; from c1550 to 1700, or later, the prevalent spelling was theater (so in Dictionaries from Cawdrey to Kersey), but theatre in Holland, Milton, Fuller, Dryden, Addison, Pope; Bailey 1721 has both, ‘Theatre, Theater’: and between 1720 and 1750, theater was dropped in Britain, but has been retained or (?) revived in U.S.
The fashion (for these things are fashion) of using the French spelling has won out in Britain for this and many other words of its ilk: centre, calibre, litre, lustre, sombre, etc. But the fashion is not consistent. Cloister, coriander, and disaster (among others) have -re spellings in French from -rum spellings in Latin, but -er spellings in all standard contemporary Englishes. And then there's metre and kilometre but perimeter and thermometer, etc. Note, though, that despite their common Latin/Greek etymology (metrum), they have different vowels in the me syllable in BrE. American pronunciation of kilometer as 'kill LAH mitter' drives some Brits I know batty, as it obscures the relation between the met{er/re} and the kilomet{er/re}. They prefer 'KILL-o-meetah'. (I just tried to get Better Half to say it. He said 'kill LAH mitter' and explained 'I'm disarmingly transatlantic'.)
This particular difference has a lot in common with the -or/-our difference: variant spelling in early modern English, then American English settling on the more phonetic spelling, and British English settling on the more French spelling. I've more to say about that, but that's going in the book.
(By the way, I'm trying to get into the habit of listing BrE/AmE variants alphabetically. I may not always succeed, but it's why the ones in this post are listed in those particular orders. I'm also trying to alternate which goes first in British/American, US/UK, BrE/AmE, etc. )
the meanings
Let's be quick and put them in a table.
| place where you... | What Americans usually say | What the British usually say |
| watch a play | theater* | theatre |
| watch a film/movie | (movie) theater* | cinema |
hear a (university) lecture |
lecture hall, auditorium | lecture theatre |
| have surgery | operating room; OR | (operating) theatre |
There are of course other uses of theat{er/re} that extend from the 'drama place' use--e.g. political theat{er/re}. They are generally the same in both countries, but for spelling.
spelling again!
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| Photo by Kevin Dooley (Flickr) |
I particularly like the Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, DC, which just mixes it all up. And movie theatres like the one above are to be congratulated for combining a British spelling and an American meaning. Crazy fun.
* This post originally said theater was in Webster's 1828 dictionary, but, as David Crosbie points out in the comments, it was not, though center and caliber and maneuver (vs. BrE manoeuvre) are there. (Sorry--I'd depended on and possibly overinterpreted someone else's work. You can consult the 1828 dictionary here.) The word does not occur at all in Webster's 'Blue-backed speller'.
* This post originally said theater was in Webster's 1828 dictionary, but, as David Crosbie points out in the comments, it was not, though center and caliber and maneuver (vs. BrE manoeuvre) are there. (Sorry--I'd depended on and possibly overinterpreted someone else's work. You can consult the 1828 dictionary here.) The word does not occur at all in Webster's 'Blue-backed speller'.
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