Adding the suffix (that's a specific combination of letters which are placed at the end of a noun in order to change its meaning) -ur onto the end of a word allows you to create a title for a person and their job, as if they were an agent of their trade. An example of this would be to add the suffix -ur onto the word "restaurant" to create the title "restaurateur", applied to a person who owns or manages a restaurant. There are a number of other suffixes which convey a similar meaning to the suffix -ur, these include -ar, -er, ier- and -or. These tend to be more common than the -ur suffix, as seen in words such as tutor, photographer, ambassador and other such words. On the other hand, using ur- as a prefix indicates a relationship to urine, such as urinary tract, urethra and so on.
You may also see -ur on the end of a word where the American English and (the so-called) British English spellings of the same word differ. American English versions of words such as labor, harbor, honor and so on are spelled, in British English, as labor, harbor, honor and so on. There are a number of theories about why the two spellings are different, but many linguists agree that neither spelling is "right" or "wrong", they are simply different versions of the same word.
You may hear a word which sounds like it ends with the letters -ur, but is actually spelled with the letters -ur at all. Words which end in -on, for example, are commonly pronounced -un, such as London, button and person. Words which end in -an can also be pronounced as though they end with -un, such as human, urban and American. Other word endings which are commonly pronounced as -un include -in, -ion and -ian.
You may also see -ur on the end of a word where the American English and (the so-called) British English spellings of the same word differ. American English versions of words such as labor, harbor, honor and so on are spelled, in British English, as labor, harbor, honor and so on. There are a number of theories about why the two spellings are different, but many linguists agree that neither spelling is "right" or "wrong", they are simply different versions of the same word.
You may hear a word which sounds like it ends with the letters -ur, but is actually spelled with the letters -ur at all. Words which end in -on, for example, are commonly pronounced -un, such as London, button and person. Words which end in -an can also be pronounced as though they end with -un, such as human, urban and American. Other word endings which are commonly pronounced as -un include -in, -ion and -ian.
