American English. Stop adding u's to words where they don't belong.
Yea, lol, except that all the words with the "extra" u's were there first and the "lazy" Americans just scratched them away, possibly also in a deliberate attempt to distance and differentiate themselves from their former colonial masters after the war of independence.
I've been raised on the British English (which was a standard in Germany back when I went to school, I don't know if this is still the case) but in everyday writing and use I've noticed that I often mix the two variants up although I'm aware someone should probably not do that.
Besides the extra-u issue in some words there are also some distinct different words though as i.e. a strict user of British English would
never call his/her abode an
apartment, it is a
flat.
The automated cabin with which you can move between different heights in a house is not an
elevator, it is a
lift.
The glass in front of a car through which one looks while driving is not a
windshield, it is a
windscreen.
There are many more of such examples and at least I personally tend to use some of these interchangeably without even consciously noticing it.
So I haven't really a preference when it comes to written correspondence, although in actual spoken interaction I tend to believe that the American pronunciation is simply more widespread and better known worldwide nowadays.
I remember one of my English Teachers used to say (in an ironic tone of course) that
British English tends to be spoken by people with a higher education, nobility, intellectuals and snobs while
American English is more for the mob, common people, thugs and crooked or immoral business sharks.
Of course these are totally cliché in every way...maybe these "observations" are leftovers from old times where the British, especially the British nobility, were still freshly sour about Washington successfully liberating the colonies?