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>>>In UK public holidays are called "Bank Holidays". Perhaps it was banks that standardized the holidays. Trouble is, they don't stop charging us interest on a bank holiday :-)
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>>Thank you for that statement. I buy a specific type of calendar each year which has the theme of railroads in the United States. It is printed here and has many entries “UK Bank Holiday”. Perhaps the owner of the company is from the UK? :)
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>Aye, our diaries have "Holiday USA/Canada" on certain days, e.g. Labour Day (can't bring myself round to dropping the "u"), Thanksgiving.

We Americans like to pride ourselves upon brevity. Dropping letters from words helps us to accomplish this. So words like labour and colour had to be shortened. Also, it helps the environment by requiring less ink!

Now we will not get into the word “lift” as it is the English version of the American word "elevator”. I guess we just do not always follow our own rules! :)