I had an American ask for permission to pronounce 'router' their way last week. I wonder if his last conversation with an Englishman had been with you?

No, only single fail. Parc is the French spelling of "park". It's a European company...

In that case you'd have thought they would have gone for the French spelling of 'centre' as well.

It was founded by a Dutchman. I rest my case.

Wouldn't that be 'centrum' then?

Apparently it was.

My source is Wikipedia, if anyone really cares.

Australians do the same as Americans, as I live in Oz my policy is to follow local custom.

Heather, this is the internet - you don't need to quote sources!

Do you know anything about the Kiwis?

I rather like the idea that New Zealand and Canada rebuff America in their own little way by following the Queen's English, but I'm probably dreaming

New Zealand is pretty Americanised. They shop at the "Mall" (usually a Westfield, too) and a lot of other little things are quite American - trucks is another (both because they don't even know what a lorry is, but theyre all those massive ford things with bonnets rather than the flat Scania's etc we are used to).

They pronounce route and data pretty much the same, but centre although spelled the same, they say it strange - different to us and the yanks.

Well Westfield are an Australian company who owned a lot of malls in America as well.

The Mall in London has a lot of Australian outlets/restaurants.

In Germany, most companies that use English in advertising and product names use American English. A few aim for a more up-market image and use British English. Although a recent survey showed that around 10% of the population actually understood what the English advertising slogans actually meant!