Although the English kept the u in many words like humour, honour, and colour, they gave it up in several, such as terrour, horrour, and governour, helped at least in part by the influence of American books and journals. Confusingly, they retained it in some forms but abandoned it in others, so that in England you write honour and honourable but honorary and honorarium; colour and colouring but coloration; humour but humorist; labour and labourer but laborious. There is no logic to it, and no telling why some words gave up the u and others didn’t. For a time it was fashionable to drop the u
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Well... I... I'll just stick with colour and humour and honour. Thank you very much.
