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San Diego Zoo Creates Biomimicry Incubator
waderoush writes "The San Diego Zoo has built a world famous reputation as a tourist destination, for helping to rescue the California Condor, and maybe (if you're old enough) for Joan Embery's appearances with Johnny Carson. Now the zoo is using its expertise to drive innovation by establishing a new 'Centre for Bioinspiration.' While the Anglicized spelling of 'center' might seem pretentious, the zoo has a down-to-earth goal of innovating through the emerging field of biomimicry, which is exemplified by Qualcomm's Mirasol display technology (the displays generate colors using the same type of interference between light waves that causes iridescence in butterfly wings). The center includes an incubator for developing new bio-inspired products and technologies, where ideas would be advanced to a proof of concept or working model, and then licensed. The incubator also intends to help develop bio-inspired ideas from outside the zoo."
Nothing to discuss. Centre = correct. Center = correct. English English, English being more correct :)
It's a bit idiotic to spell it as "centre", yes. That's not how it's spelled in the States. Do we consider it pretentious...? ... absolutely, yes. While you can get away with theatre for theater when your subject is legit theater, you'd get mocked as pretentious if your "theatre" was in reference to a street puppet show.
But.. Centre? That's nothing but elitists trying to distance themselves from the low-brow American and aping the erudite and superior European -- neither stereotype, of course, is accurate. It is what it is, though, and pretentious Americans tend to latch on to European spellings, habits, etc etc etc, in an effort to appear more fancy and sophisticated.
It's shallow, trite, and pointless -- and those who made the choice did so intentionally to affect an air of elegance and nobility. That's pretentious, yes.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
And those 'others' include all the Commonwealth countries, and former French colonies. Really, only the Americans spell it 'Center'- so they're the pretentious ones, going around making up their own 'special' version of English. Pretentious gits.