[OSM-talk] American or british english

[David Earl]

> or do the renderers check for alternative spellings?

The namefinder can check for alternatives like this so if you enter "The 
Arndale Center" in principle it can find "The Arndale Centre". I will 
add centre<->center as equivalents shortly. If there are any more that 
appear in real names that you think are important, there's a wiki page 
to note them on (perhaps create a US English section)

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Name_finder:Abbreviations

An abbreviation isn't much different from an equivalence, though it's 
not designed for complete translations (I wouldn't want to put Strasse = 
Street for example, but where someone might type one for another because 
of a subtle difference like Center and Centre, I think it is reasonable).

Just put "Center" in the abbreviation column for full word "Centre" for 
example.

David