There is the vexed form _er_ for _re_ in such words as _center_ for _centre_. It is fair on this point to give the note which Webster originally made in defense of his position: "A similar fate has attended the attempt to Anglicize the orthography of another class of words, which we have received from the French. At a very early period the words _chambre_, _desastre_, _desordre_, _chartre_, _monstre_, _tendre_, _tigre_, _entre_, _fievre_, _diametre_, _arbitre_, _nombre_, and others were reduced to the English form of spelling: _chamber_, _disaster_, _charter_, _monster_, _tender_, _tiger_, _enter_, _fever_, _diameter_, _arbiter_, _number_. At a later period, Sir Isaac Newton, Camden, Selden, Milton, Whitaker, Prideaux, Hook, Whiston, Bryant, and other authors of the first character attempted to carry through this reformation, writing _scepter_, _center_, _sepulcher_. But this improvement was arrested, and a few words of this class retain their French orthography: such as _metre_, _mitre_, _nitre_, _spectre_, _sceptre_, _theatre_, _sepulchre_, and sometimes _centre_. It is remarkable that a nation distinguished for erudition should thus reject improvements, and retain anomalies, in opposition to all the convenience of uniformity. I am glad that so respectable a writer as Mitford has discarded this innovation, and uniformly written _center_, _scepter_, _theater_, _sepulcher_. In the present instance want of uniformity is not the only evil. The present orthography has introduced an awkward mode of writing the derivatives, for example, _centred_, _sceptred_, _sepulchred_; whereas Milton and Pope wrote these words as regular derivatives of _center_, _scepter_, _sepulcher_, thus, '_Sceptered_ king.' So Coxe in his travels, 'The principal wealth of the church is _centered_ in the monasteries.' This is correct." The two Websters agree in the main, but some of the variations in the first disappear in the latest. Thus Noah Webster gave the alternative forms _massacer_, _massacre_, preferring the former, and _aker_, _acre_, a curious inconsistency; the editors of the latest edition have dropped these proposed improvements, and have given secondary alternative forms in _theatre_, _metre_, _centre_, _sepulchre_, _nitre_, and perhaps some others. Both accept _chancre_, _lucre_, and _ogre_. It may be said in general that the game on these words is a drawn one, with a stubborn retention of the _re_ form on the part of the most careful writers, and a growing majority in numbers in favor of the _er_ form.