There comes a point—usually after living in more than one country—when you open a document, type humour, stare at it, delete it, type humor, and immediately lose all confidence in yourself.
This is how it starts.
The British went with humour (adds sophistication, costs one extra vowel).
Then Noah Webster showed up, removed the “u,” and called it progress.
Now the rules are simple:
UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia → humour
United States → humor
Everyone else → quietly edits based on who’s reading
If you’ve lived in multiple places, your brain now contains both spellings, neither feels correct, and spellcheck has become an adversary.
You will:
Write humour, then feel pretentious
Write humor, then feel like you’ve betrayed something
Rephrase the sentence entirely to avoid the issue
There isn’t one.
You simply pick a version, commit to it, and hope no one notices when you switch halfway through the document. Which, statistically, you will.